Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 93

[881] Bohn's "Handbook of Proverbs," 1857, p. 409.

"I scorn that with my heels" ("Much Ado About Nothing," iii. 4). A not uncommon proverbial expression. It is again referred to, in the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2), by Launcelot: "do not run; scorn running with thy heels." Dyce thinks it is alluded to in "Venus and Adonis:"

"Beating his kind embracements with her heels."

"If you are wise, keep yourself warm." This proverb is probably alluded to in the "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1):

"_Petruchio._ Am I not wise?

_Katharina_. Yes; keep you warm."

So, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1): "that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm."

"I fear no colours" ("Twelfth Night," i. 5).

"Ill-gotten goods never prosper." This proverb is referred to by King Henry ("3 Henry VI.," ii. 2):

"Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear That things ill got had ever bad success?"

"Illotis manibus tractare sacra." Falstaff, in "1 Henry IV." (iii. 3), says: "Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too."

"Ill will never said well." This is quoted by Duke of Orleans in "Henry V." (iii. 7).

"In at the window, or else o'er the hatch" ("King John," i. 1). Applied to illegitimate children. Staunton has this note: "Woe worth the time that ever a gave suck to a child that came in at the window!" ("The Family of Love," 1608). So, also, in "The Witches of Lancas.h.i.+re," by Heywood and Broome, 1634: "It appears you came in at the window." "I would not have you think I scorn my grannam's cat to leap over the hatch."

"It is a foul bird which defiles its own nest." This seems alluded to in "As You Like It" (iv. 1) where Celia says to Rosalind: "You have simply misused our s.e.x in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest."

"It is a poor dog that is not worth the whistling." So Goneril, in "King Lear" (iv. 2): "I have been worth the whistle."

"It is a wise child that knows its own father." In the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2), Launcelot has the converse of this: "It is a wise father that knows his own child."

"It is an ill wind that blows n.o.body good." So, in "3 Henry VI." (ii.

5), we read:

"Ill blows the wind that profits n.o.body."

And, in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3), when Falstaff asks Pistol "What wind blew you hither?" the latter replies: "Not the ill wind which blows no man to good."

"It is easy to steal a s.h.i.+ve from a cut loaf." In "t.i.tus Andronicus"

(ii. 1), Demetrius refers to this proverb. Ray has, "'Tis safe taking a s.h.i.+ve out of a cut loaf."

"It's a dear collop that's cut out of my own flesh." Mr.

Halliwell-Phillipps thinks there may be possibly an allusion to this proverb in "1 Henry VI." (v. 4), where the Shepherd says of La Pucelle:

"G.o.d knows, thou art a collop of my flesh."

"I will make a shaft or a bolt of it." In the "Merry Wives of Windsor"

(iii. 4) this proverb is used by Slender.[882] Ray gives "to make a bolt or a shaft of a thing." This is equivalent to, "I will either make a good or a bad thing of it: I will take the risk."

[882] A shaft is an arrow for the longbow, a bolt is for the crossbow. Kelly's "Proverbs of All Nations," p. 155.

"It is like a barber's chair" ("All's Well that Ends Well," ii. 2).

The following pa.s.sage, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2):

"Jack shall have Jill; 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):

"Our wooing doth not end like an old play; 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):

"Come, chat at hame, all is well, Jack shall have Gill."

"Kindness will creep where it cannot go." Thus, in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (iv. 2), Proteus tells Thurio how

"love 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." Oth.e.l.lo says (iv. 1):

"So, so, so, so:-they laugh that win."

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 pa.s.sage 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." t.i.tus Andronicus (iii. 1) says:

"Then give me leave, for losers will have leave To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues."

"Maids say nay, and take." So Julia, in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona"

(i. 2), says:

"Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'"

In "The Pa.s.sionate Pilgrim" we read:

"Have you not heard it said full oft, A woman's nay doth stand for nought?"

"Make hay while the sun s.h.i.+nes." King Edward, in "3 Henry VI." (iv. 8), alludes to this proverb:

"The sun s.h.i.+nes hot; and, if we use delay, Cold, biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay."