Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Water
Water turned to wine.
St. John, Chap. ii. Verses 3–10.
Vidit et erubuit lympha pudica Deum.
Crashaw.—Epigrammata Sacra, 1634.
Thou water turn’st to wine (fair friend of life);
Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of thy reign,
Distils from thence the tears of wrath and strife,
And so turns wine to water back again.
Crashaw.—Divine Epigram.
The conscious water saw its God, and blushed.
Boswell’s Johnson, 1778, Chapter LXV. Croker’s edition.
Reach with your whiter hands to me,
Some crystal of the spring;
And I about the cup shall see
Fresh lilies flourishing.
Or else, sweet nymphs, do you but this,
To the glass your lips incline;
And I shall see, by that one kiss,
The water turn’d to wine.
Herrick.—The Hesperides to the Water Nymph, No. 318.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink!
Coleridge.—The Ancient Mariner, Part II. Verse 9.
Unstable as water thou shalt not excel.
Genesis, Chap. xlix. Ver. 4. (Jacob to Reuben.)