Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/107

 10" 8. IV. JULY 69.1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 83 10. "Will eagles catch at flies ?" ' Pandosto' (iv. 280). " Aquila non capit nauseas," ' Carde of Fancie' (iv. 68). This saying (englished) occurs constantly. It is one of the com- monest in' Greene. Harvey used it earlier, and Nashe later (both in the Latin version), but Greene runs it to death. 11-. "Too high, Samela, and therefore I fear with the Syrian Wolves to barke against the Moone, or with them of Scyrum to shoot against the starres," ' Menaphon ' (vi-. 85), 1589 ; and again at p. 145. "The wolves in Syria that loarke against the Moone suffer small reste and great hunger," 'Tullie's Love" (vii. 121), 1589; and again at p. 160. These wolves are used for other purposes of illus- tration (vii. 75; ix. 52). I omit here the " Salamander in the caverns of Etna " (viii. 50; ix. 31), and in other fires, which his cold enables him to put out, since'it was hackneyed from the time of Pliny. Greene has it at least twenty times. Sometimes it becomes a stone. Another old friend is Sisyphus. 12. "She uncessantly turned the stone with Sisyphus, rolled on the wheele with Ixion, and filled the bottomlesse tubs with Belydes," 'Arbasto' (iii. 216), 1584. "The stone of Sisyphus, vulture of Titius.or wheele of Ixion," 'Tullie's Love' (vii. 122). "To perswade a woman from her will is to roll Sisyphus' stone," 'Never*too Late' (viii. 36), 1590. And elsewhere several times. 13. " They stood as the pictures that Perseus with his shield turned into stone," 1 Never too Late' (viii. 57). " I stood astonished, as if with Perseus' shield I had been made a senselesse picture," 'Arbasto' (iii. 190). Perseus appears .again about half a dozen times. 14. " Wilt thou strive against the streame ? and with the deerefeede against the winde? " ' Never too Late' (viii. 81). The first of these is very common, and also an early saying (' Digoy Mysteries '; Skel ton's ' Garland, of Laurel,' &c.); the latter simile is used several times: "She sought, with hate to rase out love, but that was with the deere to feed against the wind," 'Arbasto' (iii. 195). " He found that to wrestle with love, was with the crabbe to awjmme against the atream, and with the, D,eere to feede against the wind," ' Planetomachia' (y. 115), 15.85. The crab comes from ' Euphues,' and will be referred to again.. 15. " Silvestro, seeing that wrong applica- tion had almost made^acena peevish, fear- ing, if he wrested not the. pin. .to a right key, his melody would be marred, made this subtil answere," ' Tritameron,' Part II. (iii. 121), 1587. "Tha .Judges-^-.by the power of the law thought to wrest hir upon a higher pin," ' Mirror of Modesty' (iii. 24)v 1584; repeated in 'Never too Late' (viii. 153), 1590. "Giovanni, hearing hir harpe on that string, strained it a pin higher thus," 'Philo- mela' (xi. 126), 1592. Greene has the much older and well-known "set on merry pin" in 'Quip for an Up_start Courtier' (xi. 279)> 1592. This Greenism I have not met else- where. It seems to be his interpretation of the merry-pin saying, and I have no doubt he is right. "Wrest was the technical name of the wrench for tuning harp-strings. It occurs in Laneham's 'Letter,' 1575. See note to ' Othello,' II. i. (Arden ed., p. 80). 1C. "I appeale to none but God, who- knoweth me guiltlesse, and to thine owne conscience: whose worme for this wrongewill ever bee restlesse," ' Philomela' (xi. 168), 15921. "Whatsoever villanie the heart doth worke, in processe of time the worme of conscience will bewray," ibid., p. 190. " I, father, said Roberto, it is the worme [poor Greene's worm !] of conscience, that urges you at the last houre to remember your life, that eternal) life may follow your repentance," 'Groats- worth of Wit' (xii. 109), 1592. "O horretida fames, how terrible are thy assaultes? but Vermis conscientiae, more wounding are thy stings," Hid., 138. This is of special interest on account of the line in Shakespeare's 'llichard III.,' I. iii. 222: "The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul"; of which the only illustration in Wright's Clarendon Press edition is "their worm shall not die" (Isaiah Ixvi. 24), which a marginal note in the Genevan version explains "a continual torment of conscience" (very doubtfully?}. The expression perhaps came from Greene, for these " Repentance " tracts created a great sensation. 17. "The egges of the Lapwing are scarse hatched before the young ones can runne," ' Planetomachia' (v. 56), 1585 ; repeated in 'Perymedes' (vii. 64), 1588. "Are you no sooner hatched with the Lapwing, but you will runne away with the shell on your head? Soone prickes the tree that will be a thorne, and a girle that loves too soone will repent too late," ' Never too Late' (viii. 34), 1590: Shakespeare uses this simile in ' Hamlet,' V. ii. 190 ; but, as Dr. Dowden has quoted the expression from an intermediate source (Meres's ' Wit's Treasury,' 1598), Greene need not have been made use of by Shakespeare. But it appears to be due to Greene, and was used by Ben Jonson (' Staple of News'), Chapman ('Revenge for Honour"), Webster ('White Devil1), N. Breton ('Two Princes,' 1600), and others, all later than 'Hamlet,'