aron, in "Titus
Andronicus" (iv. 2), says:

"Two may keep counsel, when the third's away."

"Ungirt, unblest." Falstaff alludes to the old adage, in "1 Henry IV."
(iii. 3). "I pray God my girdle break." Malone quotes from an ancient
ballad:

"Ungirt, unblest, the proverbe sayes;
And they to prove it right,
Have got a fashion now adayes,
That's odious to the sight;
Like Frenchmen, all on points they stand,
No girdles now they wear."

"Walls have ears." So, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 1), Thisbe is
made to say:

"O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus and me."

"Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast." Thus, in "Taming of
the Shrew" (iv. 1), Grumio says: "Winter tames man, woman, and beast;
for it hath tamed my old master, and my new mistress, and myself." We
may also compare the Spanish adage: "You will marry and grow tame."

"We steal as in a castle" ("1 Henry IV.," ii. 1). This, says Steevens,
was once a proverbial phrase.

"What can't be cured must be endured." With this popular adage may be
compared the following: "Past cure is still past care," in "Love's
Labour's Lost" (v. 2). So in "Richard II." (ii. 3), the Duke of York
says:

"Things past redress are now with me past care."

Again, in "Macbeth" (iii. 2) Lady Macbeth says:

"Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done."

"What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" ("Measure for
Measure," v. 1).

"When things come to the worst they'll mend." The truth of this popular
adage is thus exemplified by Pandulph in "King John" (iii. 4):

"Before the curing of a strong disease,
Even in the instant of repair and health,
The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,
On their departure most of all show evil."

Of course it is equivalent to the proverb, "When the night's darkest the
day's nearest."

"When? can you tell?" ("Comedy of Errors," iii. 1). This proverbial
query, often met with in old writers, and perhaps alluded to just before
in this scene, when Dromio of Syracuse says: "Right, sir; I'll tell you
when, an you'll tell me wherefore;" occurs again in "1 Henry IV." (ii.
1): "Ay, when? canst tell?"

"When two men ride the same horse one must ride behind." So in "Much Ado
About Nothing" (iii. 5) Dogberry says: "An two men ride of a horse, one
must ride behind."[896] With this