Context: A young friend has asked the author if he should marry "a maid of flowering age, a goodly one," or "a widow, who so many years bears,/ That all her whiteness lieth in her white hairs." The author has answered by bringing to mind all the "plain pithy proverbs" which have served "both old and young" as warnings to approach marriage slowly and cautiously. The friend admits the wisdom of these proverbs, but he urges that against them he can advance "other parables, of like weighty weight,/ Which haste me to wedding, as ye shall hear straight." He then rattles off some examples, including the one about time and tide, which is rather widely used in literature: Chaucer in The Clerk's Tale, line 118, Robert Greene in Disputations (1592), Robert Southwell in St. Peter's Complaint (1595), and Robert Burns in Tam O'Shanter (1787)–"Nae man can tether time or tide."