Wol. Madam, you wander from the end we aim at. Could but be brought to know our aims are honest, Mine own ends Have been mine so, that evermore they pointed This paper has undone me! 'Tis the account Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Cran. My good lords, hitherto in all the progress Was ever to do well. . . . It is my undoing. (Ib. v. 2; and comp. Tr. Cr. v. 3, 22.) Folio 130. SOME CHOICE FRENCH PROVERBS. 1461. Il a chid en son chapeau et puis s'en va couvert. 1462. Par trop se debattre, la verité se perd. You do advance your cunning more and more. When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray! (M. N. D. iii. 2.) This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill; cannot be good: if ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is But what is not. (Macb. i. 3.) Alon. Some oracle must rectify our knowledge. . Pro. Do not infest your mind with beating on the strangeness of this business. (Temp. v. 1.) 1463. Apres besogne fait le fou barguine. The Count's a fool, I know it, Who pays before, but not when he doth owe it, (All's W. iv. 3.) P. Hen. Why, thou ow'st God a death. Fal. 'Tis not due yet: I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not of me? (1 Hen. IV. v. 2.) 1464. L'hoste et le poisson, passes trois jours jurent. Has friendship such a faint and milky heart, It turns in less than two nights? (Tim. Ath. iii. 2.) If they were but a week married they would talk themselves mad. (M. Ado. ii. 1.) 1465. La mort n'ha point d'amis, le mallade et l'absent qu'un demye. The evil that men do lives after them : The good is oft interred with their bones. (Jul. Cœs. iii. 2.) O heavens die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year! (Ham. iii. 2.) Duke. Would the absent duke have done this?. I never heard the absent duke inclined that way. Lucio. Who, not the duke? . . . He would be drunk too, let me inform you. . . . I was inward of his, &c. (See M. M. iii. 2, for Lucio's abuse of his so-called friend the absent duke.) Advantage ever doth cool in absence of the needer. (Cor. iv. 1.) 1466. Il est fort trompé qui mal ne pense. The Moor is of a free and open nature, And will as tenderly be led by the nose A credulous father! and a brother noble, (Lear, i. 2; and Wint. Tale, i. 2, 267-273.) 1467. La farine du diable s'en va moitié en sens. Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace. (Cymb. iv. 2.) Meal and bran together he throws without distinction. (Cor. iii. 2, and v. 1, 25-31.) Asses, fools, dolts, chaff and bran, chaff and bran. (Tr. Cr. i. 2.) His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff. (Mer. Ven. i. 1; ib. ii. 9, 46.) 1468. Qui prete a l'ami perd au double. I do not I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; paid money that I borrowed three or four times. like that paying back, 'tis a double labour. (1 Hen. IV. iii. 3.) Loan oft loses both itself and friend. (Ham. i. 3.) 1469. C'est un valet du diable, qui fait plus qu'on lui comand. When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill. I'll devil-porter it no longer. (John, iv. 2.) (Macb. ii. 3.) 1470. Il n'est horloge plus juste que le ventre. Methinks your man, like mine, should be your clock! And strike you home without a messenger. (Com. Er. i. 1.) Hopdance cries in Tom's belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel; I have no food for thee. (Lear, iii. 5.) 1471. Mere pitieuse fille rigeureuse. Fathers that wear rags do make their children blind; But fathers that wear bags shall see their children kind. (Leur, ii. 4.) Thou shalt have as many dolours for thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year. (Lear, ii. 4.) Regan. I am glad to see your highness. Lear. Regan, I think you are: I know what reason I have to think so.. Thy sister's naught; O Regan, she hath tied sharp-toothed unkindness here. (Points to his heart.) (Ib.) (See also 'rigorous daughters' exemplified, ii. 4, 221, 290; 'unkind daughters,' 'Pelican daughters,' iii. 4; Tigers not daughters,' iv. 2; 'Dog-hearted daughters,' iv. 3.) 1472. Commence a mourir qui abandonne son desir. I have often thought upon death, and I find it the least of evils. . . . This is strength and the blood to virtue, to contemn things that be desired, and to neglect that which is feared. (Ess. Of Death, 2.) Yet are these feet Swift-winged with desire to get a grave, As witting I no other comfort have. (1 Hen. VI. ii. 4.) (Rom. Jul. ii. cho., and iii. 3, 12-15; iv. 5, 38-64.) Had I but died an hour before this chance I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant There's nothing serious in mortality; All's but toys: renown and grace is dead. (Mach. ii. 3.) I have lived long enough; my May of life Is fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, The sweetest article is Nunc dimittis' when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. (Ess. Of Death, 1.) I have lived to die when I desire. (W. T. iv. 3.) (See also John, iv. 2, Constance's speech on death; Oth. iii. 4, 'O now for ever, farewell the tranquil mind. . . . Othello's occupation's gone,' &c.) 1473. Bien part de sa place qui son amye ay lasse, I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage. (Ess. Of Friendship.) I am Tim. Promise me friendship, but perform none. . . . sick of this false world, and will love nought. . . . Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave. First Thief. The . . . falling from off his friends drove him into melancholy. (Tim. Ath. iv. 3.) 1474. Il n'y a meilleur mirroir que le viel amye. It is a strange thing what gross errors and extreme absurdities many do commit for want of a friend to tell them of them. As St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favour. (Ess. Of Friendship.) Where you may see the inmost part of you. (Ham. iii. 4.) Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear: And since you cannot know yourself So well by reflection, I, your glass, Will modestly discover to yourself That of yourself which you yet know not of. (Jul. Cæs. i. 1.) The glass of Pandar's praise. (Tr. Cr. i. 2.) Pride is his own glass. (Ib. ii. 3; see iii. 3, 47, 109-111.) A sample to the youngest, to the most mature A glass that feated them. (Cymb. i. 1.) O flattering glass! Like to my followers in prosperity Dost thou beguile me. (R. II. iv. 1.) 1475. Chien qui abbaye de loin ne mord pas. The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb. (2 Hen. VI. ii. 4.) Look, when he fawns he bites. (R. III. i. 3.) 1476. Achete maison faite, femme a faire.1 1 From the entries which refer to women we see that Bacon formed very unfavourable views regarding them, views which unhappy passages in his own life probably tended to confirm. The Shakespeare Plays seem to exhibit the same unfavourable sentiments of their author. There are 130 |