Familiar Quotations / A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to / Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

by Unknown

[14:7] Shakespeare alludes to this proverb in Macbeth:—

Letting I dare not wait upon I would,

Like the poor cat i' the adage.

Cat lufat visch, ac he nele his feth wete.—MS. Trinity College, Cambridge, circa 1250.

[14:8] Whylst grass doth grow, oft sterves the seely steede.—Whetstone: Promos and Cassandra. 1578.

While the grass grows—

The proverb is something musty.

Shakespeare: Hamlet, act iii. sc. 4.

[15:1] An earlier instance occurs in Heywood, in his "Dialogue on Wit and Folly," circa 1530.

[15:2] Two strings to his bow.—Hooker: Polity, book v. chap. lxxx. Chapman: D'Ambois, act ii. sc. 3. Butler: Hudibras, part iii. canto i. line 1. Churchill: The Ghost, book iv. Fielding: Love in Several Masques, sc. 13.