[883] "But now consider the old proverbe to be true, yt saieth
that marriage is destinie."--Hall's "Chronicles."

Again, in "All's Well that Ends Well" (i. 3) the Clown says:

"For I the ballad will repeat,
Which men full true shall find;
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind."

We may compare the well-known proverb, "Marriages are made in heaven,"
and the French version, "Les mariages sont ecrits dans le ciel."

"Marriage as bad as hanging." In "Twelfth Night" (i. 5), the Clown says:
"Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage."

"Marry trap" ("Merry Wives of Windsor," i. 1). This, says Nares, "is
apparently a kind of proverbial exclamation, as much as to say, 'By
Mary, you are caught.'"

"Meat was made for mouths." Quoted in "Coriolanus" (i. 1).

"Misfortunes seldom come alone." This proverb is beautifully alluded to
by the King in "Hamlet" (iv. 5):

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions."

The French say:[884] "Malheur ne vient jamais seul."

[884] See Bohn's "Handbook of Proverbs," p. 116.

"More hair than wit" ("Two Gentlemen of Verona," iii. 2). A well-known
old English proverb.

"Mortuo leoni et lepores insultant." This proverb is alluded to by the
Bastard in "King John" (ii. 1), who says to the Archduke of Austria:

"You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard."

"Much water goes by the mill the miller knows not of." This adage is
quoted in "Titus Andronicus" (ii. 1), by Demetrius:

"more water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of."

"My cake is dough" ("Taming of the Shrew," v. 1). An obsolete proverb,
repeated on the loss of hope or expectation: the allusion being to the
old-fashioned way of baking cakes at the embers, when it may have been
occasionally the case for a cake to be burned on one side and dough on
the other. In a former scene (i. 1) Gremio says: "our cake's dough on
both sides." Staunton quotes from "The Case is Altered," 1609:

"Steward, your cake is dough, as well as mine."

"Murder will out." So, in the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2), Launcelot
says: "Murder cannot be hid long,--a man's son may; but, in the end,
truth will out."

"Near or far off, well won is still well shot" ("King John," i. 1).

"Needs must when the devil drives." In "All's Well that Ends Well" (i.
3), the Clown tells the Countess: "I am