Choice. Dilemma. Comparison
Pick and choose, and take the worst.
The lass that has mony wooers aft wales [chooses] the warst.—Scotch.
Refuse a wife with one fault, and take one with two.—Welsh.
“He that has a choice has trouble” (Dutch).572 “He that chooses takes the worst” (French).573
Of two evils choose the least.
Where bad is the best, naught must be the choice.
A traveller in America, inquiring his way, was told there were two roads, one long, and the other short, and that it mattered not which he took. Surprised at such a direction, he asked, “Can there be a doubt about the choice between the long and the short?” and the answer was, “Why, no matter which of the two you take, you will not have gone far in it before you will wish from the bottom of your heart that you had taken t’other.”
“There’s ne’er a best among them,” as the fellow said of the fox cubs.
As good eat the devil as the broth he’s boiled in.
Out of the fryingpan into the fire.
To escape from one evil and incur another as bad or worse is an idea expressed in many proverbial metaphors; e.g., “To come out of the rain under the spout” (German).574 “Flying from the bull, I fell into the river” (Spanish).575 “To break the constable’s head and take refuge with the sheriff” (Spanish).576 “To shun Charybdis and strike upon Scylla” is a well-known phrase, which almost everybody supposes to have been current among the ancients. It is not to be found, however, in any classical author, but appears for the first time in the Alexandriad of Philip Gaultier, a medieval Latin poet. In his fifth book he thus apostrophises Darius when flying from Alexander:—
“Nescis, heu! perdite, nescis
Quem fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem;
Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim.”
Go forward, and fall; go backward, and mar all.
“A precipice ahead; wolves behind” (Latin).577 “To be between the hammer and the anvil” (French).578
You may go farther and fare worse.
To be between the devil and the deep sea.
The one-eyed is a king in the land of the blind.
“A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by.”
“Where there are no dogs the fox is a king” (Italian).579
They that be in hell think there is no other heaven.
It is good to have two strings to one’s bow.
It is good riding at two anchors.
He is no fox that hath but one hole.
The mouse that has but one hole is soon caught. (Latin)580
Do not put all your eggs in one basket;
nor “too many of them under one hen” (Dutch).581 “Hang not all upon one nail” (German),582 nor risk your whole fortune upon one venture.
Comparisons are odious.
Footnotes
572 Die keur heeft, heeft angst.
573 Qui choisit prend le pire.
574 Aus dem hegen unter die Traufe kommen.
575 Huyendo del tore, cayó en el arroyo.
576 Descalabrar el alguacil, y accogerse al corregidor.
577 A fronte præcipitium, a tergo lupi.
578 Être entre le marteau et l’enclume.
579 Dove non sono i cani, la volpe è re.
580 Mus uni non fidit antro.—Plautus.
581 Man moet niet te viel eijeren onder eene hen leggen.
582 Henke nicht alles auf einen Nagel.