“That raven on yon left-hand oak
(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!)
Bodes me no good.”

—  John Gay

Fable, The Farmer's Wife and the Raven. Comparable to: "It wasn't for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand", Plautus, Aulularia, act iv. sc. 3
Fables (1727)

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John Gay photo
John Gay 56
English poet and playwright 1685–1732

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“It was not for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand.”

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Aulularia, Act iv, sc. 3, 1; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Referenced in "That raven on yon left-hand oak/(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!)/Bodes me no good", John Gay, 'Fables, Part I, The Farmer’s Wife and the Raven.
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