Meaning & Analysis
Snowfall during the summer or harvest season is an unseasonable, destructive, and entirely unwelcome event that would ruin crops and cause significant hardship.
Insights
Radical Inappropriateness
The proverb is used sarcastically to describe something that is completely inappropriate, ill-timed, or out of place in a given situation.
Detrimental Intrusion
It describes an event, comment, or person whose arrival is not just inconvenient but actively harmful or damaging to the situation at hand.
Disruption of Order
It signifies a profound disruption of the expected or natural order of things, suggesting something is fundamentally wrong, chaotic, or nonsensical.
Agrarian Anxiety
The proverb's power is rooted in the anxieties of an agrarian society, where the success of the harvest was paramount for survival. Unseasonal snow would be a catastrophic event, destroying crops and threatening livelihoods, making it a potent symbol for disaster.
Sarcastic Understatement
This proverb is a classic example of sarcastic understatement. By using positive words like 'seasonable' or 'welcome' to describe a disastrous event, the speaker heightens the sense of bitterness and disdain, making the criticism more potent than a direct insult.
Biblical Resonance
The concept echoes biblical wisdom, particularly Proverbs 26:1: 'Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.' This connection, noted in the 1569 quotation, lends the proverb a moral weight, associating the unwelcome thing with foolishness and a disruption of the natural and social order.
Violation of Natural Order
The imagery speaks to a deep psychological need for order and predictability. Snow in summer represents a violation of the natural cycle, a chaotic intrusion that is unsettling and deeply wrong, mirroring the distress caused by an inappropriate action or remark.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
The proverb is a simile, using 'as' to create a direct and vivid comparison that clarifies the degree of unwelcomeness.
Irony
The core rhetorical device is irony, where the words 'seasonable' and 'welcome' are used to mean their exact opposite, creating a biting, sarcastic tone.
Juxtaposition
It relies on the powerful juxtaposition of 'snow' (winter, cold, barrenness) with 'summer' or 'harvest' (warmth, life, abundance) to create a stark image of unnatural conflict.
Imagery
The phrase evokes strong sensory imagery of a cold, damaging event occurring during a time of expected warmth and bounty, making its negative meaning visceral and memorable.
Transcription
Quotations
A good sentence is not worth a couple of egs, But is as profitable as is snow in haruest.
As snow in haruest is vntimelie So is it a plague where a foole is regent.
This hangs wel together: Like snow in haruest, sun-shine and foule weather.
(You are as).
He is as welcome as snaw in harvest.
(You came as seasonably as).
Shakespeare Citations
He is kind. —Right, As snow in harvest.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.