“My trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood, in its contrary as great
As my trust was.”
“He knows not a hawk from a handsaw.” Hamlet says (ii. 2): “When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
“He may hang himself in his own garters.” So, Falstaff (“1 Henry IV.” ii. 2) says: “Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters.”
“He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.” In “The Tempest” (i. 1), Gonzalo says of the Boatswain: “I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable.” The Italians say, “He that is to die by the gallows may dance on the river.”
“He that dies pays all debts” (“The Tempest,” iii. 2).
“He who eats with the devil hath need of a long spoon.” This is referred to by Stephano, in “The Tempest” (ii. 2): “This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no long spoon.” Again, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 3), Dromio of Syracuse says: “He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.”
The old adage, which tells how
“He that will not when he may,
When he will he shall have nay,”
is quoted in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 7) by Menas:
“Who seeks, and will not take, when once ’tis offer’d,
Shall never find it more.”