“Familiarity breeds contempt.” So, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 1), Slender says: “I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.”
“Fast bind, fast find.” In “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 5), Shylock says:
“Well, Jessica, go in:
Perhaps I will return immediately:
Do as I bid you; shut doors after you;
Fast bind, fast find;
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.”
“Finis coronat opus.” A translation of this Latin proverb is given by Helena in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (iv. 4):
“Still the fine’s the crown.”
In “2 Henry VI.” (v. 2), also, Clifford’s expiring words are: “La fin couronne les œuvres.” We still have the expression to crown, in the sense of to finish or make perfect. Mr. Douce[870] remarks that “coronidem imponere is a metaphor well known to the ancients, and supposed to have originated from the practice of finishing buildings by placing a crown at the top as an ornament; and for this reason the words crown, top, and head are become synonymous in most languages. There is reason for believing that the ancients placed a crescent at the beginning, and a crown, or some ornament that resembled it, at the end of their books.” In “Troilus and Cressida” (iv. 5), Hector says:
“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.,” ii. 2), in reply to Poins, gives another turn to the proverb: “By this hand, thou think’st me as far in the devil’s book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the man.”[871]
“Fly pride, says the peacock.” This is quoted by Dromio of Syracuse, in “The Comedy of Errors” (iv. 3).[872]
“Friends may meet, but mountains never greet.” This is ironically alluded to in “As You Like It” (iii. 2), by Celia: “It is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter.”