Note 338 — ACT V.
Reading edition
A proverbial saying. “L. S.” in the Shakespeare Society’s Papers, ii. 85 (1847), quotes from Plutarch’s Symposium, v. 1:—“For upon what other account should men be moved to admire Parmeno’s sow so much as to pass it into a proverb? Yet ’tis reported that Parmeno, being very famous for imitating the grunting of a pig, some endeavoured to rival and outdo him. And when the hearers, being prejudiced, cried out, ‘Very well, indeed, but nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow,’ one took a pig under his arm and came upon the stage; and when, tho’ they heard the very pig, they still continued, ‘This is nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow,’ he threw his pig amongst them to show that they judged according to opinion and not truth” (Creech’s translation). Phædrus has a fable on the subject.