Meaning & Analysis
Danger or harm (poison) is sometimes concealed within objects of great beauty or luxury (golden cups); attractive appearances can mask deadly content.
Insights
Deceptive Appearances
The proverb warns that things which seem most desirable or beautiful on the outside may conceal the greatest dangers within. It cautions against trusting appearances, especially when allure and temptation are strong.
Corruption of Wealth and Power
It suggests that luxury, wealth, or status often harbor moral or existential peril. What is presented in the most glittering forms may actually be the most destructive.
False Promises
The saying highlights the danger of being seduced by charm, charisma, or elegance—whether in people, ideas, or offers—when their true nature is harmful or malicious.
Historical Symbolism
Golden cups, in history and literature, were symbols of power, opulence, and sometimes treachery—used for hospitality, but also for secret poisoning. The motif recurs throughout Renaissance drama and moral literature, as in the many quotations, to illustrate that evil can be hidden beneath the trappings of greatness.
Universal Motif
This proverb has analogues worldwide: the dangerous allure of beauty or luxury is a common warning in fable, myth, and folklore—whether as the 'painted pot,' 'glittering glass,' or 'fair goblet.'
Psychological Resonance
Psychologically, the saying speaks to the human tendency to be drawn to external beauty and surface promises, often at the cost of inner substance or safety. It warns of wishful thinking and the seduction of the senses.
Rhetorical Devices
Symbolism
The golden cup becomes a symbol of seductive danger—where outer beauty masks inner peril—making the proverb a memorable warning.
Antithesis
The sharp contrast between 'poison' and 'golden cups' dramatizes the discrepancy between inner reality and outer appearance.
Imagery
The vivid image of drinking poison from a beautiful vessel engrains the proverb's message through sensory and visual detail.
Transcription
Quotations
Loe, thus it is, poyson in golde to take, And holsome drinke in homely cuppe for-sake.
In glittering glasse, a poyson ranckest plaste.
As in fair painted pots poyson oft is put.
In paynted pottes is hidden the deadlyest poyson.
Though in the fairest goblet he had found poyson, hee would not refuse to drinke in a meaner peece.
Proferreth poison . . in golden pot.
As if a man shold love . . poison because it is in a siluer peece.
Golden cups doo harbour poyson.
Give me water, boy. There is no poison in't, I hope; they say That lu[r]ks in massy plate.
Poyson is poyson though it come in a golden cup.
In golden pottes are hidden the most deadly poyson.
Men drinke poison in golden pots.
Yet poyson still is poyson Though drunk in gold, and all these flattering glories To me, ready to starve, a painted banquet, And no essential food.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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