What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself’?
‘Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself’
is one of the oldest English proverbs.
The earliest citation of ‘don’t keep a dog and bark yourself’ that I can find is Brian Melbancke’s novel Philotimus: the Warre Betwixt Nature and Fortune, 1583:
“It is smal reason you should kepe a dog, and barke your selfe.”
Melbancke, whose name is a variant of the more common ‘Milbank’, used the name of Philotimus, a noted 4th century Greek physician, for the title of his work. Rather fittingly in the context of ‘don’t keep a dog…’, Philotimus was a dogmatist, that is, a thinker who bases his philosophy on belief rather than evidence. As it turns out, Philotimus had little option but to choose dogmatism, as several of his beliefs, for example, his opinion that the heart and brain are useless organs, would be difficult to obtain evidence for.
See other ‘Don’t…’ proverbs:
Don’t cast your pearls before swine
Don’t change horses in midstream
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched
Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face
Don’t let the bastards grind you down
Don’t let the cat out of the bag
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
Don’t put the cart before the horse
Don’t shut the stable door after the horse has bolted
Don’t throw good money after bad
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater