Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Singing
Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d’être dit, on le chante.
That which is not worth speaking they sing.
Beaumarchais—Barbier de Séville. I. 1.
Three merry boys, and three merry boys,
And three merry boys are we,
As ever did sing in a hempen string
Under the gallow-tree.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Bloody Brother. Act III. Sc. 2. Song.
Come, sing now, sing; for I know you sing well;
I see you have a singing face.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Wild Goose Chase. Act II. 2.
The tenor’s voice is spoilt by affectation,
And for the bass, the beast can only bellow;
In fact, he had no singing education,
An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto IV. St. 87.
Quien canta, sus males espanta.
He who sings frightens away his ills.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. I. 22.
At every close she made, th’ attending throng
Replied, and bore the burden of the song:
So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note,
It seemed the music melted in the throat.
Dryden—Flower and the Leaf. L. 197.
Y’ought to hyeah dat gal a-warblin’
Robins, la’ks an’ all dem things
Heish de mouffs an’ hides dey faces
When Malindy sings.
Paul Laurence Dunbar—When Malindy Sings.
Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young
And always keep us so.
Emerson—Ode to Beauty.
I see you have a singing face—a heavy, dull, sonata face.
Farquhar—The Inconstant. Act II. 1.
When I but hear her sing, I fare
Like one that raised, holds his ear
To some bright star in the supremest Round;
Through which, besides the light that’s seen
There may be heard, from Heaven within,
The rests of Anthems, that the Angels sound.
Owen Felltham—Lusoria. XXXIV. Appeared as a poem of Suckling’s—beginning “When dearest I but think of thee.” Claimed by Felltham in note to ed. 1690, 1696 of his Resolves, Divine, Moral, Biblical.
Then they began to sing
That extremely lovely thing,
“Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp.”
W. S. Gilbert—Bab Ballads. Story of Prince Agib.
So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.
Hawthorne—Mosses from an Old Manse. The Birthmark.
He the sweetest of all singers.
Longfellow—Hiawatha. Pt. VI. L. 21.
Sang in tones of deep emotion,
Songs of love and songs of longing.
Longfellow—Hiawatha. Pt. XI. L. 136.
God sent his Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.
Longfellow—The Singers.
Ils chantent, ils payeront.
They sing, they will pay.
Cardinal Mazarin. Originally “S’ils cantent la cansonette ils pageront.” A patois.
Who, as they sung, would take the prison’d soul
And lap it in Elysium.
Milton—Comus. L. 256.
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek.
Milton—Il Penseroso. L. 105.
O Carril, raise again thy voice! let me hear the song of Selma, which was sung in my halls of joy, when Fingal, king of shields, was there, and glowed at the deeds of his fathers.
Ossian—Fingal. Bk. III. St. 1.
Sweetest the strain when in the song
The singer has been lost.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps—The Poet and the Poem.
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus’ strain.
The wond’ring forests soon should dance again;
The moving mountains hear the powerful call,
And headlong streams hang listening in their fall!
Pope—Summer. L. 81.
You know you haven’t got a singing face.
Rhodes—Bombastes Furioso.
Every night he comes
With musics of all sorts and songs compos’d
To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us
To chide him from our eaves; for he persists
As if his life lay on’t.
All’s Well That Ends Well. Act III. Sc. 7. L. 39.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 30.
O! she will sing the savageness out of a bear.
Othello. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 200.
His tongue is now a stringless instrument.
Richard II. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 149.
Nay, now you are too flat
And mar the concord with too harsh a descant.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 94.
But one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.
Winter’s Tale. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 46.
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.
Shelley—To Jane. The Keen Stars were Twinkling.