Un padrone, quanti ha più servi, tanti più ha inimici.
Translation: The more servants a master has, the more enemies he has.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 432.
La Calandria (c. 1507)
“Act I, scene II. — (Fesserio).”
Non può il vitello, e vuol che porti il hue.
Translation: He cannot manage the calf, and wants to carry the ox.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 377.
La Calandria (c. 1507)
“Santa Agnesa, Act I., Scene II. — (Lascone).”
Ogni laccio
O sia di seta, o d’oro, o si di fune
Strigne ed affoga.
Translation: Every bond,
Be it of silk, or gold, or vulgar hemp,
Presses and suffocates.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 385.
“The Wild Gallant, act ii. scene. 1.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“I have left Act I, for involution
And Act II. There, mired in complexity
I cannot write Act III.”
Poems
“Act I., Scene I. — (Vicenzo).”
Il mondo va invecchiando e peggiorando di mano in mano.
Translation: The world grows older and grows worse from generation to generation.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 317.
L’Alessandro (1544)
“Il Diamante, Act I., Scene I.”
Al gatto vecchio,
Dice il proverbio, dagli topo tenero.
Translation: To the old cat,
So says the proverb, give a tender mouse.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 244.
