Stony-Hearted

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Stony-Hearted : Phrases

Meaning:

Cruel and unfeeling.


Example:







Origin:

The phrase is first recorded in 1569, in Thomas Underdown's translation of the Æthiopian History of Heliodorus:

" There is no man so stoany harted, but he shal be made to yeelde with our flatteringe allurmentes."

Shakespeare picked it up and used it in Henry IV, 1596

FALSTAFF

I am accursed to rob in that thief's company: the
rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know
not where. If I travel but four foot by the squier
further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt
not but to die a fair death for all this, if I
'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have
forsworn his company hourly any time this two and
twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the
rogue's company. If the rascal hath not given me
medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it
could not be else: I have drunk medicines. Poins!
Hal! a plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto!
I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. An 'twere
not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man and to
leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that
ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven
ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me;
and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough:
a plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!

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