“Take all, pay all” (“Merry Wives of Windsor,” ii. 2). Ray gives another version of this proverb: “Take all, and pay the baker.”
“Tell the truth and shame the devil.” In “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1), Hotspur tells Glendower:
“I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth: tell truth, and shame the devil.”
“That was laid on with a trowel.”[891] This proverb, which is quoted by Ray, is used by Celia in “As You Like It” (i. 2). Thus we say, when any one bespatters another with gross flattery, that he lays it on with a trowel.
“The cat loves fish, but she’s loath to wet her feet.” It is to this proverb that Lady Macbeth alludes when she upbraids her husband for his irresolution (“Macbeth,” i. 7):
“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’
Like the poor cat i’ the adage.”
There are various forms of this proverb. Thus, according to the rhyme:
“Fain would the cat fish eat,
But she’s loath to wet her feet.”
The French version is “Le chat aime le poisson mais il n’aime pas à mouiller la patte”—so that it would seem Shakespeare borrowed from the French.