“I will have all my beds blown up, not stuffed;
Down is too hard.”
THE CAT IN THE ADAGE.
Lady Macbeth thus taunts her husband:—
Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i’ the adage?
The adage is thus given in Heywood’s Proverbs, 1566:—