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for searching only. 604 SMALL LATINE AND LESSE GREEKE Fortuna, nimium quern fovet, stultum facie"
As Taverner interprets it, "Whome Fortune ouermuch cockereth, she maketh a foole. With great felicitie is for the rnoste parte coupled folye and pryde," which is the interpretation of Erasmus. Ben Janson also alludes to this proverb at least twice, and it must have been universally known.
Malone pointed out another parallel in Troilus and Cressida (III, a, 163-164). There we are told,
for to be wise and love
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
Malone comments, "This thought originally belongs to Publius Syrus, among whose sentences we find this:
Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur"s9
Dr. Johnson had failed to recognize the proverb and wanted to emend the text. Since the play may not be wholly Shakspere's, this ultimate echo of Publius Syrus may not be his.
Malone pointed to another parallel in Lucrece:
Those that much covet are with gain so fond, For what they have not, that which they possess They scatter and unloose it from their bond, And so, by hoping more, they have but less; Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.
On this passage, Malone rightly points out, " `Tam avaro deest quod habet, quam quad non habet,' is one of the sentences of Publius Syrus."" Professor Tilley points out that Publius Syrus says, .rout e mat, aut odit mulier: nihil est tertium. Shakspere in Much 4do says, "if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly" (V, 1, 178-179)71 Some of Shakspere's sentential wisdom thus derives ultimately from Publius Syrus.
The same is true of the /Id Demonicum of Isocrates. As Lathrop points out,
¬¬ Malone, Variorum (1821), Vol. VI, p. Ooh
"Malone, Variorum (182:), Vol. VIII, p. 332. Christopher Johnson gave the Winchester boys a dictate on this theme (6ov).
4¬ Malone, Variorum (1821), Vol. XX, p. no.
7, Tilley, Proverb Lore, p. 333. Professor Tilley notes several other parallels with Shakspere, but these were not in the school collection, since they had not at the time Erasmus prepared that collection been allocated to Publius Syrus.
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