What does this mean?

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He who has suffered you to impose on him knows you. It's written a little bit differently where it's from but this is pretty much it. It's one of the proverbs of hell from the marriage of heaven and hell by William blake.

according to wikisource-

*The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive.

*And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity.
*Until a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects; thus began Priesthood.
*Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
*And at length they pronounced that the gods had orderd such things.
*Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.
IOW we are both the gods and the subjects of the gods.

He who has suffered you to impose on him is a man to whom you owe a debt of gratitude, to whom you would be in a tight spot if you aren't on his good side. So you say what he says, think what he thinks, believe what he believes, pray how and where and when he prays, and you keep a roof over your head and food in your belly.

Knowledge is power. More specifically, social power (kyriarchal dominance), such as that of the Imposed-Upon, confers influence over the ontology and epistemology of and/or applicable to the dominated, and thus their very conception of knowledge itself.

He who has suffered you to impose on him knows you, because he to whom you are indebted defines your knowledge.

He who puts up with your crap knows you well enough to be willing to do so.

...: "knows you"=weaknesses, strengths, how you pick your nose when no one is looking, that you make really good s'mores casserole. Whatever. Rhody is right about the knowledge part- that person knows what you are lacking if you need their help. I mean, I think it could be taken as a warning or a condolence, but it would depend on context.

It's a friend.

It means someone whom you've imposed upon knows you real well.


Kinda like "No man is a hero to his valet".