“A fool’s bolt is soon shot.” Quoted by Duke of Orleans in “Henry V.” (iii. 7). With this we may compare the French: “De fol juge breve sentence.”[859]
“A friend at court is as good as a penny in the purse.” So, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 1), Shallow says: “a friend i’ the court is better than a penny in purse.” The French equivalent of this saying is: “Bon fait avoir ami en cour, car le procès en est plus court.”
“A little pot’s soon hot.” Grumio, in “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1), uses this familiar proverb: “were not I a little pot, and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth,” etc.
“A pox of the devil” (“Henry V.,” iii. 7).
“A smoky chimney and a scolding wife are two bad companions.” There are various versions of this proverb. Ray gives the following: “Smoke, raining into the house, and a scolding wife, will make a man run out of doors.”
Hotspur, in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1), says of Glendower:
“O, he’s as tedious
As a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house.”
“A snake lies hidden in the grass.” This, as Mr. Green[860] remarks, is no unfrequent proverb, and the idea is often made use of by Shakespeare. Thus, in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 1), Margaret declares to the attendant nobles:
“Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,
Too full of foolish pity: and Gloster’s show
Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile
With sorrow snares relenting passengers,
Or as the snake, roll’d in a flowering bank,
With shining checker’d slough, doth sting a child,
That for the beauty thinks it excellent.”
Lady Macbeth (i. 5) tells her husband: