y
Ray, is used by Celia in "As You Like It" (i. 2). Thus we say, when any
one bespatters another with gross flattery, that he lays it on with a
trowel.

[891] Ray's "Proverbs" (Bohn's Edition), 1857, p. 76.

"The cat loves fish, but she's loath to wet her feet." It is to this
proverb that Lady Macbeth alludes when she upbraids her husband for his
irresolution ("Macbeth," i. 7):

"Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i' the adage."

There are various forms of this proverb. Thus, according to the rhyme:

"Fain would the cat fish eat,
But she's loath to wet her feet."

The French version is "Le chat aime le poisson mais il n'aime pas a
mouiller la patte"--so that it would seem Shakespeare borrowed from the
French.

"The devil rides on a fiddlestick" ("1 Henry IV.," ii. 4).

"The galled jade will wince." So Hamlet says (iii. 2), "let the galled
jade wince, our withers are unwrung."

"The grace o' God is gear enough." This is the Scotch form of the
proverb which Launcelot Gobbo speaks of as being well parted between
Bassanio and Shylock, in the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2): "The old
proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir; you
have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough."

"The Mayor of Northampton opens oysters with his dagger." This proverb
is alluded to by Pistol in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 2), when he
says:

"Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open."

Northampton being some eighty miles from the sea, oysters were so stale
before they reached the town (before railroads, or even coaches, were
known), that the "Mayor would be loath to bring them near his nose."

"The more haste the worse speed." In "Romeo and Juliet" (ii. 6), Friar
Laurence says:

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."

The proverb thus alluded to seems to be derived from the Latin adage,
"Festinatio tarda est." It defeats its own purpose by the blunders and
imperfect work it occasions.[892] Hence the French say: "He that goes
too hastily along often stumbles on a fair road."

[892] Kelly's "Proverbs of All Nations," p. 80.

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