With this, we charged again: but, out, alas!
We bodged again; as I have seen a swan
With bootless labour swim against the tide
And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
(3KH6 1.4.19-22)

Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can
Her heart inform her tongue,--the swan's
down-feather,
That stands upon the swell at full of tide,
And neither way inclines.
(Antony and Cleopatra 3.2.56-60)

And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable
(As You Like It 1.3.73-4)

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.
(King John 5.7.24-7)

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And watery death-bed for him.
(The Merchant of Venice 3.2.46-50)

What did thy song bode, lady?
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan.
And die in music.
(Othello 5.2.284-5)

But if the like the snow-white swan desire,
The stain upon his silver down will stay.
(The Rape of Lucrece)

Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
(Romeo and Juliet 1.2.88-90)

For all the water in the ocean
Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,
Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
(Titus Andronicus 4.2.103-5)

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
(The Phoenix and the Turtle)

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