“Give the devil his due.” In “Henry V.” (iii. 7) it is quoted by the Duke of Orleans.
“God sends fools fortune.” It is to this version of the Latin adage, “Fortuna favet fatuis” (“Fortune favors fools”), that Touchstone alludes in his reply to Jaques, in “As You Like It” (ii. 7):
“‘No, sir,’ quoth he,
‘Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.’”
Under different forms, the same proverb is found on the Continent. The Spanish say, “The mother of God appears to fools;” and the German one is this, “Fortune and women are fond of fools.”[873]
“God sends not corn for the rich only.” This is quoted by Marcius in “Coriolanus” (i. 1).
“Good goose, do not bite.” This proverb is used in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4):
“Mercutio. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
Romeo. Nay, good goose, bite not.”
“Good liquor will make a cat speak.” So, in the “Tempest” (ii. 2), Stephano says: “Come on your ways: open your mouth; here is that which will give language to you, cat; open your mouth.”
“Good wine needs no bush.” This old proverb, which is quoted by Shakespeare in “As You Like It” (v. 4, “Epilogue”)—“If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue”—refers to the custom of hanging up a bunch of twigs, or a wisp of hay, at a roadside inn, as a sign that drink may be had within. This practice, “which still lingers in the cider-making counties of the west of England, and prevails more generally in France, is derived from the Romans, among whom a bunch of ivy was used as the sign of a wine-shop.” They were also in the habit of saying, “Vendible wine needs no ivy hung up.” The Spanish have a proverb, “Good wine needs no crier.”[874]