Still waters run deep is a

proverb A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phra ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

origin now commonly taken to mean that a placid exterior hides a passionate or subtle nature. Formerly it also carried the warning that silent people are dangerous, as in Suffolk's comment on a fellow lord in

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's play '' Henry VI part 2'': :::Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep, :::And in his simple show he harbours treason... :::No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man :::Unsounded yet and full of deep deceit. According to ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs'', the first mention of the proverb appeared in Classical times in the form ''altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi'' (the deepest rivers flow with least sound) in a history of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

by Quintus Rufus Curtius and is there claimed as being of

Bactria Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, southwe ...

n origin. The earliest use in English sources goes back to 1400.

The fable

In about 1490 the Italian writer

Laurentius Abstemius Laurentius Abstemius (c. 1440–1508) was an Italian writer and professor of philology, born at Macerata in Ancona. His learned name plays on his family name of Bevilaqua (Drinkwater), and he was also known by the Italian name Lorenzo Astemio. A ...

expanded the proverb into a short fable in Latin titled ''De rustico amnem transituro'' in his ''Hecatomythium'' and this was subsequently included in European collections of Aesop's fables. In 1692

Roger L'Estrange Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of Kin ...

included an outline of the Abstemius version in his edition of the fables under the title of ''A Country-man and a River'', along with the interpretation that men of few words are dangerous: :A Country-man that was to pass a River, sounded it up and down to try where it was most fordable: and upon Trial he made this Observation on't: Where the Water ran Smooth, he found it Deepest; and on the contrary, Shallowest where it made most Noise. ''There's More Danger in a Reserv'd and Silent, than in a Noisy, Babbling Enemy.'' Slightly earlier than L'Estrange's translation, there was an amplified version of the story in

La Fontaine's Fables Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered cla ...

under the title "The torrent and the river" (''Le torrent et la rivière'', VIII.23). It tells of a man trying to escape a robber who easily fords a turbulent stream but drowns in a smooth-flowing river, ending on the caution that 'Silent folk are dangerous'. An English version
/ref> The French proverb that is the nearest equivalent to the English 'still waters run deep' also emphasizes this danger: 'no water is worse than quiet water' (''Il n’est pire eau que l’eau qui dort''). When the caricaturist J. J. Grandville illustrated La Fontaine's fable, he further underlined this meaning by transposing it into a seduction scene. In the background a capering donkey and a shrew are advancing along the road, watched by a woman whose hands are clasped by a sleek cat. Unnoticed at her feet, a snake is slithering through the grass.

References

{{Reflist Aesop's Fables Fables by Laurentius Abstemius La Fontaine's Fables Proverbs