Note to Othello, 1.3.212: "He bears the sentence well that nothing bears / But the free comfort which from thence he hears, / But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow / That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow"


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Othello,
Act 1, Scene 3, line 212.
He bears the sentence well that nothing bears / But the free comfort which from thence he hears, / But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow / That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow: i.e., a person well bears out your maxim who takes with him only the philosophic consolation it teaches him, a comfort free from sorrow; but anyone whose grief bankrupts his poor patience is left with your saying and his sorrow too. (Bears the sentence also plays on the meaning of receiving judicial sentence).