- English translation
Your coldness is easier to take than your house standing empty of you.
- Literal wording
Your harshness, and not the emptiness of your house.
- Meaning and lesson
The speaker compares two painful outcomes and accepts the lighter one. Being treated with coldness or turned away by someone hurts, but it is judged far more bearable than that person being gone altogether.
What matters most is the addressee's continued presence, valued even when it brings no warmth. Their house left empty is simply an image of their absence, not a sign that the two share a home; that absence is the harm the speaker dreads, so neglect from someone still there is accepted.
- When it is used
Fits moments when someone has grown distant, harsh or neglectful, and the speaker wants them to know that such treatment is still preferable to losing them entirely. Framed as direct address, it suits being said straight to the person concerned.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Your coldness is easier to take than your house standing empty of you.