where does the phrase "where the bee sups" come from?

July 30, 2008 6:08 PM

Where does the phrase "where the bee sups, there sups I" come from? I think that's a misquote because google fails me, and it's been bugging me.
posted by Grod to writing & language (8 comments total)

Where the bee sips, there sip I

posted by Dolukhanova at 6:13 PM on July 30

Is it "where the bee sips"?

Shakespeare, "Tempest":

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In the cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:15 PM on July 30

Sorry, not very good at this:

Where the bee sips, there sip I
posted by Dolukhanova at 6:15 PM on July 30

Pretty sure it's "where the bee sucks, there suck I", from Shakespeare's "the Tempest".
posted by thumpasor at 6:15 PM on July 30

Ok, I'm going to try this one more time
And, on preview, MonkeyToes and thumpasor have already said what I was going to say, so I'm going to slink away now
posted by Dolukhanova at 6:17 PM on July 30

Fascinating, the Keats quotation is an homage to Shakespeare.
posted by JimN2TAW at 9:20 PM on July 30

I've seen a couple Tempests where this was set to music. If the line is played up right, it's usually good for a laugh.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:55 PM on July 30

Fascinating, the Keats quotation is an homage to Shakespeare.

It's actually neither Keats nor an homage.

It's someone imitating Keats and using Thomas Bowdler's "improved" version of Shakespeare. Whoever wrote that poem wasn't tweaking Shakespeare's text--they were using Bowdler's tweaked version.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:44 AM on July 31