An upstart crow beautified with our feathers
"An upstart crow, beautified with our feathers", scilicet "novus corvus plumis nostris adornatus", sunt verba anno 1592 a Roberto Greene scripta et (paulo post eius mortem) in libro satyrico Greene's Groat's Worth of Wit divulgata; quibus verbis Greene a philologis compluribus Gulielmum Shakesperium, apud nullum auctorem anteriorem relatum, vituperare censetur: There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tygers hart wrapt in a players hyde supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you, and, being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. In hac sententia Greene nomine gentilicio poëtae (quod alii saepe hyphene dividebant, Shake-speare) alludit et in Shake-scene (scil. "qui scaenam quassat") mutat. Eundem ludum post Shakesperium mortuum Beniaminus Jonson repetit, tali mutatione in verbis shake a stage effecta, in epigrammate suo "To the memory of my beloved, the author, Mr. William Shakespeare" (1623).