RHYME NOR REASON

Posted by ESC on May 24, 2006

In Reply to: RHYME NOR REASON Posted by Janice on May 24, 2006

: I'm doing an assignment about PHRASES and what's the origin & meaning of RHYME NOR REASON from Shakespeare's As You Like It.pls help

It means "neither order or inherent sense." The phrase is used by Shakespeare in "As You Like It," "The Comedy of Errors" and, with variation in "The Merry Wives of Windsor." "The linking of these two alliterative nouns is at least as old as the poet John Skelton, who in the 1520s wrote that 'For reason can I none find/Nor good rhyme in your matter.'" From "Brush Up on Your Shakespeare!" By Michael Macrone (Gramercy Books, New York, 1999). Page 120-121.