“The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 123
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John Milton 190
English epic poet 1608–1674Related quotes
Source: The Underground Railroad
The Golden Legend http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10490/10490-h/10490-h.htm, Pt. IV, The Cloisters (1872).
“What, nephew, said the king, is the wind in that door?”
Book VII, ch. 34
Le Morte d'Arthur (c. 1469) (first known edition 1485)
“It is not the well-fed long-haired man I fear, but the pale and the hungry looking.”
As reported in Plutarch's Anthony'; William Shakespeare adapted this in having Caesar declare Cassius as having "a lean and hungry look."