Meaning & Analysis
Those who are poor or in need tend to have very few friends or supporters; poverty leads to social isolation.
Insights
Conditional Nature of Friendship
The proverb highlights that many friendships are rooted in self-interest, vanishing when a person’s wealth or luck disappears. True friends are rare, and adversity reveals the difference between genuine and fair-weather companions.
Social Marginalization
It points to the harsh reality that poverty brings not only material deprivation but also emotional and social abandonment, as society distances itself from the needy.
Fortune and Loyalty
The saying implicitly contrasts loyalty in times of prosperity with the desertion faced during hardship, emphasizing the fickleness of human relationships and the dependence of social ties on status or fortune.
Historical Symbolism
Since antiquity, writers have observed that poverty is accompanied by a loss of friends and social standing, as echoed in numerous proverbs and literary works. The proverb serves as a sobering commentary on the social consequences of misfortune.
Cultural Parallels
Many cultures feature similar sayings, such as 'The rich have many friends,' highlighting the universality of this social truth. Shakespeare and Renaissance moralists repeatedly echo the idea that misfortune breeds loneliness.
Psychological Perspective
The proverb touches on the vulnerability and shame experienced by the poor—not only are they deprived of resources, but also of sympathy and companionship, deepening their isolation.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
By contrasting the poor with the (unstated) rich, the proverb implies a sharp social divide, heightening the impact of its message.
Ellipsis
The brevity of the statement omits explanation, making the message blunt, universal, and immediately resonant.
Parallelism
Often paired or contrasted with proverbs about the rich, it uses structural balance to reinforce its point.
Transcription
Quotations
Fewe frendes pouerte dooth fynde.
The frendes of an infortunate person be farre of. When fortune ones beginneth to fayle the, anone thy frendes are gone.
The poore, they haue no frends at al.
Is't possible a poore man should haue frends?
The nearer that thy purse is polde, The more still friendship waxeth colde.
He that is famished hath but ill friends.
Men cannot brooke poore friends.
Poor folks have little kindred.
Poor Folks Friends soon miskens them.
He that is known to have no Money, has no Friends nor Credit.
Shakespeare Citations
For misery is trodden on by many And, being low, never reliev'd by any.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.