Meaning & Analysis
If a person attempts to sit on two stools at once, they will miss both and fall to the ground between them.
Insights
Consequences of Indecision
The proverb serves as a powerful warning against indecision. By attempting to pursue two conflicting options or paths simultaneously, one fails to commit to either, resulting in a complete loss of opportunity.
Peril of Divided Loyalty
It illustrates the peril of divided loyalty. Trying to maintain allegiance to two opposing people, parties, or ideas inevitably leads to being trusted by neither and abandoned by both.
Critique of Ambition
The proverb cautions against overreaching ambition or greed. In trying to secure two separate advantages at the same time, a person risks spreading their efforts too thinly and ultimately obtaining nothing.
Importance of Focus
It highlights the necessity of focus and commitment. Success in any endeavor requires a decisive choice and dedicated effort; attempting to do everything at once leads to achieving nothing.
Cultural Endurance
The proverb's enduring appeal lies in its rustic, slightly comical imagery rooted in everyday life. Its consistent appearance in literature since the 16th century, with colloquial variations like 'ass' and 'tail', underscores its wide cultural currency as a practical warning against indecision.
Psychology of Indecision
Psychologically, the proverb illustrates the paralysis of choice. The attempt to secure two possibilities simultaneously, often driven by a fear of loss, paradoxically leads to the loss of both, highlighting a fundamental cognitive bias where indecision becomes a decision in itself—for failure.
Political Warning
This proverb serves as a timeless political and social maxim. As noted in the annotations, it warns that individuals or nations attempting to appease two opposing factions often end up alienated by both, demonstrating the inherent instability of divided loyalties.
Fable and Moral Tradition
The annotation comparing the proverb to a dog losing two things at once alludes to fables like Aesop's 'The Dog and Its Reflection'. This connects the proverb to a classical tradition of cautionary tales against greed and the folly of abandoning a certain good for an uncertain advantage.
Rhetorical Devices
Kinetic Imagery
The proverb uses a vivid, physical, and slightly humorous image of falling, which makes the abstract concept of failure due to indecision concrete and highly memorable.
Metaphor
The entire scenario is a metaphor for the negative outcomes of indecision, divided loyalty, or attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Colloquialism
The use of colloquial and earthy terms like 'ass', 'tail', and 'breech' lends the proverb a blunt, informal, and slightly comical tone that enhances its popular appeal and memorability.
Transcription
Quotations
(ars)
(my taile go to grounde)
I fyshe after two thynges atones, and am lyke to lese both: betweeen two stooes my tayle is lyke to goe to the ground.
Betwixt two broken stooles, to fall flat to the ground.
Betuix tuo stuiis the airs falis doune.
(Heeres even the proverbe verifi'd—betwecne two).
While one another trusts, the worke is left vndone; (and so between two stooles the taile goes to the ground doth go).
(the taile to ground doth go).
(to the ground).
(the taile falleth often to the ground).
(a mans tayle commeth to the ground).
Betwixt two Stooles Arse to the Ground.
(comes to the ground).
(the taile tumbles).
(the tail goes down).
(we fall to the ground).
To have ones breech upon two stools, viz. to be ill plac'd; The English say, between two stools the arse falls to the ground.
[As in a1598 Ferg.].
(the breech cometh to the ground).
(Arses falls down).
Cross References
- See St., no. 2178.
- S951 Lose not the substance for the shadow.
Annotations
- So said of those that would do as the Dog take two Things, and loose both.
- Commonly he that depends upon two contrary Parties, will be disappointed by both.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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