Mice
Mouse
I holde a mouses herte nat worth a leek. That hath but oon hole for to sterte to.
- Chaucer—Paraphrase of the Prologue of The Wyves Tale of Bath, line 572.
The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken.
- Herbert—Jacula Prudentum. Plautus—Trunculentus. IV.
- It had need to bee
A wylie mouse that should breed in the cat's eare.
- Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. II. Ch. V.
"Once on a time there was a mouse," quoth she,
"Who sick of worldly tears and laughter, grew
Enamoured of a sainted privacy;
To all terrestrial things he bade adieu,
And entered, far from mouse, or cat, or man, A thick-walled cheese, the best of Parmesan."
- Lorenzo Pignotti—The Mouse Turned Hermit.
When a building is about to fall down all the mice desert it.
- Pliny the Elder—Natural History. Bk. VIII. Sec. CIII.
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole, Can never be a mouse of any soul.
- Pope—The Wife of Bath. Her Prologue, line 298.
The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge From rascals worse than they.
- Coriolanus. Act I. Sc. 6, line 44.