Explore the similarities between John Florio’s proverbs and the proverbs found in Shakespeare’s plays.
John Florio’s First Fruits (1578), Second Fruits (1591) and Giardino di Ricreatione (1591) contain proverbs that today are erroneously attributed to Shakespeare but were originally written by John Florio. Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Shakespeare’s scholar, in her book, Shakespeare, Actor-Poet1 reported the similarities between the two writers concerning proverbs:
Florio: Fast bind fast find (Second Fruits, Folio 31).
Shakespeare: Fast bind fast find, a proverb never stale in thrifty mind (Merchant of Venice, Act II, sc. 5).
Florio: All that glistreth is not gold (SF, Folio 32).
Shakespeare: All that glitters is not gold, golden tombs do dust enfold (Merchant of Venice, Act II, sc. 5).
Florio: More water flows by the mill than the miller knows (SF, Folio 34).
Shakespeare: More water glideth by the mill than wots the miller of (Titus Andronicus, Act II, sc. i).
Florio: When the cat is abroade the mise play (SF, Folio 33).
Shakespeare: Playing the mouse in absence of the cat (Henry IV, Act I, sc. 2).
Florio: He that maketh not marreth not (SF, Folio 27)
Shakespeare: What make you nothing? what mar you then? (As You Like It, Act I, sc. i).
Florio: An ill weed groweth apace (SF, Folio 31).
Shakespeare: Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace (Richard III, Act II, sc. 4).
Florio: Make of necessity virtue (SF, Folio 13).
Shakespeare: Make a virtue of necessity (Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, sc. 2).
Florio: Give losers leave to speak (SF, Folio 33).
Shakespeare: But I can give the loser leave to chide, and well such losers may have leave to speak (Henry VI, Part II, Act III, sc. i).
Florio: It is Labour lost to speak of love (SF, Folio 71),
Shakespeare takes as a title: ‘‘Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
Florio: much a doe about nothing (Queen Anna’s New World of words, 1611)
Shakespeare takes as a title: Much Ado About Nothing
Florio: Tutto è bene, che riesce bene (Giardino di Ricreazione, 1591)
Shakespeare takes as a title All’s Well That Ends Well
Florio: Necessity hath no law (SF, Folio 31).
Shakespeare: Nature must obey necessity (Julius Cesar, Act III, sc. 3).
Florio: Lombardy is the garden of the world (Second Fruits)
Shakespeare: I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy, The pleasant garden of great Italy. (The Taming of the Shrew, 1.1.3–4)
Florio: A gallant death doth honour a whole life (SF, Folio 34).
Shakespeare: Nothing in life became him like the leaving of it (Macbeth, Act I, sc, i).
Florio: The end maketh all men equal (SF, Folios 33).
Shakespeare: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. (Troilus and Cressida, Act III, sc. 3).
Florio: That is quickly done that is done well.
Shakespeare: If ‘twere done when ‘tis done ‘twere well kwere done quickly (Macbeth, Act I, sc 7).
Florio: Venitia, chi non ti vede non ti pretia ma chi ti vede bene gli costa. (Second Frutes)
(Venice, he who seeth thee not praiseth thee not, but he who seeth thee it costs him dear – First Fruits, Folio 34).
Shakespeare: I may say of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: Venetia Venetia, chi non ti vede non ti pretia. Old Mantuan, who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV, sc 2).
John Florio’s Giardino di Ricreatione (1591) – A collection of six thousand proverbs, fine sayings, witty comments and quotations from his favourite Italian authors.
Besides these examples, Shakespeare refers some thirty times to proverbs in such phrases as these:
Thereof comes the proverb: Blessings on your heart, you brew good ale (Two Gentlemen of Verona).
While the Grass grows —The proverb is somewhat musty (Hamlet).
Like the poor cat in the adage {Macbeth) .
I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase {Romeo and Juliet).
Two books explore Shakespeare’s love for proverbs and the extensive use of proverbial language in the plays.
There is also, in Henry V, what Shakespeare calls “rapid venew of wit,” which is difficult to understand without Florio’s explanation that ”Four is the Devil’s company” {Compagnia di quatro, compagnia di Diavolo).
The disputants in Shakespeare are four in number:
“ll will never did well,” says one.
“I’ll cap that proverb with ‘there’s flattery in friendship,” replies the second.
“And I will take up with: ‘Give the Devil his due,” retorts the third.
“Well placed, there stands your friend for the devils,” and the mysterious reference is explained.
By these parallels, it is obvious that both Shakespeare and Florio used the same conversation techniques, the same method of usin proverbs in colloquial speech, the same witty sayings, syllogisms, philosophical reasonings, and they even had the same opinion on various subjects.2
Bibliography
Chambrun, Clara Longworth de. Shakespeare, Actor-Poet. New York, 1927.
R. C. Simonini, Jr, talian Scholarship in Renaissance England, (The University of North Carolina Studies in Comparative Literature, No. 3). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952.
