Meaning & Analysis
The proverb refers to sepulchers (tombs) that are whitewashed to appear clean and beautiful on the outside, while the inside contains decaying corpses and bones.
Insights
Hypocrisy and Deception
The proverb is a powerful metaphor for hypocrisy, describing someone or something that presents a virtuous, beautiful, or righteous exterior to mask a corrupt, immoral, and decayed core.
Appearance vs. Reality
It explores the classic theme of appearance versus reality, warning that outward beauty or charm can be profoundly misleading and should not be trusted as an indicator of inner worth or truth.
Critique of Superficiality
The proverb specifically critiques superficiality, suggesting that things of genuine value are often unadorned, while ornate or beautiful exteriors frequently conceal emptiness, corruption, or moral decay.
Biblical Authority
The proverb's authority is rooted in its biblical origin (Matthew 23:27), where Jesus uses it to condemn the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. This religious context imbues the saying with a powerful moral weight that has ensured its cultural longevity.
Historical Misogyny
Historical quotations reveal a distinct misogynistic application of the proverb, framing female beauty as a deceptive facade for inner corruption. This reflects a broader cultural trope in Renaissance literature that often equated feminine allure with moral danger.
Psychological Warning
The proverb serves as a powerful psychological warning against the 'halo effect'—the cognitive bias where we assume that which is beautiful must also be good. It cynically cautions that attractive exteriors often conceal a corrupt or dangerous reality.
Literary Resonance
The imagery was a potent tool in English literature, as seen in Shakespeare's 'gilded tombs' (The Merchant of Venice), which similarly warns that a pleasing appearance can hide a worthless or decaying interior.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The 'whited sepulcher' serves as a potent metaphor, representing the deceptive nature of a pleasing appearance that conceals a corrupt reality.
Antithesis
The proverb's impact is heightened by the stark juxtaposition of the clean, 'whited' exterior and the 'rotten bones' within, creating a memorable and disturbing image of concealed decay.
Imagery
The powerful and visceral imagery of a beautiful tomb full of decay creates a lasting and unsettling impression, making the abstract concept of hypocrisy tangible.
Transcription
Quotations
In goodly sumptuous sepulchres rotten bones are rife, so fairest words are ever fullest of falsehood.
Doth not experience teach vs that in the most curious Sepulchre are enclosed rotten bones?
Sepulchres [have] fresh colours, but rotten bones; women faire faces, but false heartes.
[Women are] white but sepulchers.
Rotten bones out of a paynted Sepulchre.
A faire woman with foule conditions, is like a sumptuous sepulcher full of rotten bones.
A painted Sepulcher, faire without, but within full of mortal infection and stench.
Shee is as harlots, faire, like guilded tombs Goodly without; within all rottenness.
Bible Citations
For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
Shakespeare Citations
What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys! Ye white-lim'd walls!
Gilded tombs do worms unfold.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.