We prove some new upper and lower bounds for the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of triangles and quadrilaterals. In particular, we improvePólya and Szegö's [Annals of Mathematical Studies 27 (1951)] lower bound for quadrilaterals and extendHersch's [Z. Angew. Math. Phys. 17 (1966) 457–460] upper bound for parallelograms to general quadrilaterals.