Meaning & Analysis
To shed tears; to cry. The phrase uses the image of watering as a euphemism for weeping, likening tears to water nourishing plants (here, metaphorically representing the feet or lower body).
Insights
Grief and Vulnerability
The proverb metaphorically equates the act of weeping with nurturing, suggesting that emotional pain—expressed through tears—can be both a mark of suffering and a necessary process for personal growth or release.
Physical Manifestation of Emotion
It highlights the embodiment of sorrow, where internal emotions overflow as visible, physical tears—making the intangible tangible.
Catharsis
The phrase subtly gestures to the cleansing or purifying effect of tears, as if watering ‘plants’ with sorrow allows for a renewal or easing of emotional tension.
Historical Symbolism
The figurative use of 'plants' for the feet dates to classical and medieval literature, drawing on the Latin 'planta' for the sole. In this proverb, the act of weeping is humorously and poetically reframed as the watering of plants, integrating bodily experience with natural imagery.
Literary and Cultural Resonance
The expression appears frequently in Renaissance English literature, often as a gentle euphemism or a playful image for crying. Its use by writers like Lyly, Lodge, and Dekker demonstrates the proverb’s flexibility, shifting from solemn to comic depending on context.
Psychological Dimensions
By turning tears into 'watering,' the proverb offers a less shameful, more nurturing interpretation of crying—encouraging the acceptance of emotion as a natural and even beneficial human response.
Rhetorical Devices
Euphemism
The proverb disguises the act of crying behind a gentle, naturalistic image, softening its emotional weight and rendering it more socially acceptable or light-hearted.
Metaphor
It vividly equates tears with water and feet with plants, creating a memorable and visual analogy that animates emotional expression.
Wordplay
The double meaning of 'plants' (as both literal flora and the soles of the feet) adds a playful ambiguity, enriching the phrase’s imagery and interpretive potential.
Transcription
Quotations
When he read the chronicle of Alexander the greate, he could not forbeare to water his plantes.
So long as my childe liued I fasted, and watered my plants for my yong boye.
Neither water thou thy plantes.
Water not thy plants.
Mustard bites a man so by the nose, and makes him weep and water his plants when he tasteth it.
Thou hast made me water my plants spight of my heart.
Explanation
[To weep.]
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.