Thus likewise John Davies in his Pleasant Descant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about 1612:
Do well and have well!—neyther so still:
For some are good Doers, whose Havings are ill;
and Daniel the Historian uses it frequently. Having seems to be synonymous with Behaviour in Gawin Douglas and the elder Scotch writers.
Haver, in the sense of Possessor, is every where met with: tho' unfortunately the πρὸς τὸν Ἔχοντα of Sophocles, produced as an authority for it, is suspected by Kuster, as good a critick in these matters, to have absolutely a different meaning.
But what shall we say to the learning of the Clown in Hamlet, “Ay, tell me that, and unyoke”? alluding to the Βουλυτὸς of the Greeks: and Homer and his Scholiast are quoted accordingly!
If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrase might be taken from Husbandry, without much depth of reading; we may produce it from a Dittie of the workmen of Dover, preserved in the additions to Holingshed, p. 1546.
My bow is broke, I would unyoke,
My foot is sore, I can worke no more.
An expression of my Dame Quickly is next fastened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; she calls some of the pretended Fairies in the Merry Wives of Windsor,