“The galled jade will wince.” So Hamlet says (iii. 2), “let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.”
“The grace o’ God is gear enough.” This is the Scotch form of the proverb which Launcelot Gobbo speaks of as being well parted between Bassanio and Shylock, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 2): “The old proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir; you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough.”
“The Mayor of Northampton opens oysters with his dagger.” This proverb is alluded to by Pistol in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 2), when he says:
“Why, then the world’s mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.”
Northampton being some eighty miles from the sea, oysters were so stale before they reached the town (before railroads, or even coaches, were known), that the “Mayor would be loath to bring them near his nose.”
“The more haste the worse speed.” In “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 6), Friar Laurence says:
“These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
The proverb thus alluded to seems to be derived from the Latin adage, “Festinatio tarda est.” It defeats its own purpose by the blunders and imperfect work it occasions.[892] Hence the French say: “He that goes too hastily along often stumbles on a fair road.”
“There is flattery in friendship”—used by the Constable of France in “Henry V.” (iii. 7); the usual form of this proverb being: “There is falsehood in friendship.”
“There was but one way” (“Henry V.,” ii. 3). “This,” says Dyce, “is a kind of proverbial expression for death.” (“Glossary,” p. 494.)