METAPHOR
Every expression that we employ, apart from those that are connected
with the most rudimentary objects and actions, is a metaphor, though the
original meaning is dulled by constant use. Thus, in the above sentence,
_expression_ means what is "squeezed out," to _employ_ is to "twine in"
like a basket maker, to _connect_ is to "weave together," _rudimentary_
means "in the rough state," and an _object_ is something "thrown in our
way." A classification of the metaphors in use in the European languages
would show that a large number of the most _obvious_ kind, _i.e._ of
those which "come to meet" one, are common property, while others would
reflect the most striking habits and pursuits of the various races. It
would probably be found that in the common stock of simple metaphor the
most important contribution would come from agriculture, while in
English the nautical element would occur to an extent quite unparalleled
in other European languages.[81] A curious agricultural metaphor which,
though of Old French origin, now appears to be peculiar to English, is
to _rehearse_, lit. to harrow over again (see _hearse_, p. 75).
Some metaphors are easy to track. It does not require much philological
knowledge to see that _astonish_, _astound_, and _stun_ all contain the
idea of "thunder-striking," Vulgar Lat. _*ex-tonare_. To _embarrass_ is
obviously connected with _bar_, and to _interfere_ is to "strike
between," Old Fr. _entreferir_. This word was especially used in the
16th century of a horse knocking its legs together in trotting, "to
_interfeere_, as a horse" (Cotgrave). When we speak of a
_prentice-hand_, sound _journeyman_ work, and a _masterpiece_, we revive
the medieval classification of artisans into learners, qualified
workmen, and those who, by the presentation to their guild of a finished
piece of work, were recognised as past (passed) masters.
But many of our metaphors are drawn from pursuits with which we are no
longer familiar, or from arts and sciences no longer practised.
_Disaster_, _ill-starred_, and such adjectives as _jovial_, _mercurial_,
are reminiscent of astrology. To bring a thing to the _test_ is to put
it in the alchemist's or metallurgist's _test_ or trying-pot (cf.
_test_-tube), Old Fr. _test_ (_têt_). This is related to Old Fr. _teste_
(_tête_) head, from Lat. _testa_, tile, pot, etc., used in Roman slang
for _caput_. Shakespeare has the complete metaphor--
"Let there be some more _test_ made of my metal,[82]
Before so noble and so great a figure
Be stamp'd upon it."
(_Measure for Measure_, i. 1.)
[Page Heading: SHAMBLES--SPICK AND SPAN]
The old butchers' shops which adjoin Nottingham Market Place are still
called the _Shambles_. The word is similarly used at Carlisle, and
probably elsewhere; but to most people it is familiar only in the
metaphorical sense of place of slaughter, generally regarded as a
singular. Thus Denys of Burgundy says--
"The beasts are in the _shambles_."
(_Cloister and Hearth_, Ch. 33.)
etymologically misusing the word, which does not mean slaughter-house,
but the bench on which meat is exposed for sale. It is a very early loan
from Lat. _scamnum_, a bench or form, also explained by Cooper as "a
step or grice (see p. 118) to get up to bedde." The same diminutive form
occurs in Fr. _escabeau_, an office stool, and Ger. _Schemel_, a stool.
_Fusty_, earlier _foisty_, is no longer used in its proper sense. It
comes from Old Fr. _fusté_, "_fusty_; tasting of the caske, smelling of
the vessell wherein it hath been kept" (Cotgrave), a derivative of Old
Fr. _fust_ (_fût_) a cask.[83]
The smith's art has given us _brand-new_, often corrupted into
_bran-new_. Shakespeare uses _fire-new_--
"You should then have accosted her; and with some excellent jests,
_fire-new_ from the mint, you should have banged the youth into
dumbness."
(_Twelfth Night_, iii. 2.)
Modern German has _funkelnagelneu_, spark nail new; but in older German
we find also _spanneu_, _splinterneu_, chip new, splinter new; which
shows the origin of our _spick and span_ (new), _i.e._, spike and chip
new. French has _tout battant neuf_, beating new, _i.e._, fresh from the
anvil.
Many old hunting terms survive as metaphors. To be _at bay_, Fr. _aux
abois_, is to be facing the baying hounds. The fundamental meaning of
Old Fr. _abaier_ (_aboyer_), of obscure origin, is perhaps to gape
at.[84] Thus a right or estate which is in _abeyance_ is one regarded
with open-mouthed expectancy. The _toils_ are Fr. _toiles_, lit. cloths,
Lat. _tela_, the nets put round a thicket to prevent the game from
escaping. To "beat about the bush" seems to be a mixture of two
metaphors which are quite unlike in meaning. To "beat the bush" was the
office of the beaters, who started the game for others, hence an old
proverb, "I will not beat the bush that another may have the birds." To
"go about the bush" would seem to have been used originally of a
hesitating hound. The two expressions have coalesced to express the idea
for which French says "y aller par quatre chemins." _Crestfallen_ and
_white feather_ belong to the old sport of cock-fighting. _Jeopardy_ is
Old Fr. _jeu parti_, a divided game, hence an equal encounter. To run
full _tilt_ is a jousting phrase. To _pounce_ upon is to seize in the
_pounces_, the old word for a hawk's claws. The ultimate source is Lat.
_pungere_, to prick, pierce. A goldsmith's _punch_ was also called a
_pounce_, hence the verb to _pounce_, to make patterns on metal. The
northern past participle _pouncet_[85] occurs in _pouncet-box_, a metal
perforated globe for scents--
"And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A _pouncet-box_, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took't away again."
(1 _Henry IV._, i. 3.)
To the language of hawking belongs also _haggard_. Cotgrave defines
_faulcon (faucon) hagard_, as "a faulcon that preyed for her selfe long
before she was taken." Hence the sense of wild, untameable. The original
meaning is hedge-hawk, the first syllable representing Old High Ger.
_hag_, hedge. _Hag_, a witch, is of cognate origin.
[Page Heading: SPORTING METAPHORS]
The antiquity of dicing appears in the history of Ger. _gefallen_, to
please, originally used of the "fall" of the dice. In Mid. High German
it is always used with _wohl_, well, or _übel_, ill; e.g., _es gefällt
mir wohl_, it "falls out" well for me. There can be no reasonable doubt
that the _deuce!_ is a dicer's exclamation at making the lowest throw,
two, Fr. _deux_. We still use _deuce_ for the two in cards, and German
has _Daus_ in both senses. Tennis has given us _bandy_, Fr. _bander_,
"to _bandie_, at tennis" (Cotgrave). We now only bandy words or
reproaches, but Juliet understood the word in its literal sense--
"Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She'd be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would _bandy_ her to my sweet love,
And his to me."
(_Romeo and Juliet_, ii. 5.)
Fowling has given us _cajole_, _decoy_, and _trepan_. Fr. _cajoler_,
which formerly meant to chatter like a jay in a cage, has in modern
French assumed the meaning of _enjôler_, earlier _engeoler_, "to incage,
or ingaole" (Cotgrave), hence to entice. Fr. _geôle_, gaol, represents
Vulgar Lat. _*caveola_. _Decoy_, earlier also _coy_, is Du. _kooi_,
cage. The later form is perhaps due to _duck-coy_. Du. _kooi_ is also of
Latin origin. It comes, like Fr. _cage_, from Vulgar Lat. _*cavea_, and
has a doublet _kevie_, whence Scot. _cavie_, a hen-coop. _Trepan_ was
formerly _trapan_, and belongs to _trap_--
"Some by the nose with fumes _trapan_ 'em,
As Dunstan did the devil's grannam."
(_Hudibras_, ii. 3.)
It is now equivalent to _kidnap_, _i.e._ to _nab kids_ (children), once
a lucrative pursuit. The surgical _trepan_ is a different word
altogether, and belongs to Greco-Lat. _trypanon_, an auger, piercer. To
_allure_ is to bring to the _lure_, or bait. To the same group of
metaphors belongs _inveigle_, which corresponds, with altered prefix, to
Fr. _aveugler_, to blind, Vulgar Lat. _*ab-oculare_.[86] A distant
relative of this word is _ogle_, which is of Low German origin; _cf._
Ger. _liebäugeln_ "to _ogle_, to smicker, to look amorously, to cast
sheeps-eyes, to cast amorous looks" (Ludwig).
The archaic verb to _cozen_ is a metaphor of quite another kind. Every
young noble who did the grand tour in the 16th and 17th centuries spent
some time at Naples, "where he may improve his knowledge in
horsemanship" (Howell, _Instructions for Forreine Travell_, 1642). Now
the Italian horse-dealers were so notorious that Dekker, writing about
1600, describes a swindling "horse-courser" as a "meere jadish
Non-politane," a play on Neapolitan. The Italian name is _cozzone_, "a
horse-courser, a horse-breaker, a craftie knave" (Florio), whence the
verb _cozzonare_, "to have perfect skill in all _cosenages_" (Torriano).
The essential idea of to _cozen_ in the Elizabethans is that of selling
faulty goods in a bad light, a device said to be practised by some
horse-dealers. At any rate the words for horse-dealer in all languages,
from the Lat. _mango_ to the Amer. _horse-swapper_, mean swindler and
worse things. _Cozen_ is a favourite word with the Elizabethan
dramatists, because it enables them to bring off one of those stock puns
that make one feel "The less Shakespeare he"--
"_Cousins_, indeed; and by their uncle _cozen'd_
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life."
(_Richard III._, iv. 4.)
In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (iv. 5) there is a lot of word-play on
"cousins-german" and "German cozeners." An exact parallel to the history
of _cozen_ is furnished by the verb to _jockey_, from _jockey_, in its
older sense of horse-dealer.
[Page Heading: HORTICULTURE]
_Scion_ is a metaphor from the garden. It is Fr. _scion_, "a scion; a
young and tender plant; a shoot, sprig, or twig" (Cotgrave). Ger.
_Sprössling_, sproutling, is also used of an "offshoot" from a "stock."
We have a similar metaphor in the word _imp_. We now _graft_ trees, a
misspelling of older _graffe_, Fr. _greffe_, Greco-Lat. _graphium_, a
pencil, from the shape of the slip. But the older word was _imp_, which
we find also used of inserting a new feather into the wing or tail of a
hawk, or fitting a small bell-rope to a larger one. The art of grafting
was learnt from the Romans, who had a post-classical verb
_imputare_,[87] to graft, which has given Eng. _imp_, Ger. _impfen_, Fr.
_enter_, and is represented in most other European languages. _Imp_ was
used like _scion_, but degenerated in meaning. In Shakespeare it has
already the somewhat contemptuous shade of meaning which we find in Ger.
_Sprössling_, and is only used by comic characters. Thus Pistol
addresses Prince Hal--
"The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal _imp_ of fame."
(2 _Henry IV._, v. 5.)
But Thomas Cromwell, in his last letter to Henry VIII., speaks of--
"That most noble _imp_, the prince's grace, your most dear son."
The special sense of "young devil" appears to be due to the frequent
occurrence of such phrases as "_imps_ (children) of Satan," "the devil
and his _imps_," etc. Ger. _impfen_ also means to vaccinate. Our earlier
term _inoculate_[88] originally meant to graft, and, in fact, _engraft_
was also used in this sense.
_Zest_ is quite obsolete in its original meaning of a piece of orange
peel used to give piquancy to wine. It is a French word of unknown
origin, properly applied to the inner skin of fruit and nuts. Cotgrave
explains it as "the thick skinne, or filme whereby the kernell of a
wallnut is divided."
FOOTNOTES:
[81] It would be interesting to trace the rise and spread of nautical
metaphor in English. We have a good example of the transition from the
bucolic to the nautical in the expression "To lose the _ship_ for a
ha'porth of tar." Few people who use this metaphor know that _ship_ is
here the dialect pronunciation of _sheep_; cf. _Ship Street_, at Oxford
(and elsewhere), for _Sheep Street_. Tar was, and is, used as a medicine
for sheep, but in this particular case the allusion seems to be rather
to the marking of sheep with tar; _cf._ "tarred with the same brush,"
_i.e._, members of the same flock.
[82] See _mettle_, p. 144.
[83] Lat. _fustis_, a staff, cudgel, gave also Old Fr. _fust_, a kind of
boat, whence obsolete Eng. _foist_ in the same sense. Both meanings seem
to go back to a time when casks and boats were "dug out" instead of
being built up.
[84] Related are _bouche béante_, or _bée_, mouth agape; _bâiller_, to
yawn; and _badaud_, "a gaping hoydon" (Cotgrave, _badault_).
[85] _Cf._ the _Stickit_ Minister.
[86] Or perhaps _*alboculare_, as _albus oculus_, lit. white eye, is
used of blindness in an early Vulgar Latin glossary.
[87] Of uncertain origin. Lat. _putare_, to cut (cf. _amputate_), or Gk.
{emphytos}, implanted?
[88] From _oculus_, eye, in the sense of bud.