Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer [e reader comics TXT] 📗
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“Strike while the iron is hot.” Poins probably alludes to this proverb in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4): “My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge, and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.”
Again, in “King Lear” (i. 1), Goneril adds: “We must do something, and i’ the heat.”
“Take all, pay all” (“Merry Wives of Windsor,” ii. 2). Ray gives another version of this proverb: “Take all, and pay the baker.”
“Tell the truth and shame the devil.” In “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1), Hotspur tells Glendower:
By telling truth: tell truth, and shame the devil.”
“That was laid on with a trowel.”[891] This proverb, which is quoted by Ray, is used by Celia in “As You Like It” (i. 2). Thus we say, when any one bespatters another with gross flattery, that he lays it on with a trowel.
“The cat loves fish, but she’s loath to wet her feet.” It is to this proverb that Lady Macbeth alludes when she upbraids her husband for his irresolution (“Macbeth,” i. 7):
Like the poor cat i’ the adage.”
There are various forms of this proverb. Thus, according to the rhyme:
But she’s loath to wet her feet.”
The French version is “Le chat aime le poisson mais il n’aime pas à mouiller la patte”—so that it would seem Shakespeare borrowed from the French.
“The devil rides on a fiddlestick” (“1 Henry IV.,” ii. 4).
“The galled jade will wince.” So Hamlet says (iii. 2), “let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.”
“The grace o’ God is gear enough.” This is the Scotch form of the proverb which Launcelot Gobbo speaks of as being well parted between Bassanio and Shylock, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 2): “The old proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir; you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough.”
“The Mayor of Northampton opens oysters with his dagger.” This proverb is alluded to by Pistol in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 2), when he says:
Which I with sword will open.”
Northampton being some eighty miles from the sea, oysters were so stale before they reached the town (before railroads, or even coaches, were known), that the “Mayor would be loath to bring them near his nose.”
“The more haste the worse speed.” In “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 6), Friar Laurence says:
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
The proverb thus alluded to seems to be derived from the Latin adage, “Festinatio tarda est.” It defeats its own purpose by the blunders and imperfect work it occasions.[892] Hence the French say: “He that goes too hastily along often stumbles on a fair road.”
“There is flattery in friendship”—used by the Constable of France in “Henry V.” (iii. 7); the usual form of this proverb being: “There is falsehood in friendship.”
“There was but one way” (“Henry V.,” ii. 3). “This,” says Dyce, “is a kind of proverbial expression for death.” (“Glossary,” p. 494.)
“The weakest goes to the wall.” This is quoted by Gregory in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 1), whereupon Sampson adds: “Women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore, I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.”
“There went but a pair of shears between them” (“Measure for Measure,” i. 2). That is, “We are both of the same piece.”
“The world goes on wheels.” This proverbial expression occurs in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 7); and Taylor, the Water-Poet, has made it the subject of one of his pamphlets: “The worlde runnes on wheeles, or, oddes betwixt carts and coaches.”
“Three women and a goose make a market.” This proverb is alluded to in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iii. 1):
Then the boy’s fat l’envoy, the goose that you bought;
And he ended the market.”
The following lines in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 6),
That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next,”
allude to the Adonis horti, which were nothing but portable earthen pots, with some lettuce or fennel growing in them. On his yearly festival every woman carried one of them in honor of Adonis, because Venus had once laid him in a lettuce bed. The next day they were thrown away. The proverb seems to have been used always in a bad sense, for things which make a fair show for a few days and then wither away. The Dauphin is here made to apply it as an encomium. There is a good account of it in Erasmus’s “Adagia;” but the idea may have been taken from the “Fairy Queen,” bk. iii. cant. 6, st. 42 (Singer’s “Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. vi. p. 32).
“To clip the anvil of my sword.” “This expression, in ‘Coriolanus’ (iv. 5) is very difficult to be explained,” says Mr. Green, “unless we regard it as a proverb, denoting the breaking of the weapon and the laying aside of enmity. Aufidius makes use of it in his welcome to the banished Coriolanus.”
The anvil of my sword; and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love,
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valour.”
“To have a month’s mind to a thing.” Ray’s “Proverbs.” So, in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (i. 2), Julia says:
“’Tis merry in hall when beards wag all.”[894] This is quoted by Silence in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3):
For women are shrews, both short and tall;
’Tis merry in hall when beards wag all,
And welcome merry shrove-tide.
Be merry, be merry.”
“To have one in the wind.” This is one of Camden’s proverbial sentences. In “All’s Well that Ends Well” (iii. 6), Bertram says:
And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,
By this same coxcomb that we have i’ the wind,
Tokens and letters which she did re-send.”
“To hold a candle to the devil”—that is, “to aid or countenance that which is wrong.” Thus, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 6), Jessica says:
—the allusion being to the practice of the Roman Catholics who burn candles before the image of a favorite saint, carry them in funeral processions, and place them on their altars.
“To the dark house” (“All’s Well that Ends Well,” ii. 3). A house which is the seat of gloom and discontent.
“Truth should be silent.” Enobarbus, in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 2), says: “That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.”
“To take mine ease in mine inn.” A proverbial phrase used by Falstaff in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3), implying, says Mr. Drake, “a degree of comfort which has always been the peculiar attribute of an English house of public entertainment.”[895]
“Twice away says stay” (“Twelfth Night,” v. 1). Malone thinks this proverb is alluded to by the Clown: “conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then, the worse for my friends and the better for my foes;” and quotes Marlowe’s “Last Dominion,” where the Queen says to the Moor:
“Trust not a horse’s heel.” In “King Lear” (iii. 6) the Fool says, “he’s mad that trusts a horse’s health.” Malone would read “heels.”
“Two may keep counsel, putting one away.” So Aaron, in “Titus Andronicus” (iv. 2), says:
“Ungirt, unblest.” Falstaff alludes to the old adage, in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3). “I pray God my girdle break.” Malone quotes from an ancient ballad:
And they to prove it right,
Have got a fashion now adayes,
That’s odious to the sight;
Like Frenchmen, all on points they stand,
No girdles now they wear.”
“Walls have ears.” So, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Thisbe is made to say:
For parting my fair Pyramus and me.”
“Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast.” Thus, in “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1), Grumio says: “Winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tamed my old master, and my new mistress, and myself.” We may also compare the Spanish adage: “You will marry and grow tame.”
“We steal as in a castle” (“1 Henry IV.,” ii. 1). This, says Steevens, was once a proverbial phrase.
“What can’t be cured must be endured.” With this popular adage may be compared the following: “Past cure is still past care,” in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2). So in “Richard II.” (ii. 3), the Duke of York says:
Again, in “Macbeth” (iii. 2) Lady Macbeth says:
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.”
“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine” (“Measure for Measure,” v. 1).
“When things come to the worst they’ll mend.” The truth of this popular adage is thus exemplified by Pandulph in “King John” (iii. 4):
Even in the instant of repair and health,
The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,
On their departure most of all show evil.”
Of course it is equivalent to the proverb, “When the night’s darkest the day’s nearest.”
“When? can you tell?” (“Comedy of Errors,” iii. 1). This proverbial query, often met with in old writers, and perhaps alluded to just before in this scene, when Dromio of Syracuse says: “Right, sir; I’ll tell you when, an you’ll tell me wherefore;” occurs again in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1): “Ay, when? canst tell?”
“When two men ride the same horse one must ride behind.” So in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 5) Dogberry says: “An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.”[896] With this may be compared the Spanish adage, “He who rides behind does not saddle when he will.”
“While the grass grows, the steed starves.” This is alluded to by Hamlet (iii. 2): “Ay, sir, but ‘while the grass grows,’ the proverb is something musty.” See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 499.
“Who dares not stir by day must walk by night” (“King John,” i. 1).
“Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul’s for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a queane, a knave, and a jade.” This proverb, often quoted by old writers, is alluded to in “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2):
“Falstaff. Where’s Bardolph?
Page. He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your
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