Hello everyone. This is my first posting and I hope someone can help me. I need the author of the following, "Marriage is like a besieged city, everyone on the outside wants to get in, anyone on the inside wants to get out." This is for bonus points in one of my college classes, and i thank you in advance for any assistance you can offer.

[This message was edited by thenostromo on 10-23-02 at 05:13 PM.]

Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been
To public feasts, where meet a public rout, -
Where they that are without would fain go in,
And they that are within would fain go out.
~ Sir John Davies. (1570–1626) Contention betwixt a Wife, etc.

’T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.
~John Webster: The White Devil, act i. sc. 2.

Le mariage est comme une forteresse assiégée; ceux qui sont dehors veulent y entrer, et ceux qui sont dedans veulent en sortir
(Marriage is like a beleaguered fortress: those who are outside want to get in, and those inside want to get out).
~Quitard: Études sur les Proverbes Français, p. 102.

It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
~Montaigne: U[/I]pon some Verses of Virgil, chap. v.[/I]

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
~Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative Men: Montaigne.
http://www.bartleby.com/100/143.html

And a watered down version:

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
~Michel de Montaigne
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/q125532.html

The quote is credited to Chien Chung-shu in his (relatively) modern Chinese novel "The Besieged City". You can do a Google search for more info - Google Books has a copy, I believe. The quote is much better than our "grass is greener", which has agricultural roots. In fact, Chien's quote, or a variation of it, goes back to the Provencal poets - the French, wouldn't you know.