“The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.”
Prince Henry (2 Henry IV., act ii. sc. 2, l. 41, vol. iv. p. 392), in reply to Poins, gives yet another turn to the proverb: “By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil’s books as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency; let the end try the man.”
In Whitney’s address “to the Reader,” he speaks of having collected “sondrie deuises” against several great faults which he names, “bycause they are growẽ so mightie that one bloe will not beate them downe, but newe headdes springe vp like Hydra, that Hercules weare not able to subdue them.” “But,” he adds, using an old saying, “manie droppes pierce the stone, and with manie blowes the oke is ouerthrowen.”
Near Mortimer’s Cross, in Herefordshire, a messenger relates how “the noble Duke of York was slain” (3 Henry VI., act ii. sc. 1, l. 50, vol. v. p. 252), and employs a similar, almost an identical, proverb,—
“Environed he was with many foes,
And stood against them, as the hope of Troy
Against the Greeks that would have enter’d Troy.