“Ungirt, unblest, the proverbe sayes;
And they to prove it right,
Have got a fashion now adayes,
That’s odious to the sight;
Like Frenchmen, all on points they stand,
No girdles now they wear.”
“Walls have ears.” So, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Thisbe is made to say:
“O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus and me.”
“Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast.” Thus, in “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1), Grumio says: “Winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tamed my old master, and my new mistress, and myself.” We may also compare the Spanish adage: “You will marry and grow tame.”
“We steal as in a castle” (“1 Henry IV.,” ii. 1). This, says Steevens, was once a proverbial phrase.
“What can’t be cured must be endured.” With this popular adage may be compared the following: “Past cure is still past care,” in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2). So in “Richard II.” (ii. 3), the Duke of York says:
“Things past redress are now with me past care.”
Again, in “Macbeth” (iii. 2) Lady Macbeth says:
“Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.”
“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine” (“Measure for Measure,” v. 1).