Gregory's Poem on his own Life contains some beautiful lines (tom. ii. p. 8 [ed. Paris, 1609]), which burst from the heart, and speak the pangs of injured and lost friendship:
In the Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena addresses the same pathetic complaint to her friend Hermia:
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters' vows, etc.
Shakespeare had never read the poems of Gregory Nazianzen; he was ignorant of the Greek language — but his mother-tongue, the language of Nature, is the same in Cappadocia and in Britain.