Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer [e reader comics TXT] 📗
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“It is like a barber’s chair” (“All’s Well that Ends Well,” ii. 2).
The following passage, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 2):
Nought shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again,
And all shall be well,”
refers to the popular proverb of olden times, says Staunton, signifying “all ended happily.” So, too, Biron says, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):
Jack hath not Jill.”
It occurs in Skelton’s poem “Magnyfycence” (Dyce, ed. i. p. 234): “Jack shall have Gyl;” and in Heywood’s “Dialogue” (Sig. F. 3, 1598):
“Kindness will creep where it cannot go.” Thus, in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (iv. 2), Proteus tells Thurio how
Will creep in service where it cannot go.”
There is a Scotch proverb, “Kindness will creep whar it mauna gang.”
“Let the world slide” (“Taming of the Shrew,” Induction, sc. i.).
“Let them laugh that win.” Othello says (iv. 1):
On the other hand, the French say, “Marchand qui perd ne peut rire.”
“Like will to like, as the devil said to the collier.” With this we may compare the following passage in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 4): “What, man! ’tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan: hang him, foul collier!”—collier having been, in Shakespeare’s day, a term of the highest reproach.
“Losers have leave to talk.” Titus Andronicus (iii. 1) says:
To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.”
“Maids say nay, and take.” So Julia, in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (i. 2), says:
Which they would have the profferer construe ‘Ay.’”
In “The Passionate Pilgrim” we read:
A woman’s nay doth stand for nought?”
“Make hay while the sun shines.” King Edward, in “3 Henry VI.” (iv. 8), alludes to this proverb:
Cold, biting winter mars our hop’d-for hay.”
The above proverb is peculiar to England, and, as Trench remarks, could have its birth only under such variable skies as ours.
“Many talk of Robin Hood that never shot in his bow.” So, in “2 Henry IV.” (iii. 2), Justice Shallow, says Falstaff, “talks as familiarly of John o’ Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I’ll be sworn a’ never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard,—and then he burst his head, for crowding among the marshal’s men.”
“Marriage and hanging go by destiny.”[883] This proverb is the popular creed respecting marriage, and, under a variety of forms, is found in different countries. Thus, in “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 9), Nerissa says:
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.”
Again, in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (i. 3) the Clown says:
Which men full true shall find;
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind.”
We may compare the well-known proverb, “Marriages are made in heaven,” and the French version, “Les mariages sont écrits dans le ciel.”
“Marriage as bad as hanging.” In “Twelfth Night” (i. 5), the Clown says: “Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.”
“Marry trap” (“Merry Wives of Windsor,” i. 1). This, says Nares, “is apparently a kind of proverbial exclamation, as much as to say, ‘By Mary, you are caught.’”
“Meat was made for mouths.” Quoted in “Coriolanus” (i. 1).
“Misfortunes seldom come alone.” This proverb is beautifully alluded to by the King in “Hamlet” (iv. 5):
But in battalions.”
The French say:[884] “Malheur ne vient jamais seul.”
“More hair than wit” (“Two Gentlemen of Verona,” iii. 2). A well-known old English proverb.
“Mortuo leoni et lepores insultant.” This proverb is alluded to by the Bastard in “King John” (ii. 1), who says to the Archduke of Austria:
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.”
“Much water goes by the mill the miller knows not of.” This adage is quoted in “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 1), by Demetrius:
Than wots the miller of.”
“My cake is dough” (“Taming of the Shrew,” v. 1). An obsolete proverb, repeated on the loss of hope or expectation: the allusion being to the old-fashioned way of baking cakes at the embers, when it may have been occasionally the case for a cake to be burned on one side and dough on the other. In a former scene (i. 1) Gremio says: “our cake’s dough on both sides.” Staunton quotes from “The Case is Altered,” 1609:
“Murder will out.” So, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 2), Launcelot says: “Murder cannot be hid long,—a man’s son may; but, in the end, truth will out.”
“Near or far off, well won is still well shot” (“King John,” i. 1).
“Needs must when the devil drives.” In “All’s Well that Ends Well” (i. 3), the Clown tells the Countess: “I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go, that the devil drives.”
“Neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.”[885] Falstaff says of the Hostess in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3): “Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.”
“One nail drives out another.” In “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 2), Benvolio says:
One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.”
The allusion, of course, is to homœopathy. The Italians say, “Poison quells poison.”
“Old men are twice children;” or, as they say in Scotland, “Auld men are twice bairns.” We may compare the Greek Δἱς παῖδες οἱ γεροντες. The proverb occurs in “Hamlet” (ii. 2): “An old man is twice a child.”
“Out of God’s blessing into the warm sun.” So Kent says in “King Lear” (ii. 2):
Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st
To the warm sun.”
“Patience perforce is a medicine for a mad dog.” This proverb is probably alluded to by Tybalt in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 5):
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.”
And again, in “Richard III.” (i. 1):
“Pitch and Pay” (“Henry V.,” ii. 3). This is a proverbial expression equivalent to “Pay down at once.”[886] It probably originated from pitching goods in a market, and paying immediately for their standing. Tusser, in his “Description of Norwich,” calls it:
Where strangers well may seem to dwell,
That pitch and pay, or keep their day.”
“Pitchers have ears.” Baptista quotes this proverb in the “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 4):
According to another old proverb: “Small pitchers have great ears.”
“Poor and proud! fy, fy.” Olivia, in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 1), says:
“Praise in departing” (“The Tempest,” iii. 3). The meaning is: “Do not praise your entertainment too soon, lest you should have reason to retract your commendation.” Staunton quotes from “The Paradise of Dainty Devises,” 1596:
For few do like the meane degree, then praise at parting some men say.”
“Pray God, my girdle break”[887] (“1 Henry IV.,” iii. 3).
“Put your finger in the fire and say it was your fortune.” An excellent illustration of this proverb is given by Edmund in “King Lear” (i. 2): “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion,” etc.
“Respice finem, respice furem.” It has been suggested that Shakespeare (“Comedy of Errors,” iv. 4) may have met with these words in a popular pamphlet of his time, by George Buchanan, entitled “Chamæleon Redivivus; or, Nathaniel’s Character Reversed”—a satire against the Laird of Lidingstone, 1570, which concludes with the following words, “Respice finem, respice furem.”
“Seldom comes the better.” In “Richard III.” (ii. 3), one of the citizens says:
I fear, I fear, ’twill prove a troublous world”
—a proverbial saying of great antiquity. Mr. Douce[888] cites an account of its origin from a MS. collection of stories in Latin, compiled about the time of Henry III.
“Service is no inheritance.” So, in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (i. 3), the Clown says: “Service is no heritage.”
“Sit thee down, sorrow” (“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” i. 1).
“Sit at the stern.” A proverbial phrase meaning to have the management of public affairs. So, in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 1), Winchester says:
And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.”
“She has the mends in her own hands.” This proverbial phrase is of frequent occurrence in our old writers, and probably signifies, “It is her own fault;” or, “The remedy lies with herself.” It is used by Pandarus in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 1). Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” writes: “And if men will be jealous in such cases, the mends is in their own hands, they must thank themselves.”
“Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace” (“Richard III.,” ii. 4).
“So wise so young, do ne’er live long” (“Richard III.,” iii. 1).[889]
“So like you, ’tis the worse.” This is quoted as an old proverb by Paulina in the “Winter’s Tale” (ii. 3).
“Something about, a little from the right” (“King John,” i. 1).
“Sowed cockle, reap no corn” (“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” iv. 3).
“Speak by the card” (“Hamlet,” v. 1). A merchant’s expression, equivalent to “be as precise as a map or book.” The card is the document in writing containing the agreement made between a merchant and the captain of a vessel. Sometimes the owner binds himself, ship, tackle, and furniture, for due performance, and the captain is bound to declare the cargo committed to him in good condition. Hence, “to speak by the card” is to speak according to the indentures or written instructions.
“Still swine eat all the draff” (“Merry Wives of Windsor,” iv. 2). Ray gives: “The still sow eats up all the draught.”
“Still waters run deep.” So in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 1), Suffolk says:
“Strike sail.” A proverbial phrase to acknowledge one’s self beaten. In “3 Henry VI.” (iii. 3), it occurs:
Must strike her sail and learn awhile to serve,
Where kings command.”
When a ship,
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