Meaning & Analysis
Based on a folk belief, this proverb literally means that a person has consumed a snake, which was thought to have the magical property of restoring youth and vitality to the old, making their white hair turn black again.
Insights
Radical Rejuvenation
The proverb serves as a metaphor for any form of radical rejuvenation or transformation. It implies that a person has undergone a startling and seemingly miraculous renewal, shedding their old self for a younger, more vigorous one, much like a snake sheds its skin.
Unconventional Transformation
Eating a snake, an act often considered dangerous or taboo, symbolizes the idea of achieving extraordinary results through unconventional or risky means. It suggests that renewal might require embracing something that society finds strange or forbidden.
Acquisition of Secret Power
The act of consuming the snake can be interpreted as internalizing a secret or hidden power. It suggests that the person's renewed youth is not natural but the result of some esoteric knowledge or a mysterious remedy unknown to others.
Symbolism of Rebirth
The proverb is rooted in the ancient and cross-cultural symbolism of the snake as a creature of rejuvenation and immortality, primarily due to its ability to shed its skin. This belief, that consuming an animal imparts its qualities, was a common principle in folk medicine, and the quotations suggest this specific idea was prevalent in Renaissance Europe, particularly Italy.
Literary and Cultural Currency
The frequent use of this proverb by prominent Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights like Lyly, Dekker, and Massinger demonstrates how deeply this piece of folklore was embedded in popular culture. It served as a vivid and concise shorthand for explaining a character's unnaturally youthful appearance.
Psychology of Anti-Aging
The proverb taps into the universal human desire to reverse the aging process. It reflects a psychological fascination with magical or unconventional remedies for the anxieties of mortality and the loss of youth, suggesting a willingness to embrace the strange or even repulsive to achieve a desired transformation.
Rhetorical Devices
Symbolism
The snake is a potent symbol of rebirth, immortality, and transformation. The act of 'eating' it represents the internalization of these qualities, making the proverb a powerful and concise symbolic statement.
Metaphor
The entire phrase functions as a metaphor, where the fantastical act of eating a snake stands in for the observable effect of looking unnaturally young for one's age.
Hyperbole
The claim that eating a snake can reverse aging is a form of hyperbole. This exaggeration makes the expression vivid and memorable, emphasizing the dramatic and unbelievable nature of the person's transformation.
Transcription
Quotations
Thou hast eate an edders skyn.
Therfore hath it growen to a Prouerb in Italy, when one see-eth a woman striken in age to look amiable, he saith she hath eaten a Snake.
He hath left off o' late to feed on snakes; His beard's turn'd white again.
Scarce can I read the wrinkles on your brow Which age has writ there; you look youthful still. —I eat snakes my Lord, I eat snakes.
Here's your loving Brother, Sir, and will tell no body but all he meets, that you have eat a Snake, And are grown young, gamesome, and rampant.
Feede him with Vipers flesh that will make his white heade blacke!
To look as if one had eaten Snakes, viz. to look young again.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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