Famous John Lydgate Quotes
Bk. 3, line 3927.
The Fall of Princes
The Troy Book, Bk. 3, line 4237.
Of Chaucer.
“The wheel of Fortune tourneth as a ball;
Sodeyn clymbyng axeth a sodeyn fall.”
Bk. 9, line 1211.
The Fall of Princes
John Lydgate Quotes
The Life of Saint Alban and Saint Amphibal, line 2913.
“A voluminous, prosaick, and drivelling Monk.”
Joseph Ritson Bibliographia Poetica (1802) p. 87.
Criticism
“Harde to likke hony out of a marbil stoon,
For ther is nouthir licour nor moisture.”
"Letter to Gloucester", line 34.
Bk. 8, line 3112.
Of the return of King Arthur.
The Fall of Princes
Thomas Warton The History of English Poetry (1774-81) vol. 2, pp. 52-3.
Criticism
"On Inconstancy", line 36.
“For hit ys oft seyde by hem that yet lyues
He must nedys go that the deuell dryues.”
The Assembly of Gods; or, The Accord of Reason and Sensuality, line 20.
This poem was long attributed to Lydgate, but is now thought to have been written after his death, during the second half of the 15th century. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/asint.htm#f10
Misattributed
“Who lesethe his fredam, in faith! he loseth all.”
"The Chorle and the Birde", line 95.
William Webbe A Discourse of Englishe Poetry ([1586] 1970) p. 32.
Criticism
“For love is mor than gold or gret richesse;
Gold faileth ofte; love wol abyde.”
The Siege of Thebes, pt. 3, line 2716.
Thomas Gray "Some Remarks on the Poems of Lydgate", in The Works of Thomas Gray (1858) vol. 5, pp. 308-9.
Criticism
