# Go down the hill against the bias (Philip Sidney)



## sb70012

We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh; we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such men as, for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.

Source: Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry (1554-1586)
Link: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virt...itical.asp?e=2

Paragraph 6. line 14.

Hello dear members,

Would you please tell me what the red sentence means?


Many thanks in advance.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

I think it means that one laughs despite oneself.  I get the impression that _to go down the hill_ here is a metaphor for falling into laughter, and _against the bias_ means against one's wishes.  I suspect that bias could mean slope in Sidney's time, and so the idea is that one goes down against the slope.  Against the bias could also mean against the grain, a metaphor which persists in modern BE.

He's attacking the view that laughter and delight always go together.

Here he's saying that sometimes one's laughter can cause the opposite of delight in oneself, one is 'rather pained than delighted with laughter'.


----------



## perpend

Complicated.

I understand that we laugh for laughing's sake....it's funny.

But we also laugh sometimes when we think someone is wrong. It's a different sort of laughter, and we are sort of not agreeing with the person, but laughing along, since we want to appear jovial.

EDIT: Cross-post with Thomas, and haven't yet read.
EDIT 2.0: Agree with Thomas' explanation.


----------



## sb70012

Thanks for your nice guidances dear *Thomas Tompion* and *Perpend*, but if I write the red sentence in modern English then how should I write it? I mean I am still confused and haven't got what it says. Would you please only in one short sentence tell me what the red sentence means? Withought furthur explanation. Just in one short sentence.

Thanks a lot for answering.


----------



## velisarius

This is really difficult to understand, but I read it quite differently. I think he's talking about "some such men" who say silly things. The "matter" is what is said, and it goes off course, "down the hill against the bias", in their mouths. I think he's talking about us laughing at other men who involuntarily provoke laughter by what they say.


----------



## sb70012

Thanks for answering dear *Velisarius*, but I am still confused and haven't got what it means exactly.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

velisarius said:


> This is really difficult to understand, but I read it quite differently. I think he's talking about "some such men" who say silly things. The "matter" is what is said, and it goes off course, "down the hill against the bias", in their mouths. I think he's talking about us laughing at other men who involuntarily provoke laughter by what they say.


I wondered about that, Velisarius.  My worry was that the subject of _go_ is surely _we_ - 'we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias'.

 Are you saying that we laugh although they meant to provoke a different reaction?

  This could easily be what causes the distress and the laughter to coincide in us, for we perceive that our laughter may cause pain in the other person.


----------



## sb70012

Now what's its exact meaning?


----------



## Thomas Tompion

You must be patient, Sb.  We have a slight disagreement, which may soon be resolved.  You've chosen a passage in the language of five hundred years ago, and it takes us a little time to be sure what Sidney meant.

You can have the pleasure of watching us evolve an answer for you.

If you cannot understand a point of view expressed, don't hesitate to say what, in detail, is puzzling you.  A general 'I don't understand' is difficult for us to resolve, because we're not clear which expression you find puzzling.


----------



## velisarius

I read it as "find a matter ... (to) go down the hill". The laughter is a pained laughter because we like and respect the people who make this silly mistake. I see "some such men as referring back to "our friends". "For the respect of them one shall be heartily sorry": I would tentatively say that this means "since we respect these people, we are heartily sorry for laughing at their mistake".


----------



## Thomas Tompion

I think that makes a great deal of sense.  Are we agreed that the subject of _go_ is _we_, and that the red section is a figure meaning that we laugh in spite of ourselves?


----------



## velisarius

"Go down the hill in the mouth of some such men" seems to go together (in my copy of the text there is no comma separating the last phrase). I think the subject of "go" is "matter" - we find the matter to go, - if that is grammatically possible.

I still see "down the hill against the bias" as meaning that the matter (the subject matter of his discourse) does downhill (flops) against the bias ( being totally off course).


----------



## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, everyone.







We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh; 




While you all are at it, would you be kind enough to enlighten me on the use of the personal pronoun "he" in this portion of the original text?
Maybe an alternative to "... at which he that would laugh would be worthy to be laughed at"? 

Thank you.

GS


----------



## Thomas Tompion

velisarius said:


> "Go down the hill in the mouth of some such  men" seems to go together (in my copy of the text there is no comma  separating the last phrase). I think the subject of "go" is "matter" -  we find the matter to go, - if that is grammatically possible.
> 
> I still see "down the hill against the bias" as meaning that the matter  (the subject matter of his discourse) does downhill (flops) against the  bias ( being totally off course).


Ah! Thank you.  Yes, I see what you mean, and agree with you about _matter_ being the subject of _go_.

I'm not very happy with the presentation of the image - bias did mean slope in Sidney's time.  Are you saying that these people who we respect and do not wish to laugh at, sometimes say things which provoke a contrary reaction in us.  We have to choke our laughter and are not pleased with ourselves - the central point is that laughter and delight don't go together in this case.

So the figure of going down against the slope stands for saying things with one intention and actually achieving another?


----------



## sb70012

This is the full context paragraph 6.

But our comedians think there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter. But well may one thing breed both together. Nay, rather in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature; laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling. For example, we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter. We laugh at deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight. We delight in good chances; we laugh at mischances. We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh; we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and *go down the hill against the bias*, in the mouth of some such men as, for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> Hullo, everyone.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> While you all are at it, would you be kind enough to enlighten me on the use of the personal pronoun "he" in this portion of the original text?
> Maybe an alternative to "... at which he that would laugh would be worthy to be laughed at"?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> GS


That's right, in my view, Giorgio. 

*At which the person who would laugh would be worthy to be laughed at *- at that time they often used the subjunctive where we would use the conditional.


----------



## sb70012

*1. Go downhill* = to gradually become worse. 
Examples: After his wife died, his health started to go downhill.

*2. Bias**=* supporting or opposing a person unfairly.
Example: The government has accused the media of bias.
There was clear evidence of a strong bias against her.

*3. Go down the hill against the bias = To make the principles worse. (to make the situation worse)

Source (No** 1** and **2**): Cambridge Dictionary.

No.** 3** was my interpretation.*


----------



## velisarius

Re post #14, I don't think he says we have to choke our laughter. We laugh in spite of ourselves, so we do in fact laugh but feel rather mean about it afterwards perhaps. I would compare it to seeing someone we love slip on a banana skin. We might laugh heartily, but be genuinely concerned for the person who fell, and so the laughter is not delight.

The figure of things going down the slope I see as meaning that: he starts out to say something serious but makes some kind of mistake, and maybe his attempts to extricate himself lead him further off course, which renders laughable whatever it was he was saying. It's a shame Sidney didn't give us an example. It might mean that the "matter" is mis-taken, i.e. misunderstood, and he speaks against the bias i.e. off topic. It might just mean an infelicitous expression of what the speaker was trying to say.

Re post#17 There is the possibility that "downhill against the bias" is an image taken from the game of bowls, which was popular at the time. I don't doubt that there is also the idea of going from bad to worse. It's difficult to be sure what exactly this idea refers to.


----------



## sb70012

Guys, don't you agree with my interpretation 3?


----------



## Thomas Tompion

I think that puts it very well, Velisarius.  That's very much how I see it too.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

sb70012 said:


> Guys, don't you agree with my interpretation 3?


If you look at our discussion, Sb, you'll see that we were thinking rather differently.


----------



## velisarius

Whew, I'm glad we got that sorted out then Mr. T.T.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Thank you, Velisarius.  You made all sorts of things clear which I initially found puzzling.


----------



## perpend

I think it's essentially a disingenuous laugh. Full stop.

And "period", too. 

When you are laughing, you feel you shouldn't, but you are trying to save face.


----------



## velisarius

I think that from what goes before in the same paragraph it's clear that he means to say "we delight in others' good fortune and laugh at others' misfortune". Does your theory fit in with that, perpend? I don't see it as having anything to do with saving face. So you're going with the idea of "against the bias" as "in spite of oneself". I suppose it could be, but I don't think so. How do you fit "in the mouth of some such men" into this scheme?


----------



## perpend

I think it's trying to describe two ways of laughing.

1) heartily, it's truly effen funny
2) facetiously. You don't really find it funny.

With 2), for me, you are trying to be congenial. Save face. Not go against the grain. You are laughing *in(to)* the mouth of some such men, who you want to please, because being impolite would not be agreeable.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

I'm intrigued by the figure and Velisarius's attribution of it to bowls.  The bias, caused by the irregular shape of the ball, makes the ball move in a curve rather than in a straight line.  I wondered when it came in and was pleased to find it was introduced to the English game, played by the gentry, like Sidney, in 1522, and so was a feature of the game which Sidney would have known.

Probably Sidney would have known lawns which were not flat, and the bias might be used to counteract a slope in the lawn.  Sidney seems to be talking about a ball in which the effect of the bias inadequately counteracts the effect of the slope and so the ball goes down the hill despite the bias.

The language of the original is made more complicated because at Sidney's time the word bias also meant slope.


----------



## velisarius

In Shakespeare's _Richard II_ , act III scene IV, we have "'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs and that my fortune runs against the bias". This is said by the queen when it is proposed she play a game of bowls and shows her sorrow and sense of foreboding. This seems to be "rubs" in the sense of "obstacles" on the lawn which throw the ball off course. Whatever the exact sense of the metaphor, "my fortune runs against the bias" shows that it is not considered a favourable thing to run against the bias.


----------



## perpend

But it's going down the hill against the bias.

I also conjure up "slope" here.


----------



## wandle

It seems to me that the subject of 'go' is 'we' and the expression 'we ... go down the hill ... in the mouth of some ... men' means 'we are spoken of badly by some men'.

I would paraphrase 





> we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such men as, for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.


as follows:

'_On the other hand, there are times when we will laugh because someone has made a gross mistake, and we then against our inclination suffer a loss of reputation among men we respect (men whom we respect so much that we are very sorry that we cannot help laughing in such a case) and as a result we feel pain instead of pleasure when laughing._'


----------



## perpend

@wandle, Have to ask outright: Do you have a doctorate in Religion (which could mean Philosophy).

If so, your answers are ahead of us non-believers, and we have to struggle to keep up.

I have to say that I agree with some of your scribes, but again, we cannot compete as mere mortals.

EDIT: Can you take it down a notch, and meet us in our terms?


----------



## wandle

Well, apart from the years of instruction I received in the Christian and partciularly Roman Catholic faith, I have done doctoral research in philosophy, including philosophy of mind and soul, which has religious implications.


----------



## perpend

Okay. I respect your answering that. Study/research truly plays a role.

Most of us can't really grasp your knowledge, which is there. = We can't relate, because we haven't studied.

*So*, that's how sometimes discussions get dicey.

Kudos, wandle, perpend.


----------



## PaulQ

My interpretation





> We delight in good chances; we laugh at mischances. We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh; we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such men as, for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.


= We are happy when we are fortunate, we laugh at (others’) misfortune. We are happy at the happiness of our friends and the population in instances where, if anyone laughed, they themselves would be laughed at.

On the other hand, we will laugh when we discover someone else has been confused and is ridiculed because of that misunderstanding, *and was naturally led astray because the circumstances had caused him to think one thing when, in reality, it was not like that at all.* And once he has discovered his mistake, because of his embarrassment, we would feel badly for him because all he can do is laugh, even though he is more pained than happy. 


go down the hill *against *the bias. = *caused by* the bias i.e. the bias of our own intuition – figurative from the game of bowls – bias – to be unconsciously turned from a course of action – to become deceived.

I am reminded of a pastiche of Shakespeare:

"Enough! Enough" I'm off to bed
To sleep off what I've just said."


----------



## Loob

I agree with velisarius's interpretation.

I see the part beginning "we shall, contrarily..." as meaning something like:
_On the other hand, we sometimes laugh when we hear people come out with misinterpretations and misdirections - even though, because we respect the people concerned, we're sorry to have to laugh at them, and as a result the laughter causes us pain rather than delight._

This is hard!


----------



## sb70012

Hello guys,
Everybody thanks for answering. But I have a maybe funny question of you:

Is it posible to rewrite this sentence in modern English? (we shall, go down the hill against the bias)

Is it possible to rewrite it in modern English?


----------



## velisarius

I found a fascinating discussion of the bowls-related idea of bias in Shakespeare's time at page 104, "The Accommodated Animal, Cosmopolity in Shakespeare's Locales", by Laurie Shannon: "Natural forward motion is not rectilinear, but a swerving "bias". Paradoxically, ... to follow one's own bias is not to swerve or deviate but to follow a particular law of one's own."

If this is so, then "Down the hill against the bias" might mean downhill and in the wrong direction. It doesn't help much in the sentence at hand, but I find the above explanation of the metaphor of the bias is very enlightening.


----------



## sb70012

Thank you.


----------



## lucas-sp

sb70012 said:


> We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh; we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such men as, for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.
> 
> Source: Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry (1554-1586)


OK, some of the interpretations here are getting a bit off-topic. It's really much simpler than that. Look at just this part:





> we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such men


This means, "We sometimes laugh when someone begins to say something, but ends up having his words get away from him so that he says something completely wrong or otherwise nonsensical." 

velisarius's notion of bowling is totally correct: the notion is that the ball was aimed at a target but instead "went down the hill [ = in the direction of play] against the bias [ = away from its target]." When the "matter goes down the hill against the bias in a man's mouth" it means "when a man lost control of his speech and misspoke." Either he utters an inanity or says something completely wrong. Slips of the tongue...

The end of the sentence, meanwhile, tells us what kind of "men" we are laughing at:





> in the mouth of some such men as, for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.


We're not just talking about any "men" here. We're talking about people we respect so much that we would prefer _not_ to laugh at - we would prefer to be able to control ourselves and not laugh at all. And since we end up laughing at people we admire against our will, our laughter brings us pain and not pleasure.

If I could summarize:

Sometimes people we really respect say stupid things, not on purpose of course, but just because they misspeak. Then we laugh, even though we don't want to laugh at _them_ because we respect them too much, and this makes us unhappy. In this case, laughter can be associated with pain, and not with delight.


----------



## lucas-sp

And just to say:





sb70012 said:


> Is it posible to rewrite this sentence in modern English? (we shall, go down the hill against the bias)


The sentence in question _isn't_ "we shall... go down the hill against the bias." It's the "matter" (the subject of speech) that is both "mistaken" and that "goes down the hill against the bias."


----------



## sb70012

Thank you very much dear *Lucas-sp*.
It was very useful.


----------



## sb70012

Just one more thing. How would you define the word (bias) in my text? Only (bias).

I mean does it mean (target)? You know why I asked you this question? because in my dictionary there is another meaning for (bias) which doesn't realte to my text. This is the main thing that made me confused.

Bias (in my dictionary) = an opinion about whether a person, group, or idea is good or bad which influences how you deal with it.

Examples: political bias in the press.
Students were evaluated without bias.


----------



## lucas-sp

This "bias" is related to "bias = slant, bent, prejudice," but is not the same. Here's the OED:





> *2.**Thesaurus »
> Categories »
> *​*a.* A term at bowls, applied alike to: The construction or form of the bowl imparting an oblique motion, the oblique line in which it runs, and the kind of impetus given to cause it to run obliquely. Thus a bowl is said ‘to have a wide or narrow bias,’ ‘to run with a great’ or ‘little bias’; the player ‘gives it more’ or ‘less bias’ in throwing it.


----------



## JustKate

I've read this paragraph several times now, and while most of it is pretty clear, that _downhill against the bias_ phrase is a puzzler. I did find this definition of _bias_ in the digital edition of Samuel Johnson's 1755 classic Dictionary of the English Language: "Any thing which turns a man to a particular course; or gives the direction to his measures" or (from the game of bowls that Velisarius mentions) "The weight lodged on one side of a bowl, which turns it from the straight line." So my guess - and it *is* a guess - is that _downhill against the bias_ means something along the lines of "making a mistake." We keep laughing even when we've made a mistake.


----------



## sb70012

Everybody thanks so much for answering to my dull question. I appreciate your answers.
My best wishes to Native English Speakers. Thanks.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

JustKate said:


> I've read this paragraph several times now, and while most of it is pretty clear, that _downhill against the bias_ phrase is a puzzler. I did find this definition of _bias_ in the digital edition of Samuel Johnson's 1755 classic Dictionary of the English Language: "Any thing which turns a man to a particular course; or gives the direction to his measures" or (from the game of bowls that Velisarius mentions) "The weight lodged on one side of a bowl, which turns it from the straight line." So my guess - and it *is* a guess - is that _downhill against the bias_ means something along the lines of "making a mistake." We keep laughing even when we've made a mistake.


Tiny point, Kate.  The bias is not these days imparted by weights, but by the fact that the bowls aren't spherical.  Actually in several forms of bowls it's against the rules to play with weighted bowls.

Nor, apparently, were weights used originally (in 1522) to cause the deviation.  The first biased British bowl was the result of an aristocrat making a bowl out of a broken baluster from a staircase, which was not perfectly spherical, of course: I remember reading this somewhere.


----------



## JustKate

Thomas Tompion said:


> Tiny point, Kate.  The bias is not these days imparted by weights, but by the fact that the bowls aren't spherical.  Actually in several forms of bowls it's against the rules to play with weighted bowls.
> 
> Nor, apparently, were weights used originally (in 1522) to cause the deviation.  The first biased British bowl was the result of an aristocrat making a bowl out of a broken baluster from a staircase, which was not perfectly spherical, of course: I remember reading this somewhere.



Either things have changed since Johnson's day or he got it wrong. But hey, he wrote the entire thing himself, if I'm remembering correctly, which was an e*nor*mous job, so he was bound to get some stuff wrong.


----------



## lucas-sp

Actually, it's just as logical to read the sentence as stating that we "go down..." (we make a mistake by laughing), or that the matter "goes down... in the speaker's mouth" (he makes a mistake in speaking). 

The Shakespeare examples make it super-clear that "down the hill against the bias" means "astray," "off its proper/intended course."


----------



## lucas-sp

And for those ball-lovers among us, the OED lexicographers have this to say about the bias of pitched balls in English:





> It is difficult to decide in which sense exactly _bias_ was here first used. A priori we think of the oblique line of motion: this is favoured also by the quotations under C.   and bias-wise _adv._; yet early quotations here point rather to the oblique one-sided structure or shape of the bowl. Formerly bias was given by loading the bowls on one side with lead, and this itself was sometimes called the _bias_; they are now made of very heavy wood, teak or ebony, and the bias given entirely by their shape, which is that of a sphere slightly flattened on one side and protuberant on the other, as if composed of the halves of an oblate and a prolate spheroid.


So they agree with Johnson, but they're also acknowledging some speculation on their part.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

lucas-sp said:


> Actually, it's just as logical to read the sentence as stating that we "go down..." (we make a mistake by laughing), or that the matter "goes down... in the speaker's mouth" (he makes a mistake in speaking).
> 
> The Shakespeare examples make it super-clear that "down the hill against the bias" means "astray," "off its proper/intended course."


I think it might be thought more logical to hold that we go down, because, if it's the matter which goes down, wouldn't one need to say *gone* down to form the parallel with *mistaken*?

"we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and gone down the hill against the bias"?


----------



## lucas-sp

Not really. It might be poor style, but read the sentence without "quite mistaken," and remember that "find" means "see, observe, witness":

... laugh to find a matter go down the hill against the bias...

That seems like it's possible in the more antique English of the original text.

My instinct is that the notion of _our_​ impropriety comes out strongly in the second half of the sentence, and that this first part is more interested in the kinds of mistakes that can be made in speaking that cause us to laugh.


----------



## wandle

lucas-sp said:


> That seems like it's possible in the more antique English of the original text.


I would say it is perfectly possible in current English.

I must revise my view on the main point. *Lucas-sp* has shown the way. What led me to my earlier view was the apparent contradiction involved in 'go downhill against the bias'. After all, you would expect a bowl to roll down a slope because of gravity, but at the same time to go with the bias, not against it, because the bias is a weight that pulls it to one side or a shape that has the same result. It is difficult to imagine that that result would not follow as the bowl rolls down a slope.
However, the bias need not be a weight attached to one side of the ball, or a shape that has a similar effect. It can simply be the curve or direction imparted by the action of the player.

Taking bias in this latter sense, it is quite possible for a slope to take the bowl away from the line imparted to it by the player. This gives us the meaning: a discussion which follows a false line because of a misunderstanding.

As I see it now, the player who gives the bowl a bias by the way he rolls it is the person who starts the discussion by making a point which he intends with a specific meaning. Then he finds that the other people present take his point up in quite the wrong sense (he finds the matter quite mistaken in the mouth of some men).
Then he sees the discussion developing rapidly on the wrong line, against his intention: against the meaning which he had given it in the first place (he finds the matter go downhill against the bias in the mouth of those present).

I would now paraphrase as follows:


> we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such men as, for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.


_'On the other hand, there are times when we will laugh because we find our point completely misunderstood, and the discussion going down a line contrary to our intention, on the part of men whom we respect so much that we are very sorry that we cannot help laughing in such a case, and as a result we feel pain instead of pleasure when laughing.' _


----------



## sb70012

Oh, my god every one gives different answer. 
Thanks for answering dear *Wandle*.
It was useful.


----------



## lucas-sp

sb70012 said:


> Oh, my god every one gives different answer.


Just remember, English is a foreign language for us native speakers too!

Sometimes, particularly with these examples of very old (to us) English, speakers of contemporary English cannot easily understand what is meant, or the language has changed enough to make certain sentences very ambiguous.

The good news? Even though there's no one clear meaning, this means that your _interpretation_ - if you can back it up with a solid paraphrase of the original sentence, and if it helps us understand the meaning of the sentence in a more nuanced and interesting way - is as good, and as valid, as ours might be.


----------



## sb70012

Yes I do agree with you. I wish language didn't change this much. But thanks.


----------

