mare quotes

Nam tibi carior est ille filius equae quam ille filius Dei? Is this son of a mare dearer to you, then, than that son of God?

-St Aidan
c.645  To King Oswin of Deira, who had objected when  Aidan gave to a beggar a horse which he had received as a gift from the king. Quoted in Bede Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis  Anglorum (731), bk.3, ch.14.

Tom Pearce,Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare, All along, down along, out along lee. For I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair, Wi' Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davey, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawk, Old UncleTom Cobleigh and all.

-Ballads
'Widdicombe Fair'.

Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd, Or cutty sarks run in your mind, Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear 172 RememberTam o' Shanter's mare.

- Robert Burns
  'Tam o' Shanter.  A  Tale'.

And she, being old, fed from a mashed plate as an old mare might droop across a fence to the dull pastures of her ignorance. Her husband held her upright while he prayed to God who is all-forgiving to send down some angel somewhere who might land perhaps in his foreign wings among the gradual crops. She munched, half dead, blindly searching the spoon.

-A'Ghobhainn
Thistles and Roses,'OldWoman', stanzas1^2.