Meaning & Analysis
One should judge the quality of a specific item by its most telling characteristic: wine is best judged by its aroma or taste ('savor'), while bread or cloth is best judged by its appearance ('color').
Insights
Principle of Appropriate Judgment
The proverb is a guide to proper evaluation, teaching that different subjects require different criteria. It argues that wisdom lies in applying the correct standard of judgment to a person, idea, or situation, just as one uses different senses for different goods.
Trusting Sensory Evidence
It champions the value of direct, empirical assessment. By trusting one's senses—smell for wine, sight for cloth—one can make sound judgments, highlighting a reliance on tangible evidence over abstract or irrelevant information.
Inner vs. Outer Qualities
The proverb subtly distinguishes between judging by internal versus external qualities. Wine's 'savor' is an intrinsic quality, while cloth's 'color' is an external one. This implies that some things must be judged by their inherent substance, while others can be reliably assessed by their appearance.
Historical Marketplace Wisdom
This proverb reflects the practical wisdom of a pre-industrial marketplace, where assessing the quality of essential goods like wine, bread, and cloth depended on direct sensory evaluation. It underscores a world where personal experience and sensory acuity were the primary tools for commerce and survival, long before standardized branding or consumer protection.
Psychology of Judgment
The proverb champions the use of appropriate heuristics, or mental shortcuts, for evaluation. It advises against applying a single, universal metric to different subjects, suggesting that true discernment lies in knowing which specific attribute most accurately reveals the nature of the thing being judged.
Metaphor for Discernment
Beyond its literal meaning, the proverb serves as a timeless metaphor for evaluating people and situations. It cautions against superficiality, urging one to assess individuals and circumstances based on their most relevant and substantive qualities rather than inappropriate or misleading indicators.
Rhetorical Devices
Parallelism
The proverb's balanced, parallel structure ('A by B, C by D') creates a memorable and rhythmic cadence, making the advice easy to understand and recall.
Sensory Imagery
It uses strong sensory details ('savor', 'color') to ground the abstract concept of judgment in concrete, relatable experience, enhancing its impact.
Juxtaposition
By placing two distinct evaluation scenarios side-by-side, the proverb effectively contrasts them to reinforce its central message that the method of judgment must fit the subject.
Transcription
Quotations
(and bread by the heate)
Let wine good sauor, cloth fresh colour, haue.
Take Wine by his Sauour, and Cloth by his Colour.
Wine is known by its smell, and cloth by its colour.
Bread by the colour, and wine by the taste.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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