Meaning & Analysis
Literally, the proverb expresses regret that something as pleasant and beneficial as fair weather could ever result in harm or negative consequences.
Insights
Unexpected Harm from Good Fortune
The proverb reflects the idea that even the most favorable or fortunate circumstances can, paradoxically, lead to negative outcomes—such as complacency, indulgence, or unforeseen consequences.
Corrupting Influence of Ease
It warns that persistent prosperity or comfort (symbolized by 'fair weather') may weaken character, encourage moral laxity, or distract from more serious duties and challenges.
Misuse of Blessings
The saying suggests that people may misuse or be spoiled by their blessings, turning what should be purely good into occasions for harm through human folly or ingratitude.
Historical and Religious Resonance
Historically, the proverb captures an enduring suspicion of unbroken prosperity—echoing religious and philosophical traditions that caution against letting good fortune foster pride, idleness, or spiritual neglect.
Psychological Observation
Psychologically, the proverb points to the human tendency to become complacent or careless when conditions are too easy, sometimes resulting in moral or practical decline.
Irony and Social Critique
There is an ironic undertone: it is almost absurd that something so pleasant as fair weather could be turned to harm, yet history and experience show that people often squander or corrupt their advantages.
Rhetorical Devices
Irony
The proverb’s apparent innocence masks a deeper critique, employing irony to highlight the contradiction between the goodness of 'fair weather' and its potential for harm.
Personification
'Fair weather' is personified as a benign force, made capable of doing 'harm,' which lends the phrase both vividness and a touch of gentle satire.
Antithesis
Sets up an opposition between the positive ('fair weather') and the negative ('harm'), amplifying the sense of paradox and inviting reflection.
Transcription
Quotations
(It is pitie that faire weather).
('Tis pity that)
But oh! that such faire weather should doe harme and be an occasion to make us wax wanton, earthly, and thinke grauce to be pind to our sleeves; how reproveable is it?
(any hurt).
'Tis a thousand pities That fair weather should do any hurt.
It is a pity fair Weather should ever do harm.
'Tis a pity that fair weather should ever do any harm.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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