chickens come home to roost, one’s

One’s  sins  or  mistakes  always catch up with one. The idea of retribution is, of course, very old, recorded in ancient Greek and Roman writings. Virgil’s Aeneid, for example, has it, “Now do thy sinful deeds come home to thee.” This particular turn of phrase, how- ever, appears to have been invented by the English poet Robert Southey, who wrote  it  as  a  motto  in  The  Curse  of  Kehama  (1809): “Curses  are  like  young chickens; they always come home to roost.”