A state of doubt or suspense regarding the out- come of something. The balance referred to is the old weighing device in which an object to be weighed is put in one pan and weights of known quantity are added one by one to the other pan, until the two are balanced. The unknown weight here is fate—that is, the outcome. The expression dates at least from the fifteenth century; it appeared in John Lydgate’s trans- lation of the Fall of Princes (1430) and has been used ever since.
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