Meaning & Analysis
Anyone who touches pitch (sticky, black tar) will inevitably get it on themselves and become dirty or stained.
Insights
Contagion of Corruption
The proverb warns that association with corrupt, immoral, or disreputable people or practices inevitably leads to contamination of one’s own character or reputation.
Inevitable Consequences
It expresses the idea that engaging with dangerous or unsavory matters cannot be done without being negatively affected, whether morally, socially, or emotionally.
Biblical and Philosophical Authority
Rooted in Sirach 13:1 and echoed in classical and early modern literature, the proverb reflects a deep moral anxiety about the power of evil or vice to stain even the well-intentioned, reinforcing caution and selectivity in company and conduct.
Psychological and Social Mechanism
Psychologically, it captures the principle that repeated exposure to negative influences gradually erodes standards and blunts resistance, while socially, it underlines the risk of guilt by association.
Universal and Enduring Application
The image is nearly universal, echoed in proverbs about honey, thorns, or sun, all warning that involvement brings consequences. Its durability speaks to an enduring human concern about the limits of self-control and the dangers of moral compromise.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
Uses the tangible experience of pitch staining the hands to embody the abstract idea of moral or reputational taint.
Imagery
The visual and tactile evocativeness of 'pitch' and 'defilement' makes the warning immediate and memorable.
Allusion
Frequent use in Scripture and literature lends the phrase a tone of authority and gravity, amplifying its cautionary effect.
Transcription
Quotations
If there be any which can .. touche soft pitche and not his fingers file.
He that toucheth pitch, shalbe defiled with the same.
As he which toucheth pitch shall be defiled [of women].
Whiles pitch is handled, the hands therewith are defiled.
Who toucheth pitch and tarre cannot be cleane.
(must needs be defiled).
If a man touch pitch, he shall therewith be defiled.
Vorstius had .. received several letters from certain Samosatenian heretics .. and .. had handled pitch so long that at last it stuck to his fingers.
He that handles Pitch, shall foul his Fingers.
Bible Citations
He that toucheth pitche, shallbee defiled with it.
Shakespeare Citations
If she have forgot Honour and virtue and convers'd with such As, like to pitch, de-file nobility.
I am toiling in a pitch—pitch that defiles.
This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest.
I think they that touch pitch will be defil'd.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.