Phrase Origin Between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea
contemporary etching of troop disposition at the beginning of the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631) — image: Wikimedia
MEANING
between the devil and the deep blue sea : in a difficult state of affairs where at that place are ii as unpleasant choices
ORIGIN
The Latin equivalents of this phrase [see below] that its first known users gave in the 17th century show that it most probably originated in the epitome of a choice betweendamnation (" the devil ") and drowning (" the bounding main ").
The phrase is therefore comparable to between a rock and a hard identify and to the French idiom entre le marteau et l'enclume , i.eastward. between the sledgehammer and the anvil.
The earliest form, between the devil and the Dead Sea , is start recorded in Adagia in Latine and English containing five hundred proverbs : very profitable for the vse of those who aspire to farther perfection in the Latine tongue (London, 1621), by the cleric Bartholomew Robertson (floruit 1620):
A fronte praecipitium, a tergo lupi.
Betwixt the Deuill and the dead sea.
The Latin proverb a fronte praecipitium, a tergo lupi , literally a precipice in front, wolves behind, appeared with its Greek equivalent in Adagiorum chiliades (Thousands of adages – 1508), an annotated drove of Greek and Latin proverbs by the Dutch humanist and scholar Desiderius Erasmus (circa 1469-1536):
A fronte praecipitium, a tergo lupi
Ἔμπροσθεν κρημνός, ὄπισθεν λύκοι, id est A fronte praecipitium, a tergo lupi. Cum aliquis hinc atque hinc duobus maximis premitur malis, ut, in utruncunque inciderit, pereundum sit.
(translation: Denis L. Drysdall – University of Toronto Printing, 2005)
An abyss in front, and wolves behind. When someone is difficult pressed on both sides by two great evils, so that whichever he falls into, he is bound to be lost.
The schoolmaster and author William Walker (1623-84) gave a unlike Latin equivalent in the English language-Latin phrase book Idiomatologia Anglo-Latina, sive Dictionarium Idiomaticum Anglo-Latinum (London, 1680):
Between the Divel and thedead body of water.
Inter sacrum saxumque.
The Latin phrase inter sacrum saxumque is fromCaptivi (The Captives), a play by the Roman comic dramatist Titus Maccius Plautus (circa 250-184 BC):
Nunc ego omnino occidi,
Nunc egointer sacrum saxumque sto, nec quid faciam scio.
translation:
Now am I utterly undone,
At presentbetween the sacrifice and the stone exercise I stand up, nor know I what to practice.
The origin of inter sacrum saxumque ( inter means betwixt and que meansand) is that, in the virtually ancient times, the fauna for sacrifice ( sacrum ) was killed by being struck with a rock ( saxum ): to stand between the victim and the stone would therefore imply being in a position of extreme danger.
Another early class of the English phrase, between the devil and the deep sea , is first recorded in Monro his Trek with the worthy Scots Regiment (called Mac-Keyes Regiment) levied in August 1626 (London, 1637), by Robert Monro (died 1680), a Scottish soldier who served as lieutenant-colonel in the Swedish army during the Xxx Years War; in the chapter titledThe thirteenth Duty discharged at our Royall Leaguer of Werben on the Elve against Generall Tillio his Army, he relates the Battle of Breitenfeld, near Leipzig, in 1631:
I was ordained with my Musketiers to remain on our sometime Poste, his Majestie and the residue of the partie existence retired within the Leaguer. Incontinent from our Batteries, our Cannon did play againe inside the Leaguer, which connected the whole day, doing great hurt on both sides, where the whole time, I with my partie, did lie on our Poste,as betwixt the Devill and the deepe Bounding main, for sometimes our owne Cannon would calorie-free short, and grase [= graze] over united states, then did the enemies [= enemies'] as well, where we had three shot with the Cannon, till I directed an Officeholder to our owne Batteries, acquainting them with our injure, and desiring they should stell [= place] or plant the Cannon higher.
The class with blue seems to engagement from the 2nd half of the 19th century only; for instance, in Male monarch and Queen County, Virginia (New York and Washington, 1908), Alfred Bagby (1828-1925), pastor of Mattaponi Baptist Church building, quoted Diary of Civil War, by Dr. B. H. W., which contains the post-obit for xivth November 1862:
To-day elections are held in New York and some eight other States north. Between the Democrats and Abolitionists at the North is asbetween the Devil and the deep blue bounding main—that is, one is most as bad equally the other; for the Democrats even wish to strength us dorsum into the Union.
FOLK ETYMOLOGY
The reference to the sea in this phrase has suggested to some 'etymologists' a nautical origin: hither, devil would be the sailors' discussion defined past the British naval officers William Henry Smyth (1788-1865) and Edward Belcher (1799-1877) in The Sailor's Discussion-Book (London, 1867):
The seam which margins the h2o-means was called the "devil," why but caulkers can tell, who maybe found it sometimes difficult for their tools.
The word devil in this sense is offset recorded in 1744 in the phrase the devil to pay and no pitch hot .
Just the forms between the devil and the Dead Sea and betwixt the devil and the deep bounding main of the phrase are attested more than than a century before the nautical sense of devil . More than importantly, the forms betwixt the devil and the Dead Sea and betwixt the devil and the deep sea did not first appear in nautical contexts; on the contrary, the Latin equivalents that were given associated the phrase with a precipice or with a stone, and Robert Monro described a land-battle.
(Similarly, and contrary to what has often been said, the phrase the devil to pay —not followed by and not pitch hot —is not of nautical origin.)
I have exposed several other folk etymologies, in item in the post-obit articles:
– origin of 'Indian summertime' and French 'été sauvage'
– The usual explanation of 'Hobson'southward pick' is fallacious.
– the accurate origin of 'to pelting cats and dogs'
– origin of 'once in a blueish moon'
– Kilkenny cats
– the authentic origin of 'a pretty kettle of fish'
– to buy a grunter in a poke vs. to let the cat out of the bag
– origin of 'to buttonhole' (to detain in chat)
– origin of 'point-blank'
– origin of 'to plough a blind eye'.
Source: https://wordhistories.net/2017/09/29/between-devil-and-sea/
Post a Comment for "Phrase Origin Between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea"