Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Canker
That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left, hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten.
Joel, Chap. i. Ver. 4.
In the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells.
Shakespeare.—Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Scene 1. (Proteus to Valentine.)
Now will canker sorrow eat my bud.
Shakespeare.—King John, Act III. Scene 4. (Constance.)
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds.
Shakespeare.—Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Act II. Scene 3. (Titania.)
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek.
Shakespeare.—Twelfth Night, Act II. Scene 4. (Viola.)
Loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
Shakespeare.—Sonnet 35.
So far from sounding and discovery
As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Shakespeare.—Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Scene 1. (Montagu to Benvolio.)
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye,
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses.
Shakespeare.—Sonnet 54.
I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace.
Shakespeare.—Much Ado About Nothing, Act I. Scene 3. (Don John of his Brother.)
Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?
Shakespeare.—King Henry VI., Part I. Act II. Scene 4. (Plantagenet.)
And but he’s something stain’d
With grief, that’s beauty’s canker, thou might’st call him
A goodly person.
Shakespeare.—Tempest, Act I. Scene 2. (Prospero to Miranda.)
As killing as the canker to the rose.
Milton.—Lycidas, Line 45.
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act I. Scene 3. (Laertes.)