Meaning of "I shut my tongue against my fly" From Aurora Leigh: > Poor child! I would have mended it with gold, > Until it gleamed like St. Sophia's dome > When all the faithful troop to morning prayer: > But he, he nipped the bud of such a thought > With that cold Leigh look which I fancied once, > And broke in, 'Henceforth she was called his wife. > 'His wife required no succour: he was bound > 'To Florence, to resume this broken bond: > 'Enough so. Both were happy, he and Howe, > 'To acquit me of the heaviest charge of all–' > – **At which I shut my tongue against my fly** > And struck him; 'Would he carry,–he was just,– > 'A letter from me to Aurora Leigh, > 'And ratify from his authentic mouth > 'My answer to her accusation?'–'Yes, > 'If such a letter were prepared in time.' > –He's just, your cousin,–ay, abhorrently. What does this mean? Is it some saying or proverb?

The first edition of the poem (Chapman & Hall, London, 1857) has _shot_ , not _shut_ :

> –At which I shot my tongue against my fly
> And struck him;

Subsequent editions by Chapman & Hall also have _shot_ ; the Internet Archive has the third (1857) and fifth (1860) editions. It was in the early U.S. editions, for example C. S. Francis & Co., New York (1857) that the word was changed to _shut_.

Almost certainly _shut_ is a misprint, because the change makes nonsense of the line, while the original version is quite clear: it is a metaphor in which the writer of the letter (Lady Waldemar) imagines herself a frog shooting out her tongue at a fly and striking it (‘him’). In the metaphor the fly stands for Romney Leigh, whom she has caught in her trap.