Note 340 — THE RIGHTEOUS WAZIR WRONGFULLY GAOLED.[331]
Richard Francis Burton translation · Edition 2
A euphuism meaning some disaster. The text contains a favourite incident in folk-lore; the first instance, I believe, being that of Polycrates of Samos according to Herodotus (lib. iii. 41–42). The theory is supported after a fashion by experience amongst all versed in that melancholy wisdom the “knowledge of the world.” As Syr Cauline the knight philosophically says:—
Everye white will have its blacke,
And everye sweete its sowre: etc.