Meaning & Analysis
When a river's flow is split into numerous smaller streams or brooks, the depth and force of the water in each resulting channel are significantly reduced.
Insights
Dilution of Effort
When a person's energy, focus, or talents are divided among too many tasks or goals, their efforts become ineffective and they fail to make a significant impact in any single area.
Weakening of Affection
Love, loyalty, or affection that is distributed among many individuals becomes weakened and superficial, lacking the depth and intensity of a more focused attachment.
Loss of Influence
A powerful entity, such as an organization or movement, loses its influence and effectiveness when its resources, leadership, or mission become fragmented.
Classical and Renaissance Roots
Drawing from classical sources like Erasmus's 'Similia', the proverb uses a natural process to illustrate a psychological truth. It became particularly popular in Elizabethan literature, championed by authors like John Lyly, who used such analogies to explore the complexities of human affection and ambition.
Enduring Strategic Relevance
The proverb offers a timeless warning against over-diversification. In modern contexts, it applies to business strategy (risk of expanding into too many markets), personal productivity (the pitfalls of multitasking), and digital life (the shallowing effect of social media on relationships).
Psychology of Finite Resources
Psychologically, the proverb captures the concept of 'ego depletion' or 'decision fatigue'—the idea that mental and emotional resources are finite. By dividing attention or affection, an individual's capacity for deep engagement and impactful action is diminished.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The proverb's core is a powerful metaphor comparing a person's finite resources (like attention, love, or effort) to a river, and the various demands on those resources to brooks.
Imagery
The visual of a mighty river dwindling into insignificant streams creates a clear and memorable picture of diminishment and loss of force.
Cause and Effect
The proverb is structured as a straightforward cause-and-effect statement, which makes its logic feel natural, inevitable, and persuasive.
Transcription
Quotations
Ut fluvius in multos diductus rivos, fluit tenuis ac languidus: Sic benevolentia in multos distracta languescit, et evanescit.
A fountayne running into many riuers, is of lesse force, the minde enamoured on two women, is lesse affected with desire, and lesse infected with despaire.
A ryuer running into diuers brookes becommeth shallow, and a mind diuided into sundrie affections, in the end will haue none.
A new love thrusteth out the old, or, as Valesius adviseth, by subdividing to diminish it, [love] as a great River cut into many channels, runs low at last.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.