Meaning & Analysis
Engage with, interfere with, or challenge someone who is your equal in terms of strength, status, or ability. It serves as a warning against either confronting someone far superior or bullying someone much weaker.
Insights
Knowing Your Place
The proverb functions as a caution to understand and respect social and personal boundaries. It advises individuals to operate within their own sphere of competence and influence, discouraging overreach or inappropriate interference.
Call for Self-Awareness
It underscores the importance of accurate self-assessment. To 'meddle with your match' requires one to first recognize their own capabilities and limitations before engaging in any form of conflict or competition.
Appropriate Engagement
Beyond conflict, the proverb advises focusing one's efforts on relevant challenges. It suggests that energy is best spent on confronting issues or opponents of a comparable scale, rather than wasting it on unwinnable battles or trivial matters.
Social Hierarchy and Order
This proverb is deeply embedded in the social structures of historical hierarchies. The 1721 quotation from Kelly, which notes its use by the old against the young or the weak against the strong, reveals its function as a verbal defense mechanism to enforce social boundaries and discourage bullying or insubordination.
Psychological Corrective
The proverb touches on the psychological concepts of hubris and cowardice. By advising one to engage with an equal, it implicitly critiques both the arrogance of challenging a far superior force (as J. Hall's 1622 quotation 'strive with our Maker' illustrates) and the dishonor of preying on the vulnerable.
Principle of Fair Play
The saying resonates with the long-standing cultural ideal of a 'fair fight' or honorable competition. True strength and merit are proven against an equal opponent, not in an unbalanced contest. It champions the principle of equitable engagement.
Rhetorical Devices
Imperative Mood
The proverb is structured as a command, giving it a direct, forceful, and memorable quality as a piece of advice or a warning.
Alliteration
The repetition of the 'm' sound in 'Meddle' and 'match' creates a rhythmic, catchy quality that enhances its memorability and impact.
Connotation and Brevity
The word 'meddle' carries a negative connotation of unwanted interference, which adds a layer of admonishment to the phrase, while 'match' concisely encapsulates the idea of an equal counterpart.
Transcription
Quotations
Nay he wil not meddle with his match I warrant you.
Meddle you with your match.
We meedle not with our Match, when we strive with our Maker.
Annotations
- Spoken by People of Age, when young People jest upon them too wantonly: Or by weak People, when insulted by the more strong, and robust, in that Case they will say, You dare not meddle with your Match.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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