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pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[3:5]

Canterbury Tales. The Reves Tale. Line 6069.

And for to see, and eek for to be seie.[3:6]

Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Prologue. Line 6134.

[4]

I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke,

That hath but on hole for to sterten to.[4:1]

Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Prologue. Line 6154.

Loke who that is most vertuous alway,

Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay

To do the gentil dedes that he can,

And take him for the gretest gentilman.

Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Tale. Line 6695.

That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.[4:2]

Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Tale. Line 6752.

This flour of wifly patience.

Canterbury Tales. The Clerkes Tale. Part v. Line 8797.

They demen gladly to the badder end.

Canterbury Tales. The Squieres Tale. Line 10538.

Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone,

That shall eat with a fend.[4:3]

Canterbury Tales. The Squieres Tale. Line 10916.

Fie on possession,

But if a man be vertuous withal.

Canterbury Tales. The Frankeleines Prologue. Line 10998.

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.

Canterbury Tales. The Frankeleines Tale. Line 11789.

Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.[4:4]

Canterbury Tales. The Monkes Tale. Line 1449.

[5]

Mordre wol out, that see we day by day.[5:1]

Canterbury Tales. The Nonnes Preestes Tale. Line 15058.

But all thing which that shineth as the gold

Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.[5:2]

Canterbury Tales. The Chanones Yemannes Tale. Line 16430.

The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere,

Is to restreine and kepen wel thy tonge.

Canterbury Tales. The Manciples Tale. Line 17281.

The proverbe saith that many a smale maketh a grate.[5:3]

Canterbury Tales. Persones Tale.

Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese.[5:4]

Troilus and Creseide. Book ii. Line 470.

Right as an aspen lefe she gan to quake.

Troilus and Creseide. Book ii. Line 1201.

For of fortunes sharpe adversite,

The worst kind of infortune is this,—

A man that hath been in prosperite,

And it remember whan it passed is.

Troilus and Creseide. Book iii. Line 1625.

[6]

He helde about him alway, out of drede,

A world of folke.

Troilus and Creseide. Book iii. Line 1721.

One eare it heard, at the other out it went.[6:1]

Troilus and Creseide. Book iv. Line 435.

Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun.[6:2]

Troilus and Creseide. Book iv. Line 525.

I am right sorry for your heavinesse.

Troilus and Creseide. Book v. Line 146.

Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!

Troilus and Creseide. Book v. Line 1798.

Your duty is, as ferre as I can gesse.

The Court of Love. Line 178.

The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne,[6:3]

Th' assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.

The Assembly of Fowles. Line 1.

For out of the old fieldes, as men saithe,

Cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere;

And out of old bookes, in good faithe,

Cometh al this new science that men lere.

The Assembly of Fowles. Line 22.

Nature, the vicar of the Almightie Lord.

The Assembly of Fowles. Line 379.

O little booke, thou art so unconning,

How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?

The Flower and the Leaf. Line 59.

Of all the floures in the mede,

Than love I most these floures white and rede,

Soch that men callen daisies in our toun.

Prologue of the Legend of Good Women. Line 41.

That well by reason men it call may

The daisie, or els the eye of the day,

The emprise, and floure of floures all.

Prologue of the Legend of Good Women. Line 183.

For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away.[6:4]

The Ten Commandments of Love.

Footnotes

[2:1] In allusion to the proverb, "Every honest miller has a golden thumb."

[2:2] Fieldes have eies and woodes have eares.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.

Wode has erys, felde has sigt.—King Edward and the Shepard, MS. Circa 1300.

Walls have ears.—Hazlitt: English Proverbs, etc. (ed. 1869) p. 446.

[3:1] Also in Troilus and Cresseide, line 1587.

To make a virtue of necessity.—Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. sc. 2. Matthew Henry: Comm. on Ps. xxxvii. Dryden: Palamon and Arcite.

In the additions of Hadrianus Julius to the Adages of Erasmus, he remarks, under the head of Necessitatem edere, that a very familiar proverb was current among his countrymen,—"Necessitatem in virtutem commutare" (To make necessity a virtue).

Laudem virtutis necessitati damus (We give to necessity the praise of virtue).—Quintilian: Inst. Orat. i. 8. 14.

[3:2] Haste makes waste.—Heywood: Proverbs, part i. chap. ii.

Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 357.

[3:3] Ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.—Plutarch: Life of Pericles.

[3:4] E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.—Gray: Elegy, Stanza 23.

[3:5] Frieth in her own grease.—Heywood: Proverbs, part i. chap. xi.

[3:6] To see and to be seen.—Ben Jonson: Epithalamion, st. iii. line 4. Goldsmith: Citizen of the World, letter 71.

Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ (They come to see; they come that they themselves may be seen).—Ovid: The Art of Love, i. 99.

[4:1] Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts his life to one hole only.—Plautus: Truculentus, act iv. sc. 4.

The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole

Can never be a mouse of any soul.

Pope: Paraphrase of the Prologue, line 298.

[4:2] Handsome is that handsome does.—Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield, chap. i.

[4:3] Hee must have a long spoon, shall eat with the devill.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.

He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.—Shakespeare: Comedy of Errors, act iv. sc. 3.

[4:4] Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said, "To know one's self."—Diogenes Laertius: Thales, ix.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

The proper study of mankind is man.

Pope: Epistle ii. line 1.

[5:1]

Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ.

Shakespeare: Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2.

[5:2] Tyrwhitt says this is taken from the Parabolae of Alanus de Insulis, who died in 1294,—Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum (Do not hold everything as gold which shines like gold).

All is not golde that outward shewith bright.—Lydgate: On the Mutability of Human Affairs.

Gold all is not that doth golden seem.—Spenser: Faerie Queene, book ii. canto viii. st. 14.

All that glisters is not gold.—Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, act ii. sc. 7. Googe: Eglogs, etc., 1563. Herbert: Jacula Prudentum.

All is not gold that glisteneth.—Middleton: A Fair Quarrel, verse 1.

All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.—Dryden: The Hind and the Panther.

Que tout n'est pas or c'on voit luire (Everything is not gold that one sees shining).—Li Diz de freire Denise Cordelier, circa 1300.

[5:3] Many small make a great.—Heywood: Proverbes. part i. chap. xi.

[5:4] Of two evils the less is always to be chosen.—Thomas à Kempis: Imitation of Christ, book ii. chap. xii. Hooker: Polity, book v. chap. lxxxi.

Of two evils I have chose the least.—Prior: Imitation of Horace.

E duobus malis minimum eligendum (Of two evils, the least should be chosen).—Erasmus: Adages. Cicero: De Officiis, iii. 1.

[6:1] Went in at the tone eare and out at the tother.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. ix.

[6:2] This wonder lasted nine daies.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. i.

[6:3] Ars longa, vita brevis (Art is long: life is brief).—Hippocrates: Aphorism i.

[6:4] Three may keepe counsayle, if two be away.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.

[7]

THOMAS À KEMPIS. 1380-1471.

Man proposes, but God disposes.[7:1]

Imitation of Christ. Book i. Chap. 19.

And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.[7:2]

Imitation of Christ. Book i. Chap. 23.

Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.[7:3]

Imitation of Christ. Book iii. Chap. 12.

Footnotes

[7:1] This expression is of much greater antiquity. It appears in the Chronicle of Battel Abbey, p. 27 (Lower's translation), and in The Vision of Piers Ploughman, line 13994. ed. 1550.

A man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.—Proverbs xvi. 9.

[7:2] Out of syght, out of mynd.—Googe: Eglogs. 1563.

And out of mind as soon as out of sight.

Lord Brooke: Sonnet lvi.

Fer from eze, fer from herte,

Quoth Hendyng.

Hendyng: Proverbs, MSS. Circa 1320.

I do perceive that the old proverbis be not alwaies trew, for I do finde that the absence of my Nath. doth breede in me the more continuall remembrance of him.—Anne Lady Bacon to Jane Lady Cornwallis, 1613.

On page 19 of The Private Correspondence of Lady Cornwallis, Sir Nathaniel Bacon speaks of the owlde proverbe, "Out of sighte, out of mynde."

[7:3] See Chaucer, page 5.

JOHN FORTESCUE. Circa 1395-1485.

Moche Crye and no Wull.[7:4]

De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ. Chap. x.

Comparisons are odious.[7:5]

De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ. Chap. xix.

Footnotes

[7:4] All cry and no wool.—Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 852.

[7:5] Cervantes: Don Quixote (Lockhart's ed.), part ii. chap. i. Lyly: Euphues, 1580. Marlowe: Lust's Dominion, act iii. sc. 4. Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. 3. Thomas Heywood: A Woman killed with Kindness (first ed. in 1607), act i. sc. 1. Donne: Elegy, viii. Herbert: Jacula Prudentum. Grange: Golden Aphrodite.