Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ’em i’ th’ paste alive. She knapped ’em o’ th’ coxcombs with a stick and cried "Down, wantons, down!" ‘Twas her brother that in pure kindness to his horse buttered his hay.
– William Shakespeare
King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. The Fool tells Lear two stories about idiotic kindness. The first about a woman who tries to make an eel pie without killing the eels first because she doesn’t want to harm them, and discovers this when it is too late. The other about her brother buttering the horses’ hay to make it taste better. The stories illustrate how Lear realizes too late that he trusted the wrong daughters when he gave his kingdom to them.