Here’s the third round of our quiz. Which of the following statements or quotations are from the Bible (King James Version) and which are from Shakespeare’s plays?
1. “In much wisdom is much grief.”
2. “The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.”
3. “Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.”
4. “You are not wood, you are not stones, but men.”
5. “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
6. “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty.”
7. “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.”
8. Dreams “are the children of an idle brain.”
9. “A woman moved is like a fountain troubled.”
10. “God’s above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved.”
Bonus: We all know you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but does that comparison come from the Bible, Shakespeare, or somewhere else?
Highlight these lines to check your answers: 1. The Bible, Ecclesiastes_1:18; 2. Shakespeare’s Hamlet (II.ii); 3. Shakespeare’s Hamlet (III.i); 4. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (III,ii); 5. Shakespeare’s Hamlet (III.iii); 6. The Bible, Proverbs_20:13; 7. The Bible, Mark_7:27; 8. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (I.vi); 9. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (V.ii); 10. Shakespeare’s Othello (II.iii)
Bonus: Neither the Bible or Shakespeare for this one. According to George Latimer Apperson’s Wordsmith Dictionary of Proverbs, the first recording of a phrase like this is “None can make goodly silke of a gotes fleece,” a quote from A. Barclay’s Eclogues (1518). A couple more quotes like this referring to “sowes eare” instead of “gotes fleece” before J. Swift wrote of making velvet from these ears. Either these men drew on an idiom which has persisted until our day on its own strength or they built it up through their use of it.
I only missed one (#2), but I didn’t get the bonus.