Rhyme nor reason

‘Rhyme or reason’ is first recorded by John Russell, in The Boke of Nurture, circa 1460:

As for ryme or reson, ye forewryter was not to blame,
For as he founde hit afore hym, so wrote he ye same.

Nicolas Udall, in his translation of The first tome or volume of the paraphrase of Erasmus upon the Newe Testament, in 1548, used the more usual negative form ‘rhyme nor reason’

Seeyng there is nether ryme ne reason in saing ye one eiuill spirite driueth out an other eiuil spirite.

This line is best known from Shakespeare – initially in Comedy of Errors, 1590:

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE:
Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?

The bard must have liked the line as he used it again in As You Like It, 1600:

ROSALIND: But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
ORLANDO: Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.