There’s an English expression I run across occasionally-- “More’s the pity.” I understand it means, roughly, “unfortunately,” but I wonder where it came from.
Macbeth, Act III, scene 4 –
MACDUFF
Good Fleance fleed, and more’s the pity there
For thanes approach and now Macbeth beware.
It’s also in the Netherland national anthem –
“Count Adolf, more’s the pity, Fell in the Frisian fray”
More Shakespeare –
Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Act III, scene 1
BOTTOM
Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason
for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and
love keep little company together now-a-days; the
more the pity that some honest neighbours will not
make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
And King Henry IV, Part 1, Act II, scene 4
FALSTAFF
But to say I know more harm in him than in myself,
were to say more than I know. That he is old, the
more the pity, his white hairs do witness it; but
that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster,
that I utterly deny.
And one of the gravediggers in Hamlet, Act V, scene 1 –
Why, there thou say’st: and the more pity that
great folk should have countenance in this world to
drown or hang themselves, more than their even
Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
they hold up Adam’s profession.
Foghorn O’Flaherty in City Improper
… Hegarty preferred mine to Moore’s. The pity of it all is that he’d never have either.
Can anybody tell that I’ve been left relatively unsupervised at work?
And now class, your assignment – Which one of the above did I make up?
The original expression (pre-Shakespeare) is “Smores the pity”, when a small child dropped a Smore on the sidewalk and it got grit all over it.
John Moulton: 1465-1509
“And thus did Jacob drop his sweetmeat upon the sad turf
Smore’s the Pity, my Smore is gritty, my Graham Cracker wasted.”
Shakespeare was a terrible plagiarist.
Macbeth
Can anyone tell I should be finishing my taxes?
Carol
hehe
another hehe
Ah – then you picked up on the little clew that I left, to wit: That MacDuff is not even in the banquet scene.
I’m not sure, but it’s not the one about the Dutch National Anthem. 
And this thread goes on, more’s the pity 
[u]This site[/u] claims it’s a translation of a common Irish phrase.
A very common phrase among us is, ‘More’s the pity’:- ‘More’s the pity that our friend William should be so afflicted.’
‘More’s the pity one so pretty
As I should live alone.’(Anglo-Irish Folk-Song.)
This is a translation of a very common Irish expression as seen in:- > Budh mhó an sgéile Diarmaid do bheith marbh> : ‘More’s the pity Dermot to be dead.’ (Story of ‘Dermot and Grania.’)
[u]Here[/u] is another site which makes the same claim.
From Othello
To whom doth this hole belong?
T’is not the dusky Moor’s. The pit he dug
Lies yonder.
I think of it as a phrase best delivered in dry, acerbic fashion by a dour male character who may or may not be the antagonist.
Snape?