Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies
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Title: Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies
Author: Samuel Johnson
Editor: Arthur Sherbo
Release date: March 1, 2005 [eBook #7780]
Most recently updated: December 30, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7780
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES TO SHAKESPEARE — VOLUME 01: COMEDIES ***
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THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
SAMUEL JOHNSON
_Notes to Shakespeare_
Vol. I
Comedies
Edited, with an Introduction, by Arthur Sherbo
GENERAL EDITORS
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
RALPH COHEN, _University of California, Los Angeles_
VINTON A. DEARING, _University of California, Los Angeles_
LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL, _Clark Memorial Library_
ASSISTANT EDITOR
W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
ADVISORY EDITORS
EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
LOUIS BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
JOHN BUTT, _King's College, University of Durham_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST C. MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College; London_
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
EDNA C. DAVIS, _Clark Memorial Library_
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Dr. Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare is one of the most famous critical
essays of the eighteenth century, and yet too many students have
forgotten that it is, precisely, a preface to the plays of Shakespeare,
edited by Dr. Johnson himself. That is to say, the edition itself has
been obscured or overshadowed by its preface, and the sustained effort
of that essay has virtually monopolized scholarly attention--much of
which should be directed to the commentary. Johnson's love for
Shakespeare's plays is well known; nowhere is this more manifest than in
his notes on them. And it is on the notes that his claim to remembrance
as a critic of Shakespeare must rest, for the famous Preface is, after
all, only rarely an original and personal statement.
The idea of editing Shakespeare's plays had attracted Johnson early, and
in 1745 he issued proposals for an edition. Forced to give up the
project because of copyright difficulties, he returned to it again in
1756 with another, much fuller set of proposals. Between 1745 and 1756
he had completed the great _Dictionary_ and could advance his
lexicographical labors as an invaluable aid in the explication of
Shakespeare. Although he had promised speedy publication, "on or before
Christmas 1757," Johnson's public had to wait until Oct. 10, 1765 for
the Shakespeare edition to appear. The first edition, largely subscribed
for, was soon exhausted, and a second edition was ready the very next
month. A third edition was published in 1768, but there were no
revisions in the notes in either of these editions. At some time after
February 1, 1766, the date of George Steevens' own proposals for an
edition of Shakespeare, and before March 21, 1770 when Johnson wrote to
Richard Farmer for some assistance in the edition (_Life_, II, 114),
Johnson decided to join forces with Steevens. The result was, of course,
the so-called 1773 Johnson-Steevens variorum from which the notes in
this reprint are taken. A second Johnson-Steevens variorum appeared in
1778, but Johnson's part in this was negligible, and I have been able to
find only fifty-one revisions (one, a definition, is a new note) which I
feel reasonably certain are his. The third variorum, edited by Isaac
Reed in 1785, contains one revision in Johnson's notes.
"Dr. Johnson has displayed, in this revisal, such ingenuity, and
accuracy of just conception, as render the present annotations a
valuable addition to his former remarks on the subject." The writer is a
reviewer for the _Critical Review_ (Dee., 1773, p. 416); the work in
question is the 1773 Johnson-Steevens edition of Shakespeare's plays.
The remark quoted is from the last paragraph of a long review beginning
in November and seems almost an afterthought, for the same reviewer had
said that the edition "deserves to be considered as almost entirely the
production of Mr. Steevens" (p. 346). In a sense this is true, but the
basis for the commentary in the 1773 edition was still the approximately
5600 notes, both his own and those of previous editors and critics, that
had appeared in Dr. Johnson's 1765 edition. The actual text of the plays
is another matter; a combination of collation and judicious borrowing,
it was provided by George Steevens. Steevens' contributions to the text
and annotation of Shakespeare's plays concern students of the dramatist;
That Johnson had to say about the plays concerns Johnsonians as veil as
Shakespeareans. And it is unfortunately true that too little attention
has been paid to what is after all Johnson's final and reconsidered
judgment on a number of passages in the plays.
The decision to reprint the commentary in the 1773 edition may be
questioned. Should not the 1765 text of the notes be reprinted, since
it, after all, is nearest to the author's manuscript? Will not errors
from the second and third editions have been perpetuated and new ones
committed in 1773, an inevitable result of reprinting any large body of
material? Ideally, the 1765 edition should be the copy-text. But
Johnson made about 500 revisions in his commentary, adding eighty-four
new notes and omitting thirty-four of his original notes in the first
edition. Obviously, Johnson cannot, or should not, be condemned for a
note in the 1765 edition which he omitted in 1773. Yet in selections
from Johnson's notes to Shakespeare that appear in anthologies some of
these offending notes have been reprinted without any indication that
the editors knew of their later retraction. In seventy-three notes
Johnson adds comments to his original note; in eighty-eight, to the
notes of other editors and critics. He revises seventy-five of his
original notes and he omits ten comments on the notes of others. And
there are many other changes. Some of the revisions come from the
Appendix to the 1765 edition. I have collated the notes in the 1765 and
1773 editions for evidence of revision; changes in punctuation were
passed over, and I must admit that I do not think them important. In
the light of my collation and because of the greater clumsiness of an
apparatus to indicate revisions in the 1765 notes I have elected to use
the 1773 text of Johnson's commentary, trusting that I have not
overlooked any significant changes. The reader has, then, for the first
time, outside the covers of the ten volumes of the 1773 edition, an
almost complete text of Johnson's notes on Shakespeare. The only
omission in this reprint is of those notes which merely list variant
readings, either from one of the folios or quartos or from a previous
editor. Johnson's reputation as an editor of Shakespeare rests, after
all, on his commentary, not on his textual labors. Up to now Johnson's
notes have been available only in such books as Walter Raleigh's
_Johnson on Shakespeare_ and Mona Wilson's _Johnson; Prose and Poetry_,
and here one gets merely a selection. For example: Miss Wilson reprints
only two notes from _The Tempest_, one from _Julius Caesar_, three from
_Antony and Cleopatra_, and one from _Titus Andronicus_. One rarely gets
the chance to read the more than 2000 notes in the edition given over to
definitions or paraphrases and explanations. Yet it must be remembered
that Johnson has been most often praised for these notes by scholars
whose primary interest was Shakespeare's meaning, not Johnson's
personality. And, what bears constant repetition, the anthologies draw
their notes from the 1765 edition, neglecting altogether Johnson's
revisions. It is only very recently that these revisions have been
studied at all--and then but partially.
The present division of the commentary into three parts--the notes on
the comedies, those on the tragedies, and those on the history plays--is
arbitrary and mostly a matter of convenience. Some division was
necessary, and it seemed advantageous to present introductions which
could use Johnson's reaction to comedy, tragedy, and history plays--and
Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies, and histories--as a point of
departure. Were the notes reprinted in the order of appearance of the
plays one would find _Macbeth_, coming after _The Winter's Tale_ (the
last of the comedies), introducing the history plays. Since Johnson had
written _Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth_ in 1745
and had included the play among the tragedies in the 1765 edition it
seems reasonable to assume that he regarded it as a tragedy and possibly
bowed to Steevens' wishes in allowing it to appear where it does in
1773. Hence, the notes on _Macbeth_ occur with those on the other
tragedies in this reprint.
One of the reasons for a full reprinting of Johnson's commentary has
already been discussed: a complete and accurate knowledge of his
thoughts on each of the plays of the then accepted canon is thus gained.
(I might add here that some notes by other editors, inadvertently
unattributed in the 1765 edition--some of them still unattributed in
1773--have been erroneously reprinted as Johnson's by both Walter
Raleigh and Mona Wilson.) Another reason is, of course, the relative
difficulty of getting at the volumes of the 1773 edition. Although not a
particularly scarce item, the edition can usually be consulted only in
Rare Book rooms (there are exceptions), where the working scholar is
hampered by the inaccessibility of many other books, not "rare," which
he needs at his elbow. Then again, the present reprint gives only
Johnson's notes, except for necessary explanations of, or quotations
from, the notes of previous editors and critics. But far transcending
these reasons, although deriving from them, is the enormous value to the
student of Johnson the man and the critic of a now easily accessible
body of literary criticism and personal comment that is second in
importance only to the _Lives of the Poets_.
Johnson's notes to the plays of Shakespeare are an invaluable source of
information of many kinds. I can only suggest here, and give a few
examples of, the wealth of material that awaits further, detailed
examination by other scholars. One demonstration, however, of the use to
which the notes can be put is provided by Professor E. L. McAdam's _Dr.
Johnson and the English Law_ (1951) in which are recorded notes showing
Johnson's familiarity with various legal terms. Further insight into
Johnson's knowledge of books of _esoterica_, histories, ballads, etc.,
can be gleaned from the comments on Shakespeare. A subject in which I
must confess an interest possibly out of proportion to its worth is that
of Johnson's reading. Some day we will have a list, probably never
complete, of the books we can be sure Johnson knew. Not only will the
notes to Shakespeare supply the names of works that Johnson knew, quoted
from, or alluded to only in these notes, but they will also help to
establish more firmly certain fields or subjects that fascinated him.
Thus, one note is evidence for Johnson's knowledge of Guevara's _Dial of
Princes_; another for his familiarity with Ficino's _De Vita Libri
Tres_; and nowhere else in Johnson's works, letters, or conversation are
these works so much as alluded, to. Other notes show us that Johnson
remembered now a poem, now an essay, from the _Gentleman's Magazine_. In
still other notes one encounters or is able to identify the names of
John Caius, John Trevisa, Dr. William Alabaster, Paul Scarron, Abraham
Ortelius, Meric Casaubon, and many others. Plays, sermons, travel books,
ballads, romances, proverbs, poems, histories, biographies, essays,
letters, documents--all have their place in the notes to Shakespeare.
No discussion of Johnson's knowledge of books can ignore the importance
of his reading for the _Dictionary_. Nor can this same preparatory
reading be overlooked in a consideration of the Shakespeare edition.
Between one-fifth and one-fourth of the notes to Shakespeare can be
traced back to the _Dictionary_. What is more, the revision of the 1765
_Shakespeare_ was undertaken at the same time that Johnson was revising
his _Dictionary_; both revisions appeared in the same year. And so one
is not surprised to find that these two labors are of reciprocal
assistance. One illustration will have to do duty for several: in a note
Johnson observes of the verb "to roam" that it is "supposed to be
derived from the cant of vagabonds, who often pretended a pilgrimage to
Rome;" this etymology is absent from the 1755 _Dictionary_; in the
revised _Dictionary_ the verb "is imagined to come from the pretenses of
vagrants, who always said they were going to Rome." A number of the new
notes and comments in the 1773 Shakespeare are clearly derived, directly
or indirectly, from the _Dictionary_.
I have already mentioned the _Lives of the Poets_ as the only critical
work by Johnson which takes precedence over the commentary (and Preface,
also) to the plays of Shakespeare. And yet this statement needs
modification. In one important respect the notes to Shakespeare are of
greater significance than the much more famous _Lives_ for an
investigation of Johnson the critic at work. Why, for example, is the
_Life of Cowley_ one of the most valuable of the _Lives_? For two
reasons: Johnson is discussing a school of poetry which has provoked
much comment, _and_ that particular _ Life_ abounds in quotations upon
which Johnson exercises his critical abilities. But there are not many
of the _Lives_ which reveal Johnson at work on particular passages,
where the passage in question is quoted and critical comment is made on
a particular line or a particular image, rhyme, word, etc. In short, as
so often in Johnson, we are confronted with the large general statement
in so much of the criticism in the _Lives_. The "diction" of _Lycidas_
is "harsh." "Some philosophical notions [in _Paradise_ _Lost_],
especially when the philosophy is false, might have been better
omitted." The plays of Nicholas Rowe are marked by "elegance of
diction." Dryden is not often "pathetick." Some of Swift's poetry is
"gross" and some is "trifling." The diction of Shenstone's _Elegies_ is
"often harsh, improper, and affected."
Johnson has not made his meaning entirely clear in these statements
because he has not illustrated his remarks with quotations from the
works or authors under examination. The famous--or notorious--
condemnation of _Lycidas_ as "harsh" in diction continues to give
scholars pause. Most often Johnson has been accused of a poor--or no--
ear for poetry, since the only definition of "harsh" in his _Dictionary_
which is applicable here is "rough to the ear." As no specific lines
from the poem are labelled "harsh," one is forced to conclude that the
whole poem is unmusical to Johnson's ears--if "harsh" means only "rough
to the ear." But the notes to Shakespeare make it perfectly clear that
"harsh" often means something other than that. Sometimes a line is
stigmatised as "harsh" because it contains what Johnson in _Rambler_ No.
88 called the "collision of consonants." An image offends his sense of
propriety and is therefore "harsh." Some words are "harsh" because they
are "appropriated to particular arts" (the phrase comes from his _Life
of Dryden_). Thus, in _Measure for Measure_, a "leaven'd choice" is
"one of Shakespeare's harsh metaphors" because it conjures up images of
a baker at his trade. Johnson also uses "harsh" to describe a word used
in a sense not familiar to him. And "harsh" is sometimes used
synonymously with "forced and far-fetched." "Is't not a kind of incest,
to take life From thine own sister's shame?" asks Isabella of her
brother in _Measure for Measure_, provoking from Johnson the remark that
in her "declamation there is something harsh, and something forced and
far-fetched." Only now, with the varying uses of "harsh" as exemplified
in the notes to Shakespeare as guides, can one hope better to understand
the bare statement that the diction of _Lycidas_ is "harsh." Similar
investigation of other important words in Johnson's critical vocabulary
is possible through a close study of his commentary on Shakespeare's
plays. Words such as "elegant," "inartificial," "just," "low,"
"pathetic," "proper," "vicious," and others used in criticism of
specific lines and passages help one to pin down Johnson's meaning when
he uses the same words in general contexts elsewhere.
Johnson stands clearly revealed as a critic in his notes to Shakespeare;
if there is any doubt of this, it can only center about the comparative
importance we may wish to attach to the commentary in relation to the
rest of Johnson's criticism. But there is another aspect of Johnson of
which one gets but half-glimpses in the notes; and here I may be accused
or romanticizing or of reading too much significance into remarks whose
purpose was to illuminate Shakespeare's art and not, decidedly, to
reveal the editor's character. To put it baldly, I believe that in some
notes Johnson has given us clues to his own feelings under circumstances
similar to those in which Shakespeare's characters find themselves. Let
me illustrate. In the concluding line of Act II of _2 Henry VI_,
Eleanor, wife to the Duke of Gloucester, is on her way to prison. She
says, "Go, lead the way. I long to see my prison." Johnson comments:
"This impatience of a high spirit is very natural. It is not so dreadful
to be imprisoned, as it is desirable in a state of disgrace to be
sheltered from the scorn of gazers." This note may be innocuous enough,
but it is worth recalling that Johnson was arrested for debt in
February, 1758, when he was engaged in the edition of Shakespeare. And
two years earlier, in March of 1756, he had also been arrested for debt.
Friends came to his rescue both times. Curiously, there is no mention of
the arrests in Boswell's _Life_. Did Boswell know and deliberately omit
these facts, or did Johnson prefer to keep silent about them? Anecdote
after anecdote shows Johnson to have been an extremely proud man, one
who would feel keenly a public disgrace. Was he exposed to "the scorn of
gazers" on one or both of these occasions? It is tempting, and
admittedly dangerous, to read autobiographical significance in the note
on Eleanor's words. But another question intrudes itself in this
connection: Is there a link between the two arrests and _Idler_ No. 22,
"Imprisonment of Debtors," which Johnson substituted for the original
essay when the periodical was republished in 1761? I am not prepared to
answer these questions; I can only raise them.
I cannot forbear another excursion into the region of Johnsonian
autobiography (or pseudo-autobiography) even at the increased risk of
committing a scholarly sin against which I have myself protested. In my
own defense I can say that I know the highly conjectural nature of what
I am doing. Johnson's pride may have suffered when he was arrested for
debt in the presence of unsympathetic onlookers. This is sheer
hypothesizing. But when, in _Henry IV_, Worcester speaks the following
words:
For, bear ourselves as even as we can, The King will always think him in
our debt; And think, we deem ourselves unsatisfy'd, Till he hath found a
time to pay us home. (I.iii.285-8) and Johnson comments: "This is a
natural description of the state of mind between those who have
conferred, and those that have received, obligations too great to be
satisfied," we may protest that such a reaction is by no means
universal. The suspicion that Johnson is speaking for himself is
strengthened by an observation made by Sir Joshua Reynolds and recorded
by his biographer, Junes Northcote. Reynolds remarks "that if any drew
[Johnson] into a state of obligation without his own consent, that man
was the first he would affront, by way of clearing off the account"
(see Boswell's _Life_, III, 345, n.l). Johnson's note may nov be looked
upon as a possible personal confession. Other conjectures are justified,
I believe, by still other notes, but it may be preferable to list,
without comment, some of the topics upon which Johnson has his say in
the notes to Shakespeare. He comments on melancholy, falsehood, the
lightness with which vows are made, cruelty to animals, "the pain of
deformity," the horrors of solitude, kindness to dependents, friendship,
slavery, guilt, the "unsocial mind," the "mean" and the "great"--and a
host of others. It is not difficult, therefore, to understand why the
editor of _The Beauties of Johnson_ quoted so often from the notes to
Shakespeare.
The University of Illinois copy of the 1773 Shakespeare has been used.
It is unique, I believe, in that the last volume contains a list of
"Cancels In Shakespeare. This List not to be bound up with the Book,
being only to direct the Binder," one of the earliest of these forgotten
directions to the binder to be recorded. There is another point of
bibliographical interest in the edition. L. F. Powell states that there
are three Appendices in the last volume of the edition (_Life_. II,
490), as does T. J. Monaghan (_RES_, 1953, p. 238). Yet the Illinois
copy has only two appendices, and a check of copies in some six large
American libraries reveals the same number. The copy with the three
Appendices would seem quite rare.
One or two symbols and abbreviations have been used for the sake of
economy. A new note or comment by Johnson, one added in 1773, is
indicated by (1773) at the end of the note. "W" is Warburton; "T" is
Theobald. The notation "W: winter" points to an easily recognizable
emendation by Warburton in a line quoted before the note in question.
Easily identifiable references to revisions of notes in the 1765
edition, or to revisions later made in the 1778 edition, are placed in
parentheses at the end of the notes. Scholars interested in these
revisions must check them for themselves. Act, scene, and line
references to Shakespeare are from Kittredge's edition of the works
(Boston, 1936). The numbers in parentheses after the reference in
Kittredge are to page and note number (the volume being given only once)
in the 1773 edition. The page reference is to the page upon which the
note, Johnson's or another editor's, starts; sometimes the notes extend
to three or more pages. The text of Shakespeare quoted is that of the
1773 edition; this is the text that Johnson's contemporaries saw, and it
would be a distortion to reprint Johnson's notes after a modern text.
The following list is of notes Johnson omitted in 1773; the references
are, of course, to the 1765 edition: I, 64, 0; 94,0 106 ; 113, 0; 133,0;
151,0 ; 153,0 ; 233, 8; 469, 1; II, 217, 2; 295, 8; 326, 8; 396, 8;
464, 6; III, 193, 3; IV, 149, 2; 201, 5; 347, 4; 372, 5; 398, 7; 404, 3;
V, 61, 5; 107, 9; VI, 17, 3; 80, 5; [166]; 415, 9; 440, 9; VII, 316, 3;
VIII, 121, 9; 198, 2; 272, 6; 281, 9; 362, 7. Fourteen notes in the 1765
edition, there inadvertently unattributed, are taken verbatim from other
editors and critics; five of these are correctly attributed in 1773 (see
1765, V, 182, 1; VI, 24, 3 and 177, 3; and Appendix, notes on V, 253 and
VII, 444). Four notes are entirely omitted: 1773, II, 50, 4; 138, 5; V,
297, 6; and VII, 317, 6. In four others (1773, I, 249, 5; II, 466, 7;
VI, 72, 4; and X, 417, 8) the part of the note that is not Johnson's is
set off by brackets and properly attributed. Finally, the note on II,
452 in the 1765 Appendix, taken partly from "Mr. Smith," appears in 1773
(I, 195, 5) as part of Steevens' comment. _Introduction on Comedies_.
If I were to select the one passage in Dr. Johnson's Preface to
Shakespeare which occasioned the greatest immediate protest and which
has continued to be held up to critical scorn, I should have to pitch
upon this: "In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to be
comick; but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode
of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there is
always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation or
desire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his
tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy seems
to be skill, his comedy to be instinct." As a theatre-goer, Johnson
could also say in the Preface that "familiar comedy is often more
powerful on the theatre, than in the page; imperial tragedy is always
less." One might logically assume, then, that Johnson's greater
enjoyment of Shakespeare's comedies would be easily remarked in his
commentary--and even, possibly, that they would be singled out for more
annotation and comment than the tragedies or the histories. The most
heavily annotated plays are, however, the tragedies, and it is curious
to observe that the sombre "problem comedy," _Measure for Measure_,
commands more notes than any other comedy. Further, Johnson's moral and
religious sensibilities were offended by profanity and obscenity in the
drama, and Shakespeare's comedies, far more than his tragedies and
histories, transgress in this direction. One recollects, finally, that
the dramatic genre favored most by Johnson was the "she-tragedy." Was
Johnson lauding Shakespeare's comedies because the tragedies had been
excessively praised? I do not know.
I an most grateful to the Research Board of the University of Illinois
for a grant which greatly expedited my work.
COMEDIES
Vol. I
THE TEMPEST
I.i (4,2) [_Enter a Ship-master and a Boatswain_] In this naval
dialogue, perhaps the first example of sailor's language exhibited on
the stage, there are, as I have been told by a skilful narrator, some
inaccuracies and contradictory orders.
I.i.8 (4,4) [blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough] Perhaps it
might be read,--_blow till thou burst, wind, if room enough_.
I.i.30 (5,5) It may be observed of Gonzalo, that, being the only good
man that appears with the king, he is the only man that preserves his
cheerfulness in the wreck, and his hope on the island.
I.i.52 (6,7) [set her two courses; off to sea again] The courses are the
main-sail and fore-sail. This term is used by Raleigh, in his
_Discourse on Shipping_.
I.i.63 (6,9)
[He'll be hang'd yet;
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid'st to glut him.]
Shakespeare probably wrote, _t'englut him, to swallow him_; for which I
know not that _glut_ is ever used by him. In this signification
_englut_, from _engloutir_, French, occurs frequently, as in _Henry VI_.
"--Thou art so near the gulf
Thou needs must be _englutted_."
And again in _Timon_ and _Othello_. Yet Milton writes _glutted offal_ for
_swallowed_, and therefore perhaps the present text may stand.
I.i.65 (7,1) [Farewell, brother!] All these lines have been hitherto
given to Gonzalo, who has no brother in the ship. It is probable
that the lines succeeding the _confused noise within_ should be
considered as spoken by no determinate characters, but should be
printed thus.
1 _Sailor_. Mercy on us!
We split, we split!
2 _Sailor_. Farewell, my, &c.
3 _Sailor_. Brother, farewell, &c. (see 1765, I,6,6)
I.ii.15 (8,3) [_Mira_. O, woe the day! _Pro_. No harm, I have done nothing
but in care of thee] I know not whether Shakespeare did not make Miranda
speak thus:
_O, woe the day! no harm?_
To which Prospero properly answers:
_I have done nothing but in care of thee_.
Miranda, when he speaks the words, _O, woe the day_! supposes, not
that the crew had escaped, but that her father thought differently
from her, and counted their destruction _no harm_.
I.ii.27 (8,4) [virtue of compassion] Virtue; the most efficacious
part, the energetic quality; in a like sense we say, _The virtue
of a plant is in the extract_.
I.ii.29 (8,5)
[I have with such provision in mine art
So safely order'd, that there is no soul--
No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel]
Thus the old editions read, but this is apparently defective.
Mr. Rowe, and after him Dr. Warburton, read _that there is no
soul lost_, without any notice of the variation. Mr. Theobald
substitutes _no foil_, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come so near
the right, and yet to miss it, is unlucky: the author probably
wrote _no soil_, no stain, no spot: for so Ariel tells,
_Not a hair perish'd;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before._
And Gonzalo, _The rarity of it is, that our garments being
drench'd in the sea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and
glosses_. Of this emendation I find that the author of notes
on _The Tempest_ had a glimpse, but could not keep it.
I.ii.58 (10,7) [and thy father Was duke of Milan, thou his only
heir] Perhaps--_and_ thou _his only heir_.
I.ii.83 (11,1)
[having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state
To what tune pleas'd his ear]
_Key_ in this place seems to signify the key of a musical instrument,
by which he set _Hearts to tune_.
I.ii.93 (11,2) [and my trust,_Like a good parent, did beget of him_
A falshood] Alluding to the observation, that a father above the
common rate of men has commonly a son below it. _Heroum filii
noxae_.
I.ii.155 (14,6) [deck'd the sea] _To deck the sea_, if explained, to
honour, adorn, or dignify, is indeed ridiculous, but the original
import of the verb _deck_ is, _to cover_; so in some parts they
yet say _deck the table_. This sense nay be borne, but perhaps
the poet wrote _fleck'd_, which I think is still used in rustic
language of drops falling upon water. Dr. Warburton reads
_mock'd_, the Oxford edition _brack'd_. (see 1765, I,13,5)
I.ii.185 (15,8) [Thou art inclin'd to sleep: 'tis a good dulness]
Dr. Warburton rightly observes, that this sleepiness, which
Prospero by his art had brought upon Miranda, and of which he
knew not how soon the effect would begin, makes him question
her so often whether she is attentive to his story.
I.ii.196 (16,1) [I boarded the king's ship: now on the beak] The
beak was a strong pointed body at the head of the ancient gallies;
it is used here for the forecastle, or the bolt-sprit.
I.ii.197 (16,2) [Now in the waste] The part between the quarter-deck
and the forecastle.
I.ii.209 (16,3) [Not a soul _But felt a fever of the mad_] In all the
later editions this is changed to a _fever of the mind_, without
reason or authority, nor is any notice given of an alteration.
I.ii.218 (17,4) [_On their sustaining garments not a blemish_ Thomas
Edwards' MSS: sea-stained] This note of Mr. Edwards, with which
I suppose no reader is satisfied, shews with how much greater
ease critical emendations are destroyed than made, and how
willingly every man would be changing the text, if his imagination
would furnish alterations. (1773)
I.ii.239 (19,7) [What is the time o' the day?] This passage needs
not be disturbed, it being common to ask a question, which the
next moment enables us to answer; he that thinks it faulty may
easily adjust it thus:
Pro. _What is the time o' the day? Past the mid season._
Ari. _At least two glasses._
Pro. _The time 'twixt six and now_--
I.ii.250 (19,8) [_Pro._ Dost thou forget _From what a torment I did
free thee?_] That the character and conduct of Prospero may be
understood, something must be known of the system of enchantment,
which supplied all the marvellous found in the romances
of the middle ages. This system seems to be founded on the
opinion that the fallen spirits, having different degrees of
guilt, had different habitations allotted them at their expulsion,
some being confined in hell, _some_ (as Hooker, who delivers
the opinion of our poet's age, expresses it) _dispersed in air,
some on earth, some in water, others in caves, dens, or minerals
under the earth_. Of these, some were more malignant and
mischievous than others. The earthy spirits seem to have been
thought the most depraved, and the aerial the least vitiated.
Thus Prospero observes of Ariel:
--_Thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her_ earthy _and abhorr'd commands._
Over these spirits a power might be obtained by certain rites
performed or charms learned. This power was called _The Black
Art_, or _Knowledge of Enchantment_. The enchanter being (as king
James observes in his _Demonology_) one _who commands the devil,
whereas the witch serves him_. Those who thought best of this
art, the existence of which was, I am afraid, believed very
seriously, held, that certain sounds and characters had a physical
power over spirits, and compelled their agency; others who
condemned the practice, which in reality was surely never
practised, were of opinion, with more reason, that the power of
charms arose _only_ from compact, and was no more than the spirits
voluntary allowed them for the seduction of man. The art was
held by all, though not equally criminal, yet unlawful, and
therefore Causabon, speaking of one who had commerce with
spirits, blames him, though he imagines him _one of the best kind
who dealt with them by way of command_. Thus Prospero repents of
his art in the last scene. The spirits were always considered
as in some measure enslaved to the enchanter, at least for a
time, and as serving with unwillingness, therefore Ariel so often
begs for liberty; and Caliban observes, that the spirits serve
Prospero with no good will, but _hate him rootedly_.--Of these
trifles enough.
I.ii.306 (22,1) [_Mira._ The strangeness of your story put _Heaviness
in me_.] Why should a wonderful story produce sleep? I believe
experience will prove, that any violent agitation of the mind
easily subsides in slumber, especially when, as in Prospero's
relation, the last images are pleasing.
I.ii.321 (23,2)
[As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholsome fen,
Drop on you both!]
[Some critics, Bentley among them, had spoken of Caliban's new
language.] Whence these critics derived the notion of a new
language appropriated to Caliban, I cannot find: they certainly
mistook brutality of sentiment for uncouthness of words. Caliban
had learned to speak of Prospero and his daughter, he had no
names for the sun and moon before their arrival, and could not
have invented a language of his own without more understanding
than Shakespeare has thought it proper to bestow upon him. His
diction is indeed somewhat clouded by the gloominess of his temper,
and the malignity of his purposes; but let any other being
entertain the same thoughts, and he will find them easily issue
in the same expressions.
[_As wicked dew_,]--_Wicked_; having baneful qualities. So
Spenser says, _wicked weed_; so, in opposition, we say herbs or
medicines have _virtues_. Bacon mentions _virtuous Bezoar_, and
Dryden _virtuous herbs_.
I.ii.351 (25,4) [Abhorred slave] This speech, which the old copy
gives to Miranda, is very judiciously bestowed by Mr. Theobald
on Prospero.
I.ii.364 (27,7) [the red plague] I suppose from the redness of the
body universally inflamed.
I.ii.396 (28,9) [Full fathom five thy father lies] [Charles Gildon
had criticized the song as trifling, and Warburton had defended
its dramatic propriety.] I know not whether Dr. Warburton has
very successfully defended these songs from Gildon's accusation.
Ariel's lays, however seasonable and efficacious, must be
allowed to be of no supernatural dignity or elegance, they express
nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal discovery.
The reason for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is,
that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an
order of beings to which tradition has always ascribed a sort of
diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick
controlment of nature, well expressed by the songs of Ariel.
I.ii.425 (31,3)
[Fer. my prime request,
Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!
If you be maid, or no?
Mira. No wonder, Sir;
But, certainly, a maid.]
[Nothing could be more prettily imagined to illustrate the
singularity of her character, than this pleasant mistake. W.] Dr.
Warburton has here found a beauty, which I think the author never
intended. Ferdinand asks her not whether she was a _created being_,
a question which, if he meant it, he has ill expressed, but whether
she was unmarried; for after the dialogue which Prospero's
interruption produces, he goes on pursuing his former question.
_O, if a virgin,
I'll make you queen of Naples_.
I.ii.439 (32,5) [controul thee] Confute thee, unanswerably contradict thee.
I.ii.471 (33,7) [come from thy ward] Desist from any hope of awing
me by that posture of defence.
II.i.3 (36,1) [our hint of woe] _Hint_ is that which recals to the
memory. The cause that fills our minds with grief is common.
Dr. Warburton reads _stint_ of woe.
II.i.11 (36,3) [_Ant._ The visitor will not give him o'er so] Why Dr.
Warburton should change _visitor_ to _'vizer_ for _adviser_, I cannot
discover. Gonzalo gives not only advice, but comfort, and is
therefore properly called _The Visitor_, like others who visit the
sick or distressed to give them consolation. In some of the
Protestant churches there is a kind of officers termed consolators
for the sick.
II.i.78 (38,6) [Widow Dido!] The name of a widow brings to their
minds their own shipwreck, which they consider as having made
many widows in Naples.
II.i.132 (39,7)
[Milan and Naples have
More widows in them of this business' making,
Than we bring men to comfort them]
It does not clearly appear whether the king and these lords
thought the ship lost. This passage seems to imply, that they
were themselves confident of returning, but imagined part of
the fleet destroyed. Why, indeed, should Sebastian plot against
his brother in the following scene, unless he knew how to find
the kingdom which be was to inherit?
II.i.232 (43,1) [this lord of weak remembrance] This lord, who,
being now in his dotage, has outlived his faculty of remembering;
and who, once laid in the ground, shall be as little remembered
himself, as he can now remember other things.
II.i.235 (43,2)
[For he's a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade the king his son's alive]
Of this entangled sentence I can draw no sense from the present
reading, and therefore imagine that the author gave it thus:
_For_ he, _a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade_.
Of which the meaning may be either, that _he alone, who is a
spirit of persuasion, professes to persuade the king_; or that,
_He only professes to persuade_, that is, _without being so
persuaded himself, he makes a show of persuading the king_.
II.i.242 (44,3) [Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond] That this is
the utmost extent of the prospect of ambition, the point where
the eye can pass no further, and where objects lose their
distinctness, so that what is there discovered, is faint, obscure,
and doubtful. (rev. 1778, I,50,4)
II.i.251 (44,5)
[though some cast again;
And, by that destiny, to perform an act,
Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come,
In yours, and my discharge.]
These lines stand in the old edition thus:
--_though some cast again;
And, by that destiny, to perform an act,
Whereof what's past, is prologue; what to come,
In your and my discharge_.
The reading in the later editions is without authority. The
old text may very well stand, except that in the last line _in_
should be _is_. and perhaps we might better say--_and that by
destiny_. It being a common plea of wickedness to call temptation
destiny.
II.i.259 (45,6) [Keep in Tunis] There is in this passage a propriety
lost, which a slight alteration will restore:
--Sleep _in Tunis,
And let Sebastian wake_!
II.i.278 (45,7) [Twenty consciences, That stand 'twixt me and
Milan, candy'd be they, Or melt e'er they molest] I had rather
read,
Would _melt e'er they molest_.
i.e. _Twenty consciences, such as stand between me and my hopes,
though they were congealed, would melt before they could molest
one_, or prevent the execution of my purposes. (see 1765, I,40,7)
II.i.286 (46,8) [This ancient morsel] For _morsel_ Dr. Warburton
reads _ancient moral_, very elegantly and judiciously, yet I know
not whether the author might not write _morsel_, as we say a _piece
of a man_.
II.i.288 (46,9) [take suggestion] i.e. Receive any hint of villainy,
(1773)
II.i.297 (46,1)
[_Ari._ My master through his art foresees the danger,
That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth
(For else his project dies) to keep them living]
[i.e. Alonzo and Antonio; for it was on their lives that his project
depended. Yet the Oxford Editor alters _them_ to _you_, because
in the verse before, it is said--_you his friend_; as if, because
Ariel was _sent forth_ to _save his friend_, he could not have another
purpose in sending him, _viz_. to _save his project_ too. W.]
I think Dr. Warburton and the Oxford Editor both mistaken.
The sense of the passage, as it now stands, is this: He sees
_your_ danger, and will therefore save _them_. Dr. Warburton has
mistaken Antonio for Gonzalo. Ariel would certainly not tell
Gonzalo, that his master saved him only for his project. He
speaks to himself as he approaches,
_My master through his art foresees the danger
That_ these _his friends are in_.
_These_ written with a _y_, according to the old practice, did not
much differ from _you_.
II.i.308 (47,2) [Why are you drawn?] Having your swords drawn. So
in _Romeo and Juliet_:
"What art thou _drawn_ among these heartless hinds?"
II.ii.12 (48,3) [sometime am I All wound with adders] Enwrapped by
adders _wound_ or twisted about me.
II.ii.32 (49,5) [make a man] That is, make a man's fortune. So in
_Midsummer Night's Dream_--"we are all _made men_."
II.ii.176 (54,5) [I'll get thee Young scamels from the rock] This
word has puzzled the commentators: Dr. Warburton reads _shamois_.
Mr. Theobald would read any thing rather than _scamels_. Mr.
Holt, who wrote notes upon this play, observes, that limpets are
in some places called _scams_, therefore I have suffered _scamels_
to stand.
III.i.48 (58,8) [Of every creature's best] Alluding to the picture
of Venus by Apelles.
III.ii.71 (62,5) [What a py'd ninny's this?] This line should certainly
be given to Stephano. _Py'd ninny_ alludes to the striped
coat worn by fools, of which Caliban could have no knowledge.
Trinculo had before been reprimanded and threatened by Stephano
for giving Caliban the lie, he is now supposed to repeat his
offence. Upon which Stephano cries out,
_What a py'd ninny's this? Thou scurvy patch_!--
Caliban, now seeing his master in the mood that he wished, instigates
him to vengeance:
_I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows_.
III.iii.48 (67,2) [Each putter out on five for one] This passage
alluding to a forgotten custom is very obscure: the _putter out_
must be a traveller, else how could he give this account? the
_five for one_ is money to be received by him at his return, Mr.
Theobald has well illustrated this passage by a quotation from
Jonson.
III.iii.82 (69,3) [clear life] Pure, blameless, innocent.
III.iii.86 (69,4)
[so with good life,
And observation strange, my meaner ministers
Their several kinds have done]
This seems a corruption. I know not in what sense _life_ can here
be used, unless for alacrity, liveliness, vigour, and in this
sense the expression is harsh. Perhaps we may read,--_with good_
lift, with good will, with sincere zeal for my service. I should
have proposed,--_with good_ lief, in the same sense, but that I
cannot find _lief_ to be a substantive. _With good life_ may however
mean, with _exact presentation of their several characters, with
observation strange_ of their particular and distinct parts. So
we say, he acted to the _life_. (see 1765, I,60,4)
III.iii.99 (70,5) [bass my trespass] The deep pipe told it me in a
rough bass sound.
IV.i.2 (71,7) [for I Have given you here a third of mine own life]
[Theobald had argued that Miranda was at least half of Prospero's
life and had emended.] In consequence of this ratiocination Mr.
Theobald printed the text, _a_ thread _of my own life_. I have
restored the ancient reading. Prospero, in his reason subjoined
why he calls her the _third_ of his life, seems to allude to some
logical distinction of causes, making her the final cause.
IV.i.7 (71,8) [strangely stood the test] Strangely is used by way
of commendation, _merveilleusement, to a wonder_; the sense is the
same in the foregoing scene, with _observation strange_.
IV.i.37 (72,1) [the rabble] The crew of meaner spirits.
IV.i.59 (73,4) [No tongue] Those who are present at incantations
are obliged to be strictly silent, "else," as we are afterwards
told, "the spell is marred."
IV.i.166 (80,4) [We must prepare to meet with Caliban] _To meet with_
is to counteract; to play stratagem against stratagem.--_The parson
knows the temper of every one in his house, and accordingly
either_ meets with their vices, _or advances their virtues_.
HERBERT's _Country Parson_.
IV.i.178 (80,5)
[so I charm'd their ears,
That, calf-like, they my loving follow'd through
Tooth'd briars, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns,
Which enter'd their frail shins]
Thus Drayton, in his _Court of Fairie of Hobgoblin caught in a
Spell:_
"But once the circle got within,
"The charms to work do straight begin,
"And he was caught as in a gin:
"For as be thus was busy,
"A pain he in his head-piece feels,
"Against a stubbed tree he reels,
"And up went poor Hobgoblin's heels:
"Alas, his brain was dizzy.
"At length upon his feet he gets,
"Hobgoblin fumes, Hobgoblin frets;
"And as again he forward sets,
"And through the bushes scrambles,
"A stump doth hit him in his pace,
"Down comes poor Hob upon his face,
"And lamentably tore his case
"Among the briers and brambles."
IV.i.196 (81,7) [your fairy ... has done little better than play'd the
Jack with us] Has led us about like an _iguis fatuus_, by which
travellers are decoyed into the mire.
IV.i.246 (83,3) [put some lime] That is, _birdlime_.
V.i.102 (90,7) [_Ari_. I drink the air before me] Is an expression of
swiftness of the same kind as _to devour the way_ in _Henry IV_.
V.i.144 (92,1)
[_Alon_. You the like loss?
_Pro_. As great to me, as late;]
My loss is as great as yours, and has as lately happened to me.
V.i.174 (93,2) [Yes, for a score of kingdoms] I take the sense to be
only this: Ferdinand would not, he says, play her false for the
_world_; yes, answers she, I would allow you to do it for something
less than the world, for _twenty kingdoms_, and I wish you well
enough to allow you, after a little _wrangle_, that your play was
fair. So likewise Dr. Gray.
V.i.213 (94,3) [When no man was his own] For _when_ perhaps should be
read _where_.
V.i.247 (96,4)
[at pick'd leisure
(Which shall be shortly) single I'll resolve you,
(Which to you shall seem probable) of every
These happen'd accidents]
These words seem, at the first view, to have no use; some lines
are perhaps lost with which they were connected. Or we may explain
them thus: I will resolve you, by yourself, which method,
when you hear the story [of Anthonio's and Sebastian's plot]
_shall seem probable_, that is, _shall deserve your approbation_.
V.i.267 (97,5)
[Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
Then say, if they be true]
That is, _honest_. _A true man_ is, in the language of that time,
opposed to a thief. The sense is, _Mark what these men wear, and
say if they are honest_.
Epilogue.10 (100,7) With the help of your good hands] By your
applause, by clapping hands. (1773)
General Observation (100) It is observed of _The Tempest_, that its
plan is regular; this the author of _The Revisal_ thinks, what I
think too, an accidental effect of the story, not intended or
regarded by our author. But whatever might be Shakespeare's intention
in forming or adopting the plot, he has made it instrumental
to the production of many characters, diversified with
boundless invention, and preserved with profound skill in nature,
extensive knowledge of opinions, and accurate observation of
life. In a single drama are here exhibited princes, courtiers,
and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is
the agency of airy spirits, and of an earthly goblin. The
operation of magick, the tumults of a storm, the adventures of
a desert island, the native effusion of untaught affection, the
punishment of guilt, and the final happiness of the pair for
whom our passions and reason are equally interested. (1773)
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
It is observable (I know not for what cause) that the stile of this
comedy is less figurative, and more natural and unaffected than the
greater part of this author's, though supposed to be one of the first
he wrote. [Pope.] To this observation of Mr. Pope, which is very just,
Mr. Theobald has added, that this is one of Shakespeare's _worst
plays, and is less corrupted than any other_. Mr. Upton peremptorily
determines, _that if any proof can be drawn from manner and stile,
this play must be sent packing, and seek for its parent elsewhere. How
otherwise_, says he, _do painters distinguish copies from originals,
and have not authors their peculiar stile and manner from which a true
critic can form as unerring judgment as a painter_? I am afraid this
illustration of a critic's science will not prove what is desired. A
painter knows a copy from an original by rules somewhat resembling
these by which critics know a translation, which if it be literal, and
literal it must be to resemble the copy of a picture, will be easily
distinguished. Copies are known from originals, even when the painter
copies his own picture; so if an author should literally translate his
work, he would lose the manner of an original.
Mr. Upton confounds the copy of a picture with the imitation
of a painter's manner. Copies are easily known, but good imitations
are not detected with equal certainty, and are, by the
best judges, often mistaken. Nor is it true that the writer has
always peculiarities equally distinguishable with those of the
painter. The peculiar manner of each arises from the desire,
natural to every performer, of facilitating his subsequent works
by recurrence to his former ideas; this recurrence produces that
repetition which is called habit. The painter, whose work is
partly intellectual and partly manual, has habits of the mind,
the eye and the hand, the writer has only habits of the mind.
Yet, some painters have differed as much from themselves as from
any other; and I have been told, that there is little resemblance
between the first works of Raphael and the last. The same variation
may be expected in writers; and if it be true, as it seems,
that they are less subject to habit, the difference between their
works may be yet greater.
But by the internal marks of a composition we may discover
the author with probability, though seldom with certainty. When
I read this play, I cannot but think that I find, both in the
serious and ludicrous scenes, the language and sentiments of
Shakespeare. It is not indeed one of his most powerful effusions,
it has neither many diversities of character, nor striking
delineations of life, but it abounds in [Greek: gnomahi] beyond most of
his plays, and few have more lines or passages, which, singly
considered, are eminently beautiful. I am yet inclined to believe
that it was not very successful, and suspect that it has escaped
corruption, only because being seldom played, it was less exposed
to the hazards of transcription.
I.i.34 (108,6)
[However, but a folly bought with wit;
Or else a wit by folly vanquished]
This love will end in a _foolish action_, to produce which you are
long to spend your _wit_, or it will end in the loss of your _wit_,
which will be overpowered by the folly of love.
I.i.69 (109,7) [Made wit with musing weak] For _made_ read _make_.
_Thou_, Julia, _hast_ made _me war with good counsel, and_ make _wit
weak with muting_.
I.i.70 (109,8) [_Enter Speed_] [Pope found this scene low and full of
"trifling conceits" and suggested it was possibly an interpolation
by the actors.] That this, like many other scenes, is mean and
vulgar, will be universally allowed; but that it was interpolated
by the players seems advanced without any proof, only to give a
greater licence to criticism.
I.i.153 (112,4) [you have testern'd me] You have gratified me with
a _tester, testern_, or _testen_, that is, with a sixpence.
I.ii.41 (114,5) [a goodly broker!] A _broker_ was used for matchmaker,
sometimes for a procuress.
I.ii.68 (115,6) [stomach on your meat] _Stomach_ was used for _passion_
or _obstinacy_.
I.ii.137 (117,8) [I see you have a month's mind to them] [_A month's
mind_ was an _anniversary_ in times of popery. Gray.] A _month's
mind_, in the ritual sense, signifies not desire or inclination,
but remonstrance; yet I suppose this is the true original of the
expression. (1773)
I.iii.1 (118,9) [what sad talk] _Sad_ is the same as _grave_ or _serious_.
I.iii.26 (119,2) [Valentine, Attends the emperor in his royal court]
[Theobald had tried to straighten out an historical error.] Mr.
Theobald discovers not any great skill in history. Vienna is
not the court of the emperor as emperor, nor has Milan been
always without its princes since the days of Charlemaigne; but
the note has its use.
I.iii.44 (120,3) [in good time] _In good time_ was the old expression
when something happened which suited the thing in hand, as the
French say, _a propos_.
I.iii.84 (121,4) [Oh, how this spring of love resembleth] At the
end of this verse there is wanting a syllable, for the speech
apparently ends in a quatrain. I find nothing that will rhyme
to _sun_, and therefore shall leave it to some happier critic.
But I suspect that the author might write thus:
_Oh, how this spring of love resembleth_ right,
_The uncertain glory of an April day_;
_Which now shews all the glory of the_ light,
_And, by and by, a cloud takes all away_.
_Light_ was either by negligence or affectation changed to _sun_,
which, considered without the rhyme, is indeed better. The next
transcriber, finding that the word _right_ did not rhyme to _sun_,
supposed it erroneously written, and left it out.
II.i.27 (123,1) [Hallowmas] That is, about the feast of All-Saints,
when winter begins, and the life of a vagrant becomes less comfortable.
II.i.39 (123,2) [without you were so simple, none else would] None
else would _be so simple_.
II.i.148 (127,5) [reasoning with yourself?] That is, _discoursing,
talking_. An Italianism.
II.iii.22 (129,2) [I am the dog] This passage is much confused, and
of confusion the present reading makes no end. Sir T. Hammer
reads, _I am the dog, no, the dog is himself and I am_ me, _the dog
is_ the dog, _and I am myself_. This certainly is more reasonable,
but I know not how much reason the author intended to bestow on
Launce's soliloquy.
II.iv.57 (133,1) [not without desert] And not dignified with so
much reputation without proportionate merit.
II.iv.115 (134,2) [No: that you are worthless] I have inserted the
particle _no_ to fill up the measure.
II.iv.129 (135,4)
[I have done penance for contemning love;
Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans]
For _whose_ I read _those_. I have contemned love and am punished.
_Those_ high thoughts by which I exalted myself above human passions
or frailties have brought upon me fasts and groans.
II.iv.138 (136,5) [no woe to his correction] No misery that _can be
compared to_ the punishment inflicted by love. Herbert called
for the prayers of the liturgy a little before his death, saying,
_None_ to _them_, _none_ to _them_.
II.iv.152 (136,6) [a principality] The first or _principal_ of women.
So the old writers use _state_. _She is a lady, a great_ state.
Latymer. _This look is called in_ states _warlie, in others
otherwise_. Sir T. More.
II.iv.167 (137,8) [She is alone] She stands by herself. There is
none to be compared to her.
II.iv.207 (138,1) [with more advice] With more prudence, with more
discretion.
II.iv.209 (138,2) ['Tis but her picture I have yet beheld] This is
evidently a slip of attention, for he had seen her in the last
scene, and in high terms offered her his service.
II.v.28 (139,4) [My staff understands me] This equivocation, miserable
as it is, has been admitted by Milton in his great poem.
B. VI.
"----The terms we sent were terms of weight,
"Such as we may perceive, amaz'd them all,
"And stagger'd many who receives them right,
"Had need from head to foot well _understand_,
"Not _understood_, this gift they have besides,
"To shew us when our foes stand not upright."
II.vi (141,5) [Enter Protheus] It is to be observed, that in the
first folio edition, the only edition of authority, there are no
directions concerning the scenes; they have been added by the
later editors, and may therefore be changed by any reader that
can give more consistency or regularity to the drama by such
alterations. I make this remark in this place, because I know
not whether the following soliloquy of Protheus is so proper in
the street.
II.vi.7 (141,6) [O sweet-suggesting love] To _suggest_ is to _tempt_ in
our author's language. So again:
"Knowing that tender youth is soon _suggested_."
The sense is, _O_ tempting love, _if thou hast_ influenced me to
sin, _teach me to excuse it_. Dr. Warburton reads, _if I have
sinn'd_; but, I think, not only without necessity, but with less
elegance.
II.vi.35 (142,7) [Myself in counsel, his competitor] _Myself, who
am his_ competitor _or_ rival, being admitted to his counsel.
II.vi.37 (142,8) [pretended flight] We may read _intended flight_.
II.vi.43 (142,9) [Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!]
I suspect that the author concluded the act with this couplet,
and that the next scene should begin the third act; but the
change, as it will add nothing to the probability of the action,
is of no great importance.
III.i.45 (146,1) [be not aimed at] Be not _guessed_.
III.i.47 (147,2) [of this pretence] Of this _claim_ made to your
daughter.
III.i.86 (148,4) [the fashion of the time] The modes of courtship,
the acts by which men recommended themselves to ladies.
III.i.148 (150,5) [for they are sent by me] _For_ is the same
as _for that, since_.
III.i.153 (150,6) [why, Phaeton (for thou art Merops' son)] Thou
art Phaeton in thy rashness, but without his pretensions; thou
art not the son of a divinity, but a _terrae filius_, a low born
wretch; Merops is thy true father, with whom Phaeton was
falsely reproached.
III.i.185 (151,7) [I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom] _To fly
his doom_, used for _by flying_, or _in flying_, is a gallicism. The
sense is, By avoiding the execution of his sentence I shall not
escape death. If I stay here, I suffer myself to be destroyed;
if I go away, I destroy myself.
III.i.261 (153,8) [_Laun_. I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have
the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave: but that's all
one, if he be but one knave] [W: but one kind] This alteration
is acute and specious, yet I know not whether, in Shakespeare's
language, _one knave_ may not signify a _knave on only one occasion_,
a _single knave_. We still use a _double villain_ for a
villain beyond the common rate of guilt.
III.i.265 (154,9) [a team of horse shall not pluck] I see how
Valentine suffers for telling his love-secrets, therefore I will keep
mine close.
III.i.330 (156,4) [_Speed. Item, she hath a. sweet mouth_] This I take
to be the same with what is now vulgarly called a _sweet tooth_,
a luxurious desire of dainties and sweetmeats.
III.i.351 (157,5) [_Speed. Item, she will often praise her liquor_]
That is, shew how well she likes it by drinking often.
III.i.355 (157,6) [_Speed. Item, she is too liberal_] _Liberal_, is
licentious and gross in language. So in _Othello_, "Is he not a
profane and very _liberal_ counsellor."
III.ii.7 (158,8) [Trenched in ice] Cut, carved in ice. _Trencher_,
to cut, French.
III.ii.36 (159,9) [with circumstance] With the addition of such
incidental particulars as may induce belief.
III.ii.51 (160,1)
[Therefore as you unwind her love from him,
Lest it should ravel, and be good to none,
You must provide to bottom it on me]
As you wind off her love from him, make me the _bottom_ on which
you wind it. The housewife's term for a ball of thread wound
upon a central body, is a _bottom of thread_.
III.ii.68 (160,2) [lime] That is, _birdlime_.
III.ii.98 (161,4) [_Duke_. Even now about it. I will pardon you]
I will excuse you from waiting.
IV.i.36 (163,2) [By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar]
_Robin Hood_ was captain of a band of robbers, and was much
inclined to rob churchmen.
IV.i.46 (163,3) [awful men] Reverend, worshipful, such as magistrates,
and other principal members of civil communities.
IV.ii.12 (165,1) [sudden quips] That is, hasty passionate reproaches
and scoffs. So Macbeth is in a kindred sense said to be _sudden_;
that is, irascible and impetuous.
IV.ii.45 (166,2) [_For beauty lives with kindness_] Beauty without
kindness _dies_ unenjoyed, and undelighting.
IV.ii.93 (168,4) [You have your wish; my will is even this] The word
_will_ is here ambiguous. He wishes to _gain_ her _will_; she tells
him, if he wants her _will_ he has it.
IV.ii.130 (169,5) [But, since your falsehood shall become you well]
This is hardly sense. We may read, with very little alteration,
But since _you're false_, it shall become you well.
IV.iii.37 (171,2) [Madam, I pity much your grievances] Sorrows,
sorrowful affections.
IV.iv.13 (172,1) [I would have, as one should say, one that takes
upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all
things] I believe we should read, _I would have_. &c. _one that
takes upon him to be a dog_, to be a dog _indeed, to be_, &c.
IV.iv.79 (174,3) [It seems, you lov'd not her, to leave her token]
Protheus does not properly leave his lady's token, he gives it
away. The old edition has it,
It seems you lov'd her not, _not_ leave her token.
I should correct it thus,
It seems you lov'd her not, _nor love_ her token.
IV.iv.106 (175,4) [To carry that which I would have refus'd] The
sense is, To go and present that which I wish to be not accepted,
to praise him whom I wish to be dispraised.
IV.iv.159 (176,5)
[The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks,
And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face.
That now she is become as black as I]
[W: And pitch'd] This is no emendation; none ever heard of a face
being _pitched_ by the weather. The colour of a part _pinched_, is
livid, as it is commonly termed, _black and blue_. The weather may
therefore be justly said to _pinch_ when it produces the same
visible effect. I believe this is the reason why the cold is
said to _pinch_.
IV.iv.198 (179,2) [her forehead's low] A high forehead was in our
author's time accounted a feature eminently beautiful. So in
_The History of Guy of Warwick_, Felice his lady is said to have
_the same high forehead as Venus_.
IV.iv.206 (179,3) [My substance should be statue in thy stead] [W:
statued] _Statued_ is, I am afraid, a new word, and that it should
be received, is not quite evident.
V.i.12 (180,4) [sure enough] _Sure_ is safe, out of danger.
V.iv.71 (185,1) [The private wound is deepest. Oh time, most curst!]
I have a little mended the measure. The old edition, and all but
Sir T. Hammer, read,
_The private wound is deepest_, _oh time most_ accurst.
V.iv.106 (187,4) [if shame live In a disguise of love] That is, _if
it be any shame to wear a disguise for the purposes of love_.
V.iv.126 (187,5) [Come not within the measure of my wrath] The
length of my sword, the reach of my anger.
General Observation (189,8) In this play there is a strange mixture
of knowledge and ignorance, of care and negligence. The versification
is often excellent, the allusions are learned and just;
but the author conveys his heroes by sea from one inland town to
another in the same country; he places the emperor at Milan, and
sends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him more;
he makes Protheus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has
only seen her picture; and, if we may credit the old copies, he
has, by mistaking places, left his scenery inextricable. The
reason of all this confusion seems to be, that he took his story
from a novel, which he sometimes followed, and sometimes forsook,
sometimes remembered, and sometimes forgot.
That this play is rightly attributed to Shakespeare, I have
little doubt. If it be taken from him, to whom shall it be
given? This question may be asked of all the disputed plays,
except _Titus Andronicus_; and it will be found more credible, that
Shakespeare might sometimes sink below his highest flights, than
that any other should rise up to his lowest. (see 1765, I,259,5)
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
I.i.7 (194,4) [_Custalorum_] This it, I suppose, intended for a
corruption of _Custos Rotulorum_. The mistake was hardly designed by
the author, who, though he gives Shallow folly enough, makes him
rather pedantic than illiterate. If we read:
Shal. _Ay, cousin Slender, and_ Custos Rotulorum.
It follows naturally:
Slen. _Ay, and_ Ratalorum _too_.
I.i.22 (194,5) [The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old
coat] I see no consequence in this answer. Perhaps we may read,
_the salt fish is_ not _an old coat_. That is, the _fresh fish_ is the
coat of an ancient family, and the _salt fish_ is the coat of a
merchant grown rich by trading over the sea.
I.i.115 (198,1) [and broke open my lodge] This probably alludes to
some real incident, at that time well known.
I.i.121 (198,2) ['Twere better for you, if 'twere not known in council;
you'll be laugh'd at] The old copies read, '_Twere better for
you, if 'twere known in council_. Perhaps it is an abrupt speech,
and must be read thus: '_Twere better for you--if 'twere known in
council, you'll be laugh'd at. 'Twere better for you_, is, I believe,
a menace.(1773)
I.i.127 (199,3) [coney-catching rascals] A _coney-catcher_ was, in
the time of Elizabeth, a common name for a cheat or sharper.
Green, one of the first among us who made a trade of writing
pamphlets, published _A Detection of the Frauds and Tricks of
Coney-catchers and Couzeners_.
I.i.159 (200,6) [Edward shovel-boards] By this term, I believe, are
meant brass castors, such as are shoveled on a board, with king
Edward's face stamped upon them.
I.i.166 (201,8) [Word of denial in thy Labra's here] I suppose it
should rather be read,
_Word of denial in_ my _Labra's_ hear;
that is, _hear_ the word of denial in my _lips. Thou ly'st_.
I.i.170 (201,9) [_marry trap_] When a man was caught in his own
stratagem, I suppose the exclamation of insult was _marry, trap_!
I.i.184 (202,3) [and so conclusions pass'd the careires] I believe
this strange word is nothing but the French _cariere_; and the
expression means, that _the common bounds of good behaviour were
overpassed_.
I.i.211 (203,4) [upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?]
[Theobald suspected that Shakespeare had written "Martlemas."]
This correction, thus seriously and wisely enforced, is
received by Sir Tho. Hammer; but probably Shakespeare intended a
blunder.
I.iii.56 (210,7) [The anchor is deep: will that humour pass?] I see
not what relation _the anchor_ has to _translation_. Perhaps we may
read, _the_ author _is deep_; or perhaps the line is out of its place,
and should be inserted lower after Falstaff has said,
Sail like my pinnace to those golden shores.
It may be observed, that in the tracts of that time _anchor_ and
_author_ could hardly be distinguished. (see 1765, II,464,7)
I.iii.110 (213,6) [I will possess him with yellowness] _Yellowness_ is
jealousy. (1773)
I.iii.III (213,7) [for the revolt of mine is dangerous] I suppose we
may read, _the revolt_ of men. Sir T. Hammer reads, _this_ revolt of
_mine_. Either may serve, for of the present text I can find no
meaning.
I.iv.9 (213,8) [at the latter end of a sea-coal fire] That is, when
my master is in bed.
II.i.5 (219,1) [though love use reason for his precisian, he admits
him not for his counsellor] Of this word I do not see any meaning
that is very apposite to the present intention. Perhaps Falstaff
said, _Though love use reason as his_ physician, _he admits him not
for his counsellor_. This will be plain sense. Ask not the _reason_
of my love; the business of _reason_ is not to assist love, but
to _cure_ it. There may however be this meaning in the present
reading. _Though love_, when he would submit to regulation, may
_use reason as his precisian_, or director in nice cases, yet when
he is only eager to attain his end, he takes not reason for _his
counsellor_. (1773)
II.i.27 (220,2) [I was then frugal of my mirth] By breaking this
speech into exclamations, the text may stand; but I once thought
it must be read, If _I was_ not _then frugal of my mirth_.
II.i.29 (220,3) [Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the
putting down of men] [T: of fat men] [W: of mum] I do not see that
any alteration is necessary; if it were, either of the foregoing
conjectures might serve the turn. But surely Mrs. Ford may
naturally enough, in the first heat of her anger, rail at the
sex for the fault of one.
II.i.52 (222,4) [These knights will hack, and so thou shouldst not
alter the article of thy gentry] [W: lack] Upon this passage the
learned editor has tried his strength, in my opinion, with more
spirit than success.
I read thus--_These knights_ we'll _hack, and so thou shouldest
not alter the article of thy gentry_. The punishment of a recreant
or undeserving knight, was to _hack_ off his spurs: the meaning
therefore is; it is not worth the while of a gentlewoman to
be made a knight, for we'll degrade all these knights in a little
time, by the usual form of _hacking_ off their spurs, and thou, if
thou art knighted, shalt be hacked with the rest.
II.i.79 (223,5) [for he cares not what he puts into the press]
Press is used ambiguously, for a _press_ to print, and a _press_ to
squeeze.
II.i.114 (224,7) [curtail-dog] That is, a dog that misses hie game.
The tail is counted necessary to the agility of a greyhound; and
one method of disqualifying a dog, according to the forest laws,
is to cut his tail, or make him a _curtail_. (see 1765, II,477,+)
II.i.128 (225,9) [Away, Sir corporal Nym.--Believe it, Page, he speaks
sense] Nym, I believe, is out of place, and we should read thus:
_Away, Sir corporal._
Nym. _Believe it. Page, he speaks sense._
II.i.135 (225,1) [I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity.--He
loves your wife] [V: bite--upon my necessity, he] I do
not see the difficulty of this passage: no phrase is more common
than--_you may_, upon a need, _thus_. Nym, to gain credit, says,
that he is above the mean office of carrying love-letters; he
has nobler means of living; _he has a sword, and upon his necessity_,
that is, _when his need drives him to unlawful expedients_,
his sword _shall bite_.
II.i.148 (226,3) [I will not believe such a Cataian] [Theobald and
Warburton had both explained "Cataian" as a liar.] Mr. Theobald
and Dr. Warburton have both told their stories with confidence,
I am afraid, very disproportionate to any evidence that can be
produced. That _Cataian_ was a word of hatred or contempt is
plain, but that it signified a _boaster_ or a _liar_ has not been
proved. Sir Toby, in _Twelfth Night_, says of the Lady Olivia to
her maid, "thy Lady's a _Cataian_;" but there is no reason to
think he means to call her _liar_. Besides, Page intends to give
Ford a reason why Pistol should not be credited. He therefore
does not say, _I would not believe such a_ liar: for that he is a
liar is yet to be made probable: but he says, _I would not believe
such a Cataian on any testimony of his veracity_. That is, "This
fellow has such an odd appearance; is so unlike a man civilized,
and taught the duties of life, that I cannot credit him." To be
a foreigner was always in England, and I suppose everywhere else,
a reason of dislike. So Pistol calls Slender in the first act,
a _mountain foreigner_; that is, a fellow uneducated, and of gross
behaviour; and again in his anger calls Bardolph, _Hungarian wight_.
II.i.182 (228,4) [very rogues] A _rogue_ is a _wanderer_ or _vagabond_,
and, in its consequential signification, _a cheat_.
II.i.236 (230,7) [my long sword] Not long before the introduction
of rapiers, the swords in use were of an enormous length, and
sometimes raised with both hands. Shallow, with an old man's
vanity, censures the innovation by which lighter weapons were
introduced, tells what he could once have done with his _long
sword_, and ridicules the terms and rules of the rapier.
II.ii.28 (234,6) [red lattice phrases] Your ale-house conversation.
II.ii.28 (234,7) [your bold-beating oaths] [W: bold-bearing] A
_beating oath_ is, I think, right; so we now say, in low language, a
_thwacking_ or _swinging_ thing.
II.ii.61 (235,8) [canaries] This is the name of a brisk light
dance, and is therefore properly enough used in low language
for any hurry or perturbation.
II.ii.94 (236,1) [frampold] This word I have never seen elsewhere,
except in Dr. Hacket's _Life of Archbishop Williams_, where a
_frampul_ man signifies a peevish troublesome fellow.
II.ii.142 (238,3) [Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights]
[Warburton had quoted a passage from Dryden'a _Amboyna_ for "fights,"
explaining them as "small arms."] The quotation from Dryden might at
least have raised a suspicion that _fights_ were neither _small_ arms,
nor cannon. _Fights_ and _nettings_ are properly joined. _Fights_, I
find, are _cloaths_ hung round the ship to conceal the men from the
enemy, and _close-fights_ are _bulkheads_, or any other shelter that the
fabrick of a ship affords.
II.ii.170 (240,5) [not to charge you] That is, not with a purpose
of putting you to expence, or _being burthensome_.
II.ii.256 (242,6) [instance and argument] _Instance_ is _example_.
II.ii.324 (244,8) [Eleven o'clock] Ford should rather have said _ten
o'clock_: the time was between ten and eleven; and his impatient
suspicion was not likely to stay beyond the time.
II.iii.60 (246,2) [mock-water] The host means, I believe, to reflect
on the inspection of urine, which made a considerable part of
practical physick in that time; yet I do not well see the meaning
of _mock-water_.
III.i.17 (249,5) [By shallow rivers, to whose falls] [Warburton had
introduced _The Passionate Shepherd to his Love_ and _The Nymph's
_Reply_ at this point in his text, attributing both to Shakespeare.]
These two poems, which Dr. Warburton gives to Shakespeare, are, by
writers nearer that time, disposed of, one to Marlow, the other to
Raleigh. These poems are read in different copies with great
variations.
III.i.123 (253,6) [scald, scurvy] _Scall_ was an old word of reproach,
as _scab_ was afterwards.
Chaucer imprecates on his _scrivener_;
"Under thy longe lockes mayest thou have the _scalle_."
III.ii.58 (255,7) [We have linger'd about a match between Anne Page
and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer]
They have not linger'd very long. The match was proposed by Sir
Hugh but the day before.
III.ii.73 (256,1) [The gentleman is of no having] _Having_ is the same as
_estate_ or _fortune_.
III.ii.90 (257,2) [I think, I shall drink in pipe-wine first with
him] [Tyrwhitt: horn-pipe wine] _Pipe_ is known to be a vessel of
wine, now containing two hogsheads. _Pipe_ wine is therefore wine, not
from the _bottle_, but the _pipe_; and the text consists in the ambiguity
of the word, which signifies both a cask of wine, and a musical instrument.
_Horn-pipe wine_ has no meaning. (1773)
III.iii.60 (260,4) [that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant,
or any tire of Venetian admittance] [Warburton had explained the
two tents as head-dresses, and "of Venetian admittance" as "which
will admit to be adorned."] This note is plausible, except in
the explanation of _Venetian admittance_: but I am afraid this
whole system of dress is unsupported by evidence.
III.iv.13 (267,7) [father's wealth] Some light may be given to those
who shall endear one to calculate the increase of English wealth,
by observing, that Latymer, in the time of Edward VI. mentions
it as proof of his father's prosperity, _That though but a yeoman.
he gave his daughters five pounds each for her portion_. At the
latter end of Elizabeth, seven hundred pounds were such a temptation
to courtship, as made all other motives suspected. Congreve
makes twelve thousand pounds more than a counterbalance to the
affectation of Belinda. Ho poet would now fly his favourite
character at less than fifty thousand.
III.iv.100 (270,1) [will you cast away your child on a fool and a
physician?] I should read _fool_ or a _physician_, meaning Slender and
Caius.
III.v.113 (274,4) [bilbo] A _bilbo_ is a Spanish blade, of which the
excellence is flexibleness and elasticity.
III.v.117 (274,5) [kidney] _Kidney_ in this phrase now signifies _kind_ or
_qualities_, but Falstaff means a man whose _kidnies_ are as _fat_ as mine.
III.v.155 (275,6) [I'll be horn-mad] There is no image which our
author appears so fond of, as that of cuckold's horns. Scarcely
a light character is introduced that does not endearor to produce
merriment by some allusion to horned husbands. As he wrote
his plays for the stage rather than the press, he perhaps reviewed
them seldom, and did not observe this repetition, or
finding the jest, however, frequent, still successful, did not
think correction necessary.
IV.i (276,7) [_Page's house_. _Enter Mrs. Page. Mrs. Quickly, and William_]
This is a very trifling scene, of no use to the plot, and I should think
of no great delight to the audience; but Shakespeare best knew what would
please.
IV.ii.22 (879,8) [he so takes on] _To take on_, which is now used for
_to, grieve_, seems to be used by our author for _to, rage_. Perhaps it was
applied to any passion.
IV.ii.26 (279,9) [buffets himself on the forehead, crying, _peer-
out, peer-out_!] That is, appear horns. Shakespeare is at his
old lunes. (see 1765, II, 526,+)
IV.ii.161 (283,1) [this wrongs you] This is below your character,
unworthy of your understanding, injurious to your honour. So
in _The Taming of the Shrew_, Bianca, being ill treated by her
rugged sister, says:
"You _wrong_ me much, indeed you _wrong_ yourself."
IV.ii.195 (284,2) [ronyon!] _Ronyon_, applied to a woman, means, as far as
can be traced, much the same with _scall_ or _scab_ spoken of a man.
IV.ii.204 (284,3) [I spy a great peard under his muffler] As the
second stratagem, by which Falstaff escapes, is much the grosser
of the two, I wish it had been practiced first. It is very unlikely that
Ford, baring been so deceived before, and knowing that he had been
deceived, would suffer him to escape in so slight a disguise.
IV.ii.208 (284,4) [cry out upon no trail] The expression is taken from
the hunters. _Trail_ is the scent left by the passage of the game. _To
cry out_, is to _open_ or _bark_.
IV.iii.13 (285,5) [they must come off] _To come off_, signifies in our
author, sometimes _to be uttered with spirit and volubility_. In this
place it seems to mean what is in our time expressed by _to come down_,
to pay liberally and readily. These accidental and colloquial senses are
the disgrace of language, and the plague of commentators.
IV.iv.32 (287,7) [And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle]
To _take_, in Shakespeare, signifies to seize or strike with a
disease, to blast. So in _Hamlet_;
"No planet _takes_."
So in _Lear_;
"-----Strike her young bones,
"Ye taking airs, with lameness." (rev. 1778,I,341,4)
IV.v.7 (290,3) [standing-bed, and truckle-bed] The usual furniture of
chambers in that time was a standing-bed, under which was a _trochle,
truckle_, or _running_ bed. In the standing-bed lay the master, and in
the truckle-bed the servant. So in Hall's _Account of a Servile Tutor_:
"He lieth in the _truckle-bed_.
"While his young master lieth o'er his head."
IV.v.21 (291,4) [Bohemian-Tartar] The French call a _Bohemian_ what we
call a _Gypsey_; but I believe the Host means nothing more than, by a wild
appellation, to insinuate that Simple makes a strange appearance.
IV. v. 29 (291, 5) [mussel-shell] He calls poor Simple mussel-shell,
because he stands with his mouth open.
IV. v. 104 (293, 6) [_Primero_] A game at cards.
IV. v. 122 (294, 7) [counterfeiting the action of an old woman] [T: a wood
woman] This emendation is received by Sir Thomas Hammer,
but rejected by Dr. Warburton. To me it appears reasonable
enough.
IV. v. 130 (294, 8) [sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that
you are so cross'd] The great fault of this play, is the frequency of
expressions so profane, that no necessity of preserving
character can justify them. There are laws of higher authority
than those of criticism.
V. v. 28 (300, 3) [my shoulders for the fellow of this walk] Who the
_fellow_ is, or why he keeps his shoulders for bin, I do not understand.
V. v. 77 (304, 9) [Fairies use flowers for their charactery] For the
matter with which they make letters.
V. v. 84 (304, 1) [I smell a man of middle earth] Spirits are supposed
to inhabit the ethereal regions, and fairies to dwell under
ground, men therefore are in a middle station.
V. v. 99 (305, 4) [_Lust is but a bloody fire_] So the old copies. I once
thought it should be read,
_Lust is but a_ cloudy _fire_,
but Sir T. Hammer reads with less violence,
_Lust is but_ i' the blood a _fire_.
V. v. 172 (308, 8) [ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me] Though this
be perhaps not unintelligible, yet it is an odd way of confessing
his dejection. I should wish to read:
--_ignorance itself_ has a plume o' me;
That is, I am so depressed, that ignorance itself plucks me, and
decks itself with the spoils of my weakness. Of the present
reading, which is probably right, the meaning may be, I am so enfeebled,
that _ignorance itself_ weighs me down and oppresses me. (see 1765, II,
554, 1)
V. v. 181 (309, 1) [laugh at my wife] The two plots are excellently
connected, and the transition very artfully made in this speech.
V. v. 249 (311, 2) [_Page_. Tell, what remedy?] In the first sketch of
this play, which, as Mr. Pope observes, is much inferior to the latter
performance, the only sentiment of which I regret the omission, occurs
at this critical time, when Fenton brings in his wife, there is this
dialogue.
Mrs. Ford. _Come, mistress Page. I must be bold with you.
'Tis pity to part love that is so true._
Mrs. Page. [Aside] _Although that I have miss'd in my intent,
Yet I am glad my husband's match is cross'd.
--Here Fenton. take her.--_
Eva. _Come, master Page, you must needs agree._
Ford. _I' faith, Sir, come, you see your wife is pleas'd._
Page. _I cannot tell, and yet my heart is eas'd;
And yet it doth me good the Doctor miss'd.
Come hither, Fenton, and come hither, daughter._ (1773)
General Observation. Of this play there is a tradition preserved
by Mr. Rowe, that it was written at the command of queen Elizabeth,
who was so delighted with the character of Falstaff, that
she wished it to be diffused through more plays; but suspecting
that it might pall by continued uniformity, directed the poet to
diversify his manner, by shewing him in love. No task is harder
than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakespeare knew
what the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known,
that by any real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the
careless jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered
so much abatement, that little of his former cast would
have remained. Falstaff could not love, but by ceasing to be
Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love, and his professions
could be prompted, not by the hope of pleasure, but of money.
Thus the poet approached as near as he could to the work enjoined him;
yet having perhaps in the former plays completed his
own idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all his
former power of entertainment.
This comedy is remarkable for the variety and number of the
personages, who exhibit more characters appropriated and discriminated,
than perhaps can be found in any other play.
Whether Shakespeare was the first that produced upon the English
stage the effect of language distorted and depraved by provincial
or foreign pronunciations, I cannot certainly decide.
This mode of forming ridiculous characters can confer praise
only on him, who originally discovered it, for it requires not
much of either wit or judgment: its success must be derived almost
wholly from the player, but its power in a skilful month,
even he that despises it, is unable to resist.
The conduct of this drama is deficient; the action begins and
ends often before the conclusion, and the different parts might
change places without inconvenience; but its general power, that
power by which all works of genius shall finally be tried, is
such, that perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator, who did
not think it too soon at an end.
Vol. II
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Persons Represented: Varrius might be omitted, for he is only
once spoken to, and says nothing.
There it perhaps not one of Shakespeare's plays more darkened
than this by the peculiarities of its authour, and the
unskilfulness of its editors, by distortions of phrase, or
negligence of transcription.
I.i.6 (4,4) [lists] Bounds, limits.
I.i.7 (4,5) [Then no more remains,
But that your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work]
This is a passage which has exercised the sagacity of the
editors, and is now to employ mine. [Johnson adds T's and W's
notes] Sir Tho. Hammer, having caught from Mr. Theobald a
hint that a line was lost, endeavours to supply it thus.
--_Then no more remains,
But that to your sufficiency_ you join
A will to serve us, _as your worth is able_.
He has by this bold conjecture undoubtedly obtained a meaning,
but, perhaps not, even in his own opinion, the meaning of
Shakespeare.
That the passage is more or less corrupt, I believe every reader will
agree with the editors. I am not convinced that a line is lost, as Mr.
Theobald conjectures, nor that the change of _but_ to _put_, which Dr.
Warburton has admitted after some other editor, will amend the fault.
There was probably some original obscurity in the expression, which gave
occasion to mistake in repetition or transcription. I therefore suspect
that the authour wrote thus,
--_Then no more remains.
But that to your_ sufficiencies _your worth is_ abled,
_And let them work.
Then nothing remains more than to tell you, that your virtue is now
invested with power equal to your knowledge and wisdom. Let
therefore your knowledge and your virtue now work together._ It may
easily be conceived how _sufficiencies_ was, by an inarticulate
speaker, or inattentive hearer, confounded with _sufficiency as_,
and how _abled_, a word very unusual, was changed into _able_. For
_abled_, however, an authority is not wanting. Lear uses it in the
same sense, or nearly the same, with the Duke. As for
_sufficiencies_, D. Hamilton, in his dying speech, prays that
Charles II. _may exceed both the_ virtues _and_ sufficiencies _of
his father_.
I.i.11 (6,6) [the terms For common justice, you are as pregnant in]
The later editions all give it, without authority,
--_the terms_
Of _justice_,--
and Dr. Warburton makes _terms_ signify _bounds_ or _limits_. I
rather think the Duke meant to say, that Escalus was _pregnant_,
that is, _ready_ and knowing in all the forms of law, and, among
other things, in the _terms_ or _times set apart_ for its
administration.
I.i.18 (7,7) [we have with special soul Elected him our absence to
supply] [W: roll] This editor is, I think, right in supposing a
corruption, but less happy in his emendation. I read,
--_we have with special_ seal
_Elected him our absence to supply_.
A special _seal_ is a very natural metonymy for a special _commission_.
I.i.28 (8,8)
[There is a kind of character in thy life,
That to the observer doth thy history
Fully unfold]
Either this introduction has more solemnity than meaning, or it
has a meaning which I cannot discover. What is there peculiar
in this, that a man's _life_ informs the observer of his _history_?
Might it be supposed that Shakespeare wrote this?
_There is a kind of character in thy_ look.
_History_ may be taken in a more diffuse and licentious meaning,
for _future occurrences_, or the part of life yet to come.
If this sense be received, the passage is clear and proper.
I.i.37 (8,1) [to fine issues] To great consequences. For high purposes.
I.i.41 (9,2) [But I do bend my speech To one that can my part in
him advertise] I know not whether we may not better read,
_One that can my part_ to _him advertise_,
One that can _inform himself_ of that which it would be otherwise
_my part_ to tell him.
I.i.43 (9,3) [Hold therefore, Angelo] That is, continue to be
Angelo; _hold_ as thou art.
I.i.47 (9,4) [first in question] That is, first called for; first
appointed.
I.i.52 (9,5) [We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice Proceeded
to you] [W: a levell'd] No emendation is necessary. _Leaven'd_
choice is one of Shakespeare's harsh metaphors. His train of
ideas seems to be this. _I have proceeded to you with choice_
mature, concocted, fermented, _leavened_. When bread is _leavened_
it is left to ferment: a _leavened_ choice is therefore a choice
not hasty, but considerate, not declared as soon as it fell
into the imagination, but suffered to work long in the mind.
Thus explained, it suits better with _prepared_ than _levelled_.
I.i.65 (10,6) [your scope is as mine own] That is, Your amplitude
of power.
I.ii.22 (12,7) [in metre?] In the primers, there are metrical graces,
such as, I suppose, were used in Shakespeare's time.
I.ii.25 (12,9) [Grace is grace, despight of all controversy] [Warbarton
had suspected an allusion to ecclesiastical disputes.] I
am in doubt whether Shakespeare's thoughts reached so far into
ecclesiastical disputes. Every commentator is warped a little
by the tract of his own profession. The question is, whether the
second gentleman has ever heard grace. The first gentleman limits
the question to _grace in metre_. Lucio enlarges it to _grace
in any_ form _or language_. The first gentleman, to go beyond him,
says, or _in any religion_, which Lucio allows, because the nature
of things is unalterable; grace is as immutably grace, as his
merry antagonist is a _wicked villain_. Difference in religion
cannot make a _grace_ not to be _grace_, a _prayer_ not to be _holy_; as
nothing can make a _villain_ not to be a _villain_. This seems to
be the meaning, such as it is.
I.ii.28 (12,1) [there went but a pair of sheers between us] We are
both of the same piece.
I.ii.35 (13,2) [be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French velvet?]
The jest about the pile of a French velvet alludes to the loss of
hair in the French disease, a very frequent topick of our authour's
jocularity. Lucio finding that the gentleman understands the distemper
so well, and mentions it so _feelingly_, promises to remember
to drink his _health_, but to forget _to drink after him_. It was the
opinion of Shakespeare's time, that the cup of an infected person
was contagious.
I.ii.50 (13,3) [To three thousand dollars a year] [A quibble intended
between _dollars_ and _dolours_. Hammer.] The same jest occured before
in the _Tempest_.
I.ii.83 (15,5) [what with the sweat] This nay allude to the _sweating
sickness_, of which the memory was very fresh in the time of
Shakespeare: but more probably to the method of cure then used
for the diseases contracted in brothels.
I.ii.124 (16,6)
[Thus can the demi-god, Authority,
Make us pay down, for our offence, by weight.--
The words of heaven;--on whom it will, it will;
On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just]
[Warburton had emended the punctuation of the second line] I
suspect that a line is lost.
I.ii.162 (18,8) [the fault, and glimpse, of newness] _Fault_ and
_glimpse_ have so little relation to each other, that both can
scarcely be right: we may read _flash_ for _fault_ or, perhaps we
may read,
_Whether it be the fault_ or _glimpse_--
That is, whether it be the seeming enormity of the action, or
the glare of new authority. Yet the sane sense follows in the
next lines, (see 1765, I, 275, 4)
I.ii.188 (19,2) [There is a prone and speechless dialect] I can
scarcely tell what signification to give to the word _prone_. Its
primitive and translated senses are well known. The authour
may, by a _prone_ dialect, mean a dialect which men are _prone_ to
regard, or a dialect natural and unforced, as those actions seem
to which we are _prone_. Either of these interpretations are
sufficiently strained; but such distortion of words is not uncommon
in our authour. For the sake of an easier sense, we may read,
--_In her youth
There is a_ pow'r, _and speechless dialect,
Such as moves men._
Or thus,
_There is a_ prompt _and speechless dialect._
I.ii.194 (20,3) [under grievous imposition] I once thought it
should be _inquisition_, but the present reading is probably
right. _The crime would be under grievous_ penalties imposed.
I.iii.2 (20,4) [Believe not, that the dribbling dart of love Can
pierce a compleat bosom] Think not that a breast _compleatly
armed_ can be pierced by the dart of love that comes _fluttering
without force_.
I.iii.12 (21,5) [(A man of stricture and firm abstinence)] [W: strict ure]
_Stricture_ may easily be used for _strictness_; _ure_ is indeed
an old word, but, I think, always applied to things, never to
persons.
I.iii.43 (22,9) [To do it slander] The text stood,
_So do in slander_.--
Sir Thomas Hammer has very well corrected it thus,
To _do_ it _slander_.--
Yet perhaps less alteration might have produced the true reading,
_And yet my nature never, in the fight,_
So _do_ing _slander_ed.--
And yet my nature never suffer slander by doing any open acts of
severity. (see 1765, I,279,3)
I.iii.51 (23,2) [Stands at a guard] Stands on terms of defiance.
I.iv.30 (24,3) [make me not your story] Do not, by deceiving me,
make me a subject for a tale.
I.iv.41 (26,5)
[as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foyson, so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry]
As the sentence now stands, it is apparently ungrammatical. I
read,
At _blossoming time_, &c.
That is, _As they that feed grow full, so her womb now_ at blossoming
time, _at that time through which the feed time proceeds to
the harvest_, her womb shows what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously
calls pregnancy _blossoming time_, the time when fruit is promised,
though not yet ripe.
I.iv.51 (26,6) [Bore many gentlemen, myself being one, In hand, and
hope of action] _To bear in hand_ is a common phrase for _to keep
in expectation and dependance_, but we should read,
--with _hope of action_.
I.iv.56 (26,7) [with full line] With full extent, with the whole
length.
I.iv.62 (27,8) [give fear to use] To intimidate _use_, that is, practices
long countenanced by _custom_.
I.iv.69 (27,9) [Unless you have the grace] That is, the acceptableness,
the power of gaining favour. So when she makes her suit,
the provost says,
_Heaven give thee moving_ graces. (1765, I,282,1)
I.iv.70 (27,1) [pith Of business] The inmost part, the main of my
message.
I.iv.86 (28,4) [the mother] The abbess, or prioress.
II.i.8 (29,7) [Let but your honour know] To _know_ is here to _examine_,
to _take cognisance_. So in _Midsummer-Night's Dream_,
_Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires_;
Know of _your truth, examine well your blood_.
II.i.23 (29,8)
['Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it]
'Tis _plain_ that we must act with bad as with good; we punish the
faults, as we take the advantages, that lie in our way, and what
we do not see we cannot note.
II.i.28 (30,8) [For I have had such faults] That is, _because, by
reason that I_ have had faults.
II.i.57 (31,9) [This comes off well] This is nimbly spoken; this is
volubly uttered.
II.i.63 (32,1) [a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd] This we should now express
by saying, _he is_ half-tapster, half-bawd. (1773)
II.i.66 (32,2) [she professes a hot-house] A _hot-house_ is an English
name for a _bagnio_.
_Where lately harbour'd many a famous whore,
A purging-bill now fix'd upon the door,
Tells you it it a_ hot-house, _so it may.
And still be a whore-house_. Ben. Jonson.
II.i.85 (32,3) [Ay, sir, by mistress Over-done's means] Here seems
to have been some mention made of Froth, who was to be accused,
and some words therefore may have been lost, unless the irregularity
of the narrative may be better imputed to the ignorance
of the constable.
II.i.180 (35,4) [Justice or Iniquity?] These were, I suppose, two
personages well known to the audience by their frequent appearance
in the old moralities. The words, therefore, at that time,
produced a combination of ideas, which they have now lost.
II.i.183 (35,5) [Hannibal] Mistaken by the constable for _Cannibal_.
II.i.215 (36,6) [they will draw you] _Draw_ has here a cluster of
senses. As it refers to the tapster, it signifies _to drain, to
empty_; as it is related to hang, it means _to be conveyed to execution
on a hurdle_. In Froth's answer, it is the same as _to
bring along by some motive or power_.
II.i.254 (37,7) [I'll rent the fairest house in it, after three
pence a bay] A _bay_ of building is, in many parts of England, a
common term, of which the best conception that I could ever attain,
is, that it is the space between the main beams of the
roof; so that a barn crossed twice with beams is a barn of three
_bays_.
II.ii.26 (40,8) [Stay yet a while] It is not clear why the provost
is bidden to stay, nor when he goes out.
II.ii.32 (40,9) [For which I must not plead but that I am
at war, 'twixt will, and will not]
This is obscure; perhaps it may be mended by reading,
_For which I must_ now _plead; but_ yet _I am
At war, 'twixt will, and will not._
_Yet_ and _yt_ are almost indistinguishable in a manuscript. Yet no
alteration is necessary, since the speech is not unintelligible
as it now stands, (see 1765, 9I,294,5)
II.ii.78 (42,2) [And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like
man new made] I rather think the meaning is, _You would then
change the severity of your present character_. In familiar
speech, _You would be quite another man_. (see 1765, 1,296,7)
II.ii.99 (43,6)
[_Isab_. Yet shew some pity.
_Ang_. I shew it most of all, when I shew justice;
For then I pity those I do not know]
This was one of Bale's memorials. _When I find myself swayed to
mercy, let me remember, that there is a mercy likewise due to
the country_.
II.ii.126 (45,2) [We cannot weigh our brother with ourself] [W: yourself]
The old reading is right. _We_ mortals proud and foolish cannot
prevail on our passions to _weigh_ or compare _our brother_, a
being of like nature and frailty, with _ourself_. We have different
names and different judgments for the same faults committed by
persons of different condition. (1773)
II.ii.141 (46,3) [She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense
breeds with it] Thus all the folios. Some later editor has
changed _breeds_ to _bleeds_, and Dr. Warburton blames poor Mr. Theobald
for recalling the old word, which yet is certainly right.
_My sense_ breeds _with her sense_, that is, new thoughts are stirring
in my mind, new conceptions are _hatched_ in my imagination.
So we say to _brood_ over thought.
II.ii.149 (46,4) [tested gold] Rather cupelled, brought to the _test_,
refined, (see 1765,I,299,6)
II.ii.157 (47,6) [For I am that way going to temptation, Where
prayers cross] Which way Angelo is going to temptation, we begin
to perceive; but how _prayers cross_ that way, or cross each other,
at that way, more than any other, I do not understand.
Isabella prays that his _honour_ may be safe, meaning only to
give him his title: his imagination is caught by the word _honour_;
he feels that his _honour_ is in danger, and therefore, I believe,
answers thus:
_I am that way going to temptation_,
Which your _prayers cross_.
That is, I am tempted to lose that honour of which thou implorest
the preservation. The temptation under which I labour is that
which thou hast unknowingly _thwarted_ with thy prayer. He uses the
same mode language a few lines lower. Isabella, parting, says,
Save your _honour_!
Angelo catches the word--_Save it_! _From what_?
_From thee; even from thy virtue_!--(rev. 1778,II,52,3)
II.ii.165 (47,7)
[But it is I,
That lying, by the violet, in the sun,
Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season.]
I am not corrupted by her, but by my own heart, which excites
foul desires under the same benign influences that exalt her
purity, as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which encrease
the fragrance of the violet.
II.ii.186 (48,8) [Ever, till now, When men were fond, I smil'd,
and wonder'd how] As a day must now intervene between this conference
of Isabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might
more properly end here; and here, in my opinion, it was ended by
the poet.
II.iii.11 (49,1) [Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath
blister'd her report] Who doth not see that the integrity of the
metaphor requires we should read, --_flames of her own youth_?
Warburton.]
Who does not see that, upon such principles, there is no end of
correction?
II.iii.36 (50,3) [There rest] Keep yourself in this temper.
II.iii.40 (50,4) [Oh, injurious love] Her execution was respited on
account of her pregnancy, the effects of her love: therefore she
calls it _injurious_; not that it brought her to shame, but that
it hindered her freeing herself from it. Is not this all very
natural? yet the Oxford editor changes it to _injurious law_.
II.iv.9 (51,6) [Grown fear'd and tedious] [W: sear'd] I think _fear'd_
may stand. What we go to with reluctance may be said to be
_fear'd_.
II.iv.13 (51,7) [case] For outside; garb; external shew.
II.iv.14 (51,8) [Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To
thy false seeming?] Here Shakespeare judiciously distinguishes
the different operations of high place upon different minds.
Fools are frighted, and wise men are allured. Those who cannot
judge but by the eye, are easily awed by splendour; those who
consider men as well as conditions, are easily persuaded to love
the appearance of virtue dignified with power.
II.iv.16 (51,9) [Let's write good angel on the devil's horn; 'Tis
not the devil's crest] [Hammer: Is't not the devil's crest] I am
still inclined to the opinion of the Oxford editor. Angelo,
reflecting on the difference between his seeming character, and
his real disposition, observes, that he _could change his gravity
for a plume_. He then digresses into an apostrophe, _O dignity,
how dost thou impose upon the world_! then returning to himself,
_Blood_, says he, _thou art but blood_, however concealed with
appearances and decorations. Title and character do not alter
nature, which is still corrupt, however dignified.
_Let's write good angel on the devil's horn_;
_Is't not_?--or rather--_'Tis yet the devil's crest_.
It may however be understood, according to Dr. Warburton's
explanation. O place, how dost thou impose upon the world by
false appearances! so much, that if we _write good angel on the
devil's horn, 'tis not_ taken any longer to be _the devil's crest_.
In this sense,
_Blood, thou art but blood._!
is an interjected exclamation. (1773)
II.iv.27 (53,1) [The gen'ral subjects to a well-wish'd king] So the
later editions: but the old copies read,
_The_ general subject _to a well-wish'd king_.
The _general subject_ seems a harsh expression, but _general
subjects_ has no sense at all; and _general_ was, in our authour's
time, a word for _people_, so that the _general_ is the _people_, or
_multitude, subject_ to a king. So in _Hamlet_: _The play pleased
not the_ million; _'twas caviare to the_ general.
II.iv.47 (54,3) [Falsely to take away a life true made] _Falsely_ is
the same with _dishonestly, illegally_: so _false_, in the next
lines, is _illegal, illegitimate_.
II.iv.48 (54,4) [As to put metal in restrained means] In forbidden
moulds. I suspect _means_ not to be the right word, but I cannot
find another.
II.iv.50 (55,5) ['Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth] I
would have it considered, whether the train of the discourse
does not rather require Isabel to say,
_'Tis so set down in_ earth, _but not in_ heaven.
When she has said this, _Then_, says Angelo, _I shall poze you
quickly_. Would you, who, for the present purpose, declare your
brother's crime to be less in the sight of heaven, than the law
has made it; would you commit that crime, light as it is, to
save your brother's life? To this she answers, not very plainly
in either reading, but more appositely to that which I
propose:
_I had rather give my body, than my soul_. (1773)
II.iv.67 (56,6)
[Pleas'd you to do't at peril of your soul,
Were equal poize of sin and charity]
The reasoning is thus: Angelo asks, whether there might _not be
a charity in sin to save this brother_. Isabella answers, that
_if Angelo will save him, she will stake her soul that it were
charity, not sin_. Angelo replies, that if Isabella would _save
him at the hazard of her soul, it would be not indeed no sin,
but a sin to which the charity would be equivalent_.
II.iv.73 (56,7) [And nothing of your answer] I think it should be
read,
_And nothing of_ yours _answer_.
You, and whatever is _yours_, be exempt from penalty.
II.iv.86 (56,9) [Accountant to the law upon that pain] _Pain_ is here
for _penalty, punishment_.
II.iv.90 (57,2) [But in the loss of question,] The _loss_ of
question I do not well understand, and should rather read,
_But in the_ toss _of question_.
In the _agitation_, in the _discussion_ of the question. To _toss_
an argument is a common phrase.
II.iv.106 (57,4) [a brother dy'd at once] Perhaps we should read,
_Better it were, a brother died_ for _once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him.
Should die_ for _ever_.
II.iv.123 (58,6) [Owe, and succeed by weakness] To _owe_ is, in this
place, to _own_, to _hold_, to have possession.
II.iv.125 (59,7) [the glasses where they view themselves; Which are
as easily broke, as they make forms] Would it not be better to
read,
----take _forms_.
II.iv.128 (59,8) [In profiting by them] In imitating them, in taking
them for examples.
II.iv.139 (59,1)
[I have no tongue but one. Gentle my lord,
Let me intreat you, speak the former language]
Isabella answers to his circumlocutory courtship, that she has
but _one tongue_, she does not understand this new phrase, and
desires him to talk his _former language_, that is, to talk as he
talked before.
II.iv.150 (60,3) [Seeming, seeming!] Hypocrisy, hypocrisy; counterfeit
virtue.
II.iv.156 (60,4) [My Touch against you] [The calling his denial of
her charge _his vouch_, has something fine. _Vouch_ is the testimony
one man bears for another. So that, by this, he insinuates
his authority was so great, that his _denial_ would have the same
credit that a _vouch_ or testimony has in ordinary cases. Warburton.]
I believe this beauty is merely imaginary, and that _vouch
against_ means no more than denial.
II.iv.165 (60,5) [die the death] This seems to be a solemn phrase
for death inflicted by law. So in _Midsummer Night's Dream_.
_Prepare_ to die the death.
II.iv.178 (61,6) [prompture] Suggestion, temptation, instigation.
III.i.5 (62,8) [Be absolute for death] Be determined to die, without
any hope of life. _Horace_,--
--_The hour, which exceeds expectation will be welcome._
III.i.7 (62,9) [I do lose a thing, That none but fools would keep]
[W: would reck] The meaning seems plainly this, that _none but
fools would_ wish _to keep life_; or, _none but fools would keep_ it,
if choice were allowed. A sense, which whether true or not, is
certainly innocent.
III.i.14 (63,3) [For all the accommodations, that thou bear'st Are
nurs'd by baseness] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in
supposing that by _baseness_ is meant _self-love_ here assigned as
the motive of all human actions. Shakespeare only meant to
observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that
splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can
display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by _baseness_, by offices of
which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies
of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the
dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry,
and all the pomp of ornaments dug from among the damps and
darkness of the mine.
III.i.16 (64,4) [the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm] _Worm_ is
put for any creeping thing or _serpent_. Shakespeare supposes
falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent
wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is _forked_. He
confounds reality and fiction, a serpent's tongue is _soft_ but not
_forked_ nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In
_Midsummer Night's Dream_ he has the same notion.
--_With_ doubler _tongue
Than thine, O serpent, never adder_ stung.
III.i.17 (64,5)
[Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st; yet grosly fear'st
Thy death which is no more]
Here Dr. Warburton might have found a sentiment worthy of his
animadversion. I cannot without indignation find Shakespeare
saying, that _death is only sleep_, lengthening out his exhortation
by a sentence which in the friar is impious, in the reasoner
is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar.
III.i.19 (64,6)
[Thou art not thyself,
For thou exist'st on many thousand grains,
That issue out of dust]
Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external assistance,
thou subsistest upon foreign matter, and hast no power of
producing or continuing thy own being.
III.i.24 (64,7) [strange effects] For _effects_ read _affects_; that is,
_affections_, _passions_ of mind, or disorders of body variously
_affected_. So in _Othello_, _The young_ affects.
III.i.32 (65,9)
[Thou hast nor youth, nor age;
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both]
This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young, we busy
ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the
gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the
languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or
performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with
the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after
dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the
designs of the evening.
III.i.34 (65,1)
[for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld]
[W: for pall'd, thy blazed youth Becomes assuaged] Here again I
think Dr. Warburton totally mistaken. Shakespeare declares that
man has _neither youth nor age_; for in _youth_, which is the
_happiest_ time, or which might be the happiest, he commonly wants
means to obtain what he could enjoy; he is dependent on _palsied
eld_; _must beg alms_ from the coffers of hoary avarice: and being
very niggardly supplied, _becomes as aged_, looks, like an old man,
on happiness which is beyond his reach. And when _he is old and
rich_, when he has wealth enough for the purchase of all that
formerly excited his desires, he has no longer the powers of enjoyment,
--_has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make _his _riches pleasant_.--
I have explained this passage according to the present reading,
which may stand without much inconvenience; yet I am willing to
persuade my reader, because I have almost persuaded myself, that
our authour wrote,
--_for all thy_ blasted _youth
Becomes as aged_--
III.i.37 (66,2) [Thou has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant] [W: nor bounty] I am inclined to
believe, that neither man nor woman will have much difficulty to
tell how _beauty makes riches pleasant_. Surely this emendation,
though it it elegant and ingenious, is not such as that an opportunity of
inserting it should be purchased by declaring ignorance
of what every one knows, by confessing insensibility to what
every one feels.
III.i.40 (66,3) [more thousand deaths] For this sir T. Hammer reads,
----_ a thousand deaths_:----
The meaning is not only _a thousand deaths_, but _a thousand deaths_
besides what have been mentioned.
III.i.55 (67,5) [Why, as all comforts are; most good in Deed] If this
reading be right, Isabella must mean that she brings something
better than _words_ of comfort, she brings an assurance of _deeds_.
This is harsh and constrained, but I know not what better to offer. Sir
Thomas Hammer reads,--_in_ speed.
III.i.59 (68,6) [an everlasting leiger. Therefore your best appointment]
_Leiger_ is the same with resident. _Appointment_; preparation;
act of fitting, or state of being fitted for any thing. So
in old books, we have a knight well _appointed_; that is, well
armed and mounted or fitted at all points.
III.i.68 (68,8)
[Tho' all the world's vastidity you had,
To a determin'd scope]
A confinement of your mind to one painful idea; to ignominy, of
which the remembrance can neither be suppressed nor escaped.
III.i.79 (69,9)
[And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great,
As when a giant dies]
The reasoning is, _that death is no more than every being must
suffer, though the dread of it is peculiar to man_; or perhaps,
that_ we are inconsistent with ourselves, when we so much dread
that which we carelessly inflict on other creatures, that feel
the pain as acutely as we.
III.i.91 (69,1) [follies doth emmew] Forces follies to lie in cover
without daring to show themselves.
III.1.93 (69,3) [His filth within being cast] To _cast_ a pond is
to empty it of mud.
Mr. Upton reads,
_His_ pond _within being cast, he would appear
A_ filth _as deep as hell_.
III.1.94 (70,4)
[_Claud_. The princely Angelo?
_Isab_. Oh, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover
In princely guards!]
[W: priestly guards] The first folio has, in both places, _prenzie_,
from which the other folios made _princely_, and every editor may
make what he can.
III.i.113 (71,7)
[If it were damnable, he being so wise,
Why would he for the momentary trick
Be perdurably fin'd?]
Shakespeare shows his knowledge of human nature in the conduct of
Claudio. When Isabella first tells him of Angelo's proposal, he
answers, with honest indignation, agreeably to his settled principles,
_Thou shalt not do't._
But the love of life being permitted to operate, soon furnishes
him with sophistical arguments, he believes it cannot be very
dangerous to the soul, since Angelo, who is so wise, will venture
it.
III.i.121 (71,8) [delighted spirit] This reading may perhaps stand,
but many attempts have been made to correct it. The most plausible
is that which substitutes,
--_the_ benighted _spirit_,
alluding to the darkness always supposed in the place of future
punishment.
Perhaps we may read,
--_the_ delinquent _spirit_,
a word easily changed to _delighted_ by a bad copier, or unskilful
reader. _Delinquent_ is proposed by Thirlby in his manuscript.(1773)
III.i.127 (72,9) [lawless and incertain thoughts] Conjecture sent
out to wander without any certain direction, and ranging through
all possibilities of pain.
III.i.139 (73,2) [Is't not a kind of incest, to take life From thine
own sister's shame?] In Isabella's declamation there is something
harsh, and something forced and far-fetched. But her indignation
cannot be thought violent, when we consider her not only as a virgin,
but as a nun.
III.i.149 (74,4) [but a trade] A custom; a practice, an established
habit. So we say of a man much addicted to any thing, _he makes_
a trade _of it_.
III.i.176 (75,6) [Hold you there] Continue in that resolution.
III.i.255 (77,l) [only refer yourself to this advantage] This is
scarcely to be reconciled to any established mode of speech. We
may read, _only_ reserve yourself to, or _only_ reserve to _yourself
this advantage_.
III.i.266 (77,2) [the corrupt deputy scaled] _To scale the deputy_ may
_be, to reach him, notwithstanding the elevation of his place_; or
it may be, _to strip him and discover his nakedness, though armed
and concealed by the investments of authority_.
III.ii.6 (78,4) [since, of two usuries] Sir Thomas Hammer corrected
this with less pomp [than Warburton], then _since of two_ usurers
_the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed, by order of
law, a furr'd gown_, &c. His punctuation is right, but the alteration,
small as it is, appears more than was wanted. Usury may
be need by an easy licence for the _professors of usury_.
III.ii.14 (79,5) [father] This word should be expunged.
III.ii.40 (80,7) [That we were all, as some would seem to be,
Free from all faults, as faults from seeming free!]
Sir T. Hammer reads,
_Free from all faults, as from faults seeming free_.
In the interpretation of Dr. Warburton, the sense is trifling,
and the expression harsh. To wish _that men were as free from
faults, as faults are free from comeliness_ [instead of _void of
comeliness_] is a very poor conceit. I once thought it should be
read,
_O that all were, as all would seem to be.
Free from all faults_, or _from_ false seeming _free_.
So in this play,
_O place, 0 power--how dost thou
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy_ false seeming.
But now I believe that a less alteration will serve the turn.
_Free from all faults_, or _faults from seeming free;
that men were really good, or that their faults were known_, that
men were free from faults, _or_ faults from _hypocrisy_. So Isabella
calls Angelo's hypocrisy, _seeming, seeming_.
III.ii.42 (81,8) [His neck will come to your waist] That is, his
neck will be tied, like your waist, with a rope. The friars of
the Franciscan order, perhaps of all others, wear a hempen cord
for a girdle. Thus Buchanan,
_Fac gemant suis,
Variata terga funibus_.
III.ii.51 (81,1) [what say'st thou to this tune, matter and method?
Is't not drown'd i' the last rain?] [W: It's not down i' the
last reign] Dr. Warburton's emendation is ingenious, but I know
not whether the sense may not be restored with less change. Let
us consider it. Lucio, a prating fop, meets his old friend
going to prison, and pours out upon him his impertinent interrogatories,
to which, when the poor fellow makes no answer, he
adds, _What reply? ha? what say'st thou to this? tune, matter,
and method,--is't not? drown'd i' th' last rain? ha? what say'st
thou, trot_? &c. It is a common phrase used in low raillery of a
man crest-fallen and dejected, that _he looks like a drown'd
puppy_, Lucio, therefore, asks him, whether he was _drowned in
the last rain_, and therefore cannot speak.
III.ii.52 (82,2) [what say'st thou, trot?] _Trot_, or as it is now
often pronounced, honest _trout_, is a familiar address to a man
among the provincial vulgar. (1773)
III.ii.54 (82,3) [Which is the way?] _What is the_ mode _now_?
III.ii.59 (82,4) [in the tub] The method of cure for veneral complaints
is grosly celled the _powdering tub_.
III.ii.89 (83,6) [Go--to kennel, Pompey--go] It should be remembered,
that Pompey is the common name of a dog, to which allusion
is made in the mention of a _kennel_. (1773)
III.ii.135 (85,9) [clack-dish] The beggars, two or three centuries
ago, used to proclaim their wont by a wooden dish with a moveable
cover, which they clacked to shew that their vessel was empty.
This appears in a passage quoted on another occasion by Dr. Gray,
(see 1765, I,331,9 and the note in the 1765 Appendix)
III.ii.144 (86,1) [The greater file of the subject] The larger list,
the greater number.
III.ii.193 (87,5) [He's now past it] Sir Thomas Hammer, _He is not
past it yet_. This emendation was received in the former edition,
but seems not necessary. It were to be wished, that we all explained
more, and amended less. (see 1765, I,333,5)
III.ii.277 (90,9)
[Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go]
These lines I cannot understand, but believe that they should be
read thus:
Patterning _himself to know_,
In _grace to stand_, in _virtue go_;
To _pattern_ is _to work after a pattern_, and, perhaps, in
Shakespeare's licentious diction, simply to work. The sense is, _he
that bears the sword of heaven should be holy as well as severe;
one that after good examples labours to know himself, to live
with innocence, and to act with virtue_.
III.ii.294 (91,5)
[So disguise shall, by the disguis'd
Pay with falshood false exacting]
So _disguise_ shall by means of a person _disguised_, return an
_injurious demand_ with a _counterfeit person_.
IY.i.13 (93,4) [My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe]
Though the musick soothed my sorrows, it had no tendency to produce
light merriment.
IV.i.21 (93,5) [constantly] Certainly; without fluctuation of mind.
IV.i.28 (93,6) [circummur'd with brick] _Circummured_, walled round.
_He caused the doors to be_ mured _and cased up_.
Painter's Palace of Pleasure.
IV.i.40 (94,7) [In action all of precept] I rather think we should
read,
_In precept all of action_,--
that is, _in direction given not by words, but by mute signs_.
IV.i.44 (94,8) [I have possess'd him] I have made him clearly and
strongly comprehend.
IV.i.60 (95,9) [O place and greatness] [It plainly appears, that
_this_ fine speech belongs to _that_ which concludes the preceding
scene, between the Duke and Lucio.... But that some time might be
given to the two women to confer together, the players, I suppose,
took part of the speech, beginning at _No might nor greatness_,
&c. and put it here, without troubling themselves about
its pertinency. Warburton.] I cannot agree that these lines are
placed here by the players. The sentiments are common, and such
as a prince, given to reflection, must have often present.
There was a necessity to fill up the time in which the ladies
converse apart, and they must have quick tongues and ready
apprehensions, if they understood each other while this speech was
uttered.
IV.i.60 (95,1) [false eyes] That is, Eyes insidious and traiterous.
IV.i.62 (95,2) [contrarious quests] Different reports, _running
counter_ to each other.
IV.i.76 (96,4) [for yet our tithe's to sow] [W: tilth] The reader
is here attacked with a pretty sophism. We should read _tilth_,
i.e. our _tillage is to make_. But in the text it is _to sow_; and
who has ever said that his _tillage_ was to _sow_? I believe _tythe_
is right, and that the expression is proverbial, in which _tithe_
is taken, by an easy metonymy, for _harvest_.
IV.ii.69 (100,7) [ As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones ]
Stiffly. These two lines afford a very pleasing image.
IV.ii.83 (101,1) [Even with the stroke] _Stroke_ is here put for the
_stroke_ of a pen or a line.
IV.ii.86 (101,2) [To qualify] To temper, to moderate, as we say
wine is _qualified_ with water.
IV.ii.86 (101,3) [Were he meal'd] Were he sprinkled; were he defiled,
A figure of the same kind our authour uses in _Macbeth_,
_The_ blood-bolter'd _Banquo._
IV.ii.91 (101,4) [that spirit's possess'd with haste, That wounds
the unresisting postern with these strokes] The line is irregular,
and the _unresisting postern_ so strange an expression, that
want of measure, and want of sense, might justly raise suspicion
of an errour, yet none of the later editors seem to have supposed
the place faulty, except sir Tho. Hammer, who reads,
_the_ unresting _postern_.
The three folio's have it,
_unsisting postern_,
out of which Mr. Rowe made _unresisting_, and the rest followed
him. Sir Thomas Hammer seems to have supposed _unresisting_ the
word in the copies, from which he plausibly enough extracted
_unresting_, but be grounded his emendation on the very syllable that
wants authority. What can be made of _unsisting_ I know not; the
best that occurs to me is _unfeeling_.
IV.ii.103 (103,6) [_Duke_. This is his lordship's man.
_Prov_. And here comes Claudio's pardon]
[Tyrwhitt suggested that the names of the speakers were misplaced]
When, immediately after the Duke had hinted his expectation of a
pardon, the Provost sees the Messenger, he supposes the Duke to
to have _known something_, and changes his mind. Either reading
may serve equally well. (1773)
IV.ii.153 (104,7) [desperately mortal] This expression is obscure.
Sir Thomas Hammer reads, _mortally desperate_. _Mortally_ is in low
conversation used in this sense, but I know not whether it was
ever written. I am inclined to believe, that _desperately mortal_
means _desperately mischievous_. Or _desperately mortal_ may mean a
man likely to die in a _desperate_ state, without reflection or
repentance. (see 1765, I,348,7)
IV.ii.187 (106,8) [and tie the beard] A beard tied would give a very
new air to that face, which had never been seen but with the
beard loose, long, and squalid. (1773)
IV.iii.4 (107,2) [First, here's young master Rash] This enumeration
of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of
the practices predominant in Shakespeare's age. Besides those
whose follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men
and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals of the
pictures were then known.
IV.iii.17 (108,4) [master Forthlight] Should not _Forthlight_ be
_Forthright_, alluding to the line in which the thrust is made? (1773)
IV.iii.21 (108,6) [in for the Lord's sake] [i.e. to beg for the rest
of their lives. Warburton.] I rather think this expression intended
to ridicule the puritans, whose turbulence and indecency often
brought them to prison, and who considered themselves as suffering
for religion.
It is not unlikely that men imprisoned for other crimes, might
represent themselves to casual enquirers, as suffering for
puritanism, and that this might be the common cant of the prisons.
In Donne's time, every prisoner was brought to jail by suretiship.
IV.iii.68 (110,7) [After him, fellows] Here was a line given to the
Duke, which belongs to the Provost. The Provost, while the Duke
is lamenting the obduracy of the prisoner, cries out,
_After him, fellows_, &c.
and, when they are gone out, turns again to the Duke.
IV.iii.72 (110,8) [to transport him] To remove him from one world
to another. The French _trepas_ affords a kindred sense.
IV.iii.115 (112,1)
[I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair,
When least it is expected.]
A better reason might have been given. It was necessary to keep
Isabella in ignorance, that she might with more keenness accuse
the deputy.
IV.iii.139 (113,2) [your bosom] Your wish; your heart's desire.
IV.iii.149 (113,3) [I am combined by a sacred vow] I once thought
this should be _confined_, but Shakespeare uses _combine_ for to
_bind by a pact or agreement_, so he calls Angelo the _combinate_
husband of Mariana.
IV.iii.163 (113,4) [if the old fantastical duke] Sir Thomas Hammer
reads, _the_ odd _fantastical duke_, but _old_ is a common word of
aggravation in ludicrous language, as, _there was_ old _revelling_.
IV.iii.170 (114,5) [woodman] That is, _huntsman_, here taken for a
_hunter of girls_.
IV.iv.19 (115,6) [sort and suit] Figure and rank.
IV.iv.27 (115,7) [Yet reason dares her No] Mr. Theobald reads,
--_Yet reason dares her_ note.
Sir Thomas Hammer,
--_Yet reason dares her: No._
Mr. Upton,
--_Yet reason dares her--No_,
which he explains thus: _Yet_, says Angelo, _reason will give her
courage_--_No_, that is, _it will not_. I am afraid _dare_ has no such
signification. I have nothing to offer worth insertion.
IV.iv.28 (116,8)
[For my authority bears a credent bulk;
That no particular scandal once can touch]
_Credent_ is _creditable, inforcing credit, not questionable_. The
old English writers often confound the active and passive adjectives.
So Shakespeare, and Milton after him, use _inexpressive_
from inexpressible.
_Particular_ is _private_, a French sense. No scandal from any
_private_ mouth can reach a man in my authority.
IV.iv.36 (116,9) [Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not]
Here undoubtedly the act should end, and was ended by the poet;
for here is properly a cessation of action, and a night intervenes,
and the place is changed, between the passages of this
scene, and those of the next. The next act beginning with the
following scene, proceeds without any interruption of time or
change of place.
IV.v.1 (117,1) [_Duke_. These letters at fit time deliver me]
Peter never delivers the letters, but tells his story without any
credentials. The poet forgot the plot which he had formed.
IV.vi.4 (118,2) [He says, to vail full purpose] [T: t'availful]
[Warburton had explained "full" as "beneficial."] _To vail full_
purpose, may, with very little force on the words, mean, _to hide_
_the whole extent of our design_, and therefore the reading may
stand; yet I cannot but think Mr. Theobald's alteration either
lucky or ingenious. To interpret words with such laxity, as to
make _full_ the sane with _beneficial_, is to put an end, at once,
to all necessity of emendation, for any word may then stand in
the place of another.
IV.vi.9 (118,3) [_Enter Peter_] This play has two Friars, either of
whom might singly have served. I should therefore imagine, that
Friar Thomas, in the first act, might be changed, without any
harm, to Friar Peter; for why should the Duke unnecessarily
trust two in an affair which required only one. The none of
Friar Thomas is never mentioned in the dialogue, and therefore
seems arbitrarily placed at the head of the scene.
IV.vi.14 (119,4) [Have bent the gates] Have taken possession of the
gates, (rev. 1778, II,134,4)
V.i.20 (120,5) [vail your regard] That is, withdraw your thoughts
from higher things, let your notice descend upon a wronged
woman. To _vail_, is to lower.
V.i.45 (121,6) [truth is truth To the end of reckoning] That is,
truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of encrease can be
so much what it is, as _truth_ is _truth_. There may be a _strange_
thing, and a thing _more strange_, but if a proposition be _true_,
there can be none _more true_.
V.i.54 (121,7) [as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute] _As shy_; as
reserved, as abstracted: _as just_; as nice, as exact: _as absolute_;
as complete in all the round of duty.
V.i.56 (121,8) [In all his dressings] In all his semblance of virtue,
in all his habiliments of office.
V.i.64 (122,1) [do not banish reason For inequality] Let not the
high quality of my adversary prejudice you against me.
V.i.104 (124,4) [Oh, that it were as like, as it is true!] [Warburton had
explained "like" as "seemly."] _Like_ I have never found
for _seemly_.
V.i.107 (124,8) [In hateful practice] _Practice_ was used by the old
writers for any unlawful or insidious stratagem. So again,
_This must needs be_ practice:
and again,
_Let me have way to find this_ practice _out_.
V.i.145 (125,6) [nor a temporary medler] It is hard to know what
is meant by a _temporary_ medler. In its usual sense, as opposed
to _perpetual_, it cannot be used here. It may stand for _temporal_:
the sense will then be, _I know him for a holy man, one that meddles not
with_ secular _affairs_. It may mean _temporising_: I know
him to be a holy man, one who would not_ temporise, _or take the
opportunity of your absence to defame you_. Or we may read,
_Not scurvy, nor a_ tamperer and _medler_:
not one who would bare _tampered_ with this woman to make her a
false evidence against your deputy.
V.i.160 (126,8) [So vulgarly and personally accus'd] Meaning either
so _grosly_, with such _indecency_ of invective, or by so _mean_ and
inadequate witnesses.
V.i.205 (128,2) [This is a strange abuse] _Abuse_ stands in this place
for _deception_, or _puzzle_. So in _Macbeth_,
_This strange and self_ abuse,
means, _this strange_ deception _of himself_.
V.i.219 (129,3) [her promised proportions Came short of composition]
Her fortune, which was promised _proportionate_ to mine, fell short
of the _composition_, that is, contract or bargain.
V.i.236 (129,4) [These poor informal women] I once believed _informal_
had no other or deeper signification than _informing, accusing_.
The _scope_ of justice, is the full extent; but think, upon farther
enquiry, that _informal_ signifies _incompetent, not qualified to
give testimony_. Of this use there are precedents to be found,
though I cannot now recover them.
V.i.245 (130,5) [That's seal'd in approbation?] Then any thing subject
to counterfeits is tried by the proper officers and approved,
a stamp or _seal_ is put upon it, as among us on plate, weights,
and measures. So the Duke says, that Angela's faith has been
tried, _approved_, and _seal'd_ in testimony of that _approbation_, and,
like other things so _sealed_, is no more to be called in question.
V.i.255 (131,6) [to hear this matter forth] To hear it to the end;
to search it to the bottom.
V.i.303 (132,4) [to retort your manifest appeal] To _refer back_ to
Angelo and the cause in which you _appealed_ from Angelo to the
Duke.
V.i.317 (133,5) [his subject I am not, Nor here provincial] Nor here
_accountable_. The meaning seems to be, I am not one of his natural
subjects, nor of any dependent province.
V.i.323 (133,6) [the forfeits in a barber's shop] [Warburton had explained
that a list of forfeitures were posted in barber shops to
warn patrons to keep their hands off the barber's surgical instruments.]
This explanation may serve till a better is discovered.
But whoever has seen the instruments of a chirurgeon, knows that
they may be very easily kept out of improper hands in a very
small box, or in his pocket.
V.i.336 (134,7) [And was the duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a
coward, as you then reported him to be?] So again afterwards,
_You, sirrah, that know me for a fool, a_ coward,
_One of all luxury_--
But Lucio had not, in the former conversation, mentioned _cowardice_
among the faults of the duke.--Such failures of memory are
incident to writers more diligent than this poet.
V.i.359 (135,8) [show your sheep-biting face, and be hang'd an
hour' Will't not off?] This is intended to be the common language
of vulgar indignation. Our phrase on such occasions is
simply; _show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged_. The words
_an hour_ have no particular use here, nor are authorised by custom.
I suppose it was written thus, _show your sheep-biting face,
and be hanged--an' how? wilt not off_? In the midland counties,
upon any unexpected obstruction or resistance, it is common to
exclaim _an' how_?
V.i.388 (136,9) [Advertising, and holy] Attentive and faithful.
V.i.393 (136,l) [be you as free to us] Be as _generous_ to us, pardon
us as we have pardoned you.
V.i.401 (136,2) [That brain'd my purpose] We now use in conversation
a like phrase. _This it was that knocked my design on the head_.
Dr. Warburton reads,
--baned _my purpose_.
V.i.413 (137,3) [even from his proper tongue] Even from Angelo's
_own tongue_. So above.
_In the witness of his_ proper _ear
To call him villain._
V.i.438 (138,5) [Against all sense you do importune her] The meaning
required is, against all reason and natural affection; Shakespeare,
therefore, judiciously uses a single word that implies both;
_sense_ signifying both reason and affection.
V.i.452 (139,6) ['Till he did look on me] The duke has justly observed
that Isabel is _importuned against all sense_ to solicit for
Angelo, yet here _against all sense_ she solicits for him. Her
argument is extraordinary.
_A due sincerity govern'd his deeds,
'Till he did look on me; since it is so.
Let him not die._
That Angelo had committed all the crimes charged against him,
as far as he could commit them, is evident. The only _intent_
which _his_ act did not overtake, was the defilement of Isabel. Of
this Angelo was only intentionally guilty.
Angela's crimes were such, as must sufficiently justify punishment,
whether its end be to secure the innocent from wrong, or
to deter guilt by example; and I believe every reader feels some
indignation when he finds him spared. From what extenuation of
his crime, can Isabel, who yet supposes her brother dead, form
any plea in his favour. _Since he was good 'till he looked on me,
let him not die_. I am afraid our varlet poet intended to inculcate,
that women think ill of nothing that raises the credit of
their beauty, and are ready, however virtuous, to pardon any act
which they think incited by their own charms.
V.i.488 (140,7) [But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all]
Thy faults, so far as they are punishable on earth, so far as
they are cognisable by temporal power, I forgive.
V.i.499 (141,8) [By this, lord Angelo perceives he's safe] It is
somewhat strange, that Isabel is not made to express either
gratitude, wonder or joy at the sight of her brother.
V.i.501 (141,9) [your evil quits you well] _Quits you_, recompenses,
requites you.
V.i.502 (141,1) [Look, that you love your wife; her worth, worth
yours] Sir T. Hammer reads,
_Her worth_ works _yours_.
This reading is adopted by Dr. Warburton, but for what reason?
How does her _worth work Angelo's worth_? it has only contributed
to _work_ his pardon. The words are, as they are too frequently,
an affected gingle, but the sense is plain. _Her worth, worth
yours_; that is, her value is equal to your value, the match is
not unworthy of you.
V.i.504 (141,2) [And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon] After
the pardon of two murderers, Lucio might be treated by the good
duke with less harshness; but perhaps the poet intended to show,
what is too often seen, _that men easily forgive wrongs which are
not committed against themselves_.
V.i.509 (142,3) [according to the trick] To my custom, my habitual
practice.
V.i.526 (142,4) [thy other forfeits] Thy other punishments.
V.i.534 (142,5) [Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness]
I have always thought that there is great confusion in this concluding
speech. If my criticism would not be censured as too
licentious, I should regulate it thus,
_Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness.
Thanks. Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
We shall employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio's.
_Ang_. _Th' offence pardons itself_.
_Duke_, _There's more behind
That is more gratulate. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion_,&c,
V.i.545 (143,6) General Observation The novel of Cynthio Giraldi,
from which Shakespeare is supposed to have borrowed this fable,
may be read in _Shakespeare illustrated_, elegantly translated,
with remarks which will assist the enquirer to discover how much
absurdity Shakespeare has admitted or avoided.
I cannot but suspect that some other had new-modelled the
novel of Cynthio, or written a story which in some particulars
resembled it, and that Cynthio was not the authour whom Shakespeare
immediately followed. The emperour in Cynthio is named
Maximine; the duke, in Shakespeare's enumeration of the persons
of the drama, is called Vincentio. This appears a very slight
remark; but since the duke has no name in the play, nor is ever
mentioned but by his title, why should he be called Vincentio
among the _persons_, but because the name was copied from the
story, and placed superfluously at the head of the list by the
mere habit of transcription? It is therefore likely that there
was then a story of Vincentio duke of Vienna, different from
that of Maximine emperour of the Romans.
Of this play the light or comick part is very natural and
pleasing, but the grave scenes, if a few passages be excepted,
have more labour than elegance. The plot is rather intricate
than artful. The time of the action is indefinite; some time,
we know not how much, must have elapsed between the recess of
the duke and the imprisonment of Claudio; for he must have
learned the story of Mariana in his disguise, or he delegated
his power to a man already known to be corrupted. The unities
of action and place are sufficiently preserved.
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
I.ii.96 (155,3) [o'er-raught] That is, _over-reached_.
I.ii.98 (156,5)
[As, nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches, that deform the body]
[W: Drug-working] The learned commentator has endeavoured with
much earnestness to recommend his alteration; but, if I may
judge of other apprehensions by my own, without great success.
This interpretation of _soul-killing_ is forced and harsh. Sir T.
Hammer reads _soul-selling_, agreeable enough to the common opinion,
but without such improvement as may justify the change. Perhaps
the epithets have only been misplaced, and the lines should be
read thus,
Soul-killing _sorcerers, that change the mind_;
Dark-working _witches that deform the body_.
This change seems to remove all difficulties.
By _soul-killing_ I understand destroying the rational faculties
by such means as make men fancy themselves beasts.
I.ii.102 (157,6) [liberties of sin] Sir T. Hammer reads, _libertines_,
which, as the author has been enumerating not acts but persons,
seems right.
II.i.30 (158,8) [How if your husband start some other where?] I
cannot but think, that our authour wrote,
--_start some other_ hare?
So in _Much ado about Nothing_, Cupid is said to be _a good hare-finder_.
II.i.32 (159,9) [tho' she pause] To _pause_ is to rest, to be in
quiet.
II.i.41 (159,1) [fool-begg'd] She seems to mean, by _fool-begg'd
patience_, that patience which is so near to _idiotical simplicity_,
that your next relation would take advantage from it to represent
you as a _fool_, and _beg_ the guardianship of your fortune.
II.i.82 (161,3) [Am I so round with you, as you with me] He plays
upon the word _round_, which signified _spherical_ applied to
himself, and _unrestrained_, or _free in speech_ or _action_, spoken
of his mistress. So the king, in _Hamlet_, bids the queen be _round_
with her son.
II.i.100 (161,5) [too unruly deer] The ambiguity of _deer_ and _dear_
is borrowed, poor as it is, by Waller, in his poem on the _Ladies
Girdle_.
"This was my heav'n's extremest sphere,
"This pale that held my lovely deer."
II.i.101 (161,6) [poor I am but his stale] The word _stale_, in our
authour, used as a substantive, means, not something offered to
_allure_ or _attract_, but something _vitiated_ with _use_, something of
which the best part has been enjoyed and consumed.
II.ii.86 (166,4) [Not a man of those, but he hath the wit to lose his
hair] That is, _Those who have more hair than wit_, are easily
entrapped by loose women, and suffer the consequences of lewdness,
one of which, in the first appearance of the disease in Europe,
was the loss of hair.
II.ii.173 (169,6) [Be it my wrong, you are from me exempt] Exempt,
separated, parted. The sense is, _If I am doomed to suffer the
wrong of separation, yet injure not with contempt me who am already
injured_.
II.ii.210 (171,1) [And shrive you] That is, I will _call you to
confession_, and make you tell your tricks.
III.i.4 (172,2) [carkanet] seems to have been a necklace or rather
chain, perhaps hanging down double from the neck. So Lovelace
in his poem,
_The empress spreads her_ carcanets.
III.i.15 (173,3) [Marry, so it doth appear By the wrongs I suffer,
and the blows I bear] [T: don't appear] I do not think this emendation
necessary. He first says, that his _wrongs_ and _blows_ prove
him an _ass_; but immediately, with a correction of his former sentiment,
such as may be hourly observed in conversation, he observes
that, if he had been an ass, he should, when he was _kicked_, have
_kicked_ again.
III.i.101 (177,7) [supposed by the common rout] For _suppose_ I once
thought it might be more commodious to substitute _supported_; but
there is no need of change: _supposed_ is _founded on supposition_,
made by conjecture.
III.i.105 (178,8) [For slander lives upon succession] The line apparently
wants two syllables: what they were, cannot now be known.
The line may be filled up according to the reader's fancy, as thus:
_For_ lasting _slander lives upon succession_.
III.ii.27 (180,3) ['Tis holy sport to be a little vain] is _light of
tongue, not veracious_.
III.ii.64 (181,2) [My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim]
When be calls the girl his _only heaven on the earth_, he utters
the common cant of lovers. When he calls her _his heaven's claim_,
I cannot understand him. Perhaps he means that which he asks of
heaven.
III.ii.125 (184,5)
[_S. Ant._ Where France?
_S. Dro._ In her forehead; arm'd and reverted,
making war against her hair]
[T, from the first Folio: heir] With this correction and explication
Dr. Warburton concurs, and sir T. Hammer thinks an equivocation
intended, though he retains _hair_ in the text. Yet surely
they have all lost the sense by looking beyond it. Our authour,
in my opinion, only sports with an allusion, in which he takes
too much delight, and means that his mistress had the French
disease. The ideas are rather too offensive to be dilated. By
a forehead _armed_, he means covered with incrusted eruptions: by
reverted, he means having the hair turning backwards. An equivocal
word must have senses applicable to both the subjects to
which it is applied. Both _forehead_ and _France_ might in some sort
make war against their _hair_, but how did the _forehead_ make war
against its _heir_? The sense which I have given immediately occurred
to me, and will, I believe, arise to every reader who is
contented with the meaning that lies before him, without sending
out conjecture in search of refinements.
IV.ii.19 (192,9) [sere] that is, _dry_, withered.
IV.ii.22 (192,1) [Stigmatical in making] This is, _marked_ or _stigmatized_
by nature with deformity, as a token of his vicious disposition.
IV.ii.35 (193,3) [A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough] [T: A fiend,
a fury] There were fairies like _hobgoblins_, pitiless and rough,
and described as malevolent and mischievous, (see 1765, III,143,3)
IV.ii.39 (193,5) [A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot
well] To _run counter_ is to _run backward_, by mistaking the course
of the animal pursued; to _draw dry-foot_ is, I believe, to pursue
by the _track_ or _prick of the foot_; to _run counter_ and _draw dry-foot
well are_, therefore, inconsistent. The jest consists in
the ambiguity of the word _counter_, which means the _wrong way in_*
_the chase._ and a _prison_ in London. The officer that arrested him was
a serjeant of the counter. For the congruity of this jest with the scene of
action, let our authour answer.
IV.iii.13 (196,9) [what, have you got the picture of old Adam new
apparel'd] [T: got rid of the picture] The explanation is very
good, but the text does not require to be amended.
IV.iii.27 (`is rest to do more exploits with his mace than a morris
pike] [W: a Maurice-pike] This conjecture is very ingenious, yet the
commentator talks unnecessarily of the _rest of a musket._ by which
he makes the hero of the speech set up the _rest_ of a _musket,_ to
do exploits with a _pike._ The rest of a _pike_ was a common term,
and signified, I believe, the manner in which it was fixed to
receive the rush of the enemy. A _morris-pike_ was a pike used in a
morris or a military dance, and with which great _exploits_ were
_done,_ that is, great feats of dexterity were shewn. There is no
need of change.
IV.iv.78 (202,3) [kitchen-vestal] Her charge being like that of the
vestal virgins, to keep the fire burning.
V.1.137 (210,6) [important letters]_Important_ seems to be for
_importunate._ (1773)
V.i.298 (216,2) [time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures
in my face] _Defeature_ is the privative of _feature._ The meaning is,
time hath cancelled my features.
V.i.406 (220,7) [After so long grief such nativity!] We should surely
read.
_After so long grief, such_ festivity.
_Nativity_ lying so near, and the termination being the same of both words,
the mistake was easy.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
I.i.27 (226,3) [no faces truer] That is, none _honester,_ none _more
sincere._
I.i.40 (227,7) [challenged Cupid at the flight] The disuse of the
bow makes this passage obscure. Benedick is represented as
challenging Cupid at archery. To challenge _at the flight is,_
I believe, to wager who shall shoot the arrow furthest without any
particular mark. To _challenge at the bird-bolt,_ seems to mean the
same as to challenge at children's archery, with snail arrows such
as are discharged at birds. In Twelfth Night Lady Olivia opposes
a _bird-bolt_ to a _cannon-bullet,_ the lightest to the heaviest of
missive weapons.
I.i.66 (228,9) [four of his five wits] In our author's time _wit_ was the
general term for intellectual powers. So Davies on the Soul.
Wit, _seeking truth from cause to cause ascends._
_And never rests till it the first attain;_
Will, _seeking good, finds many middle ends,
But never stays till it the last do gain._
And in another part,
_But if a phrenzy do possess the brain,
It so disturbs and blots the form of things,
As fantasy proves altogether vain,
And to the_ wit, _no true relation brings.
Then doth the_ wit, _admitting all for true,
Build fond conclusions on those idle grounds;_--
The _wits_ seem to have reckoned five, by analogy to the five
senses, or the five inlets of ideas.
I.i.79 (229,4) [the gentleman is not in your books] This is a phrase
used, I believe, by more than understand it. _To be in one's
books is to be in one's_ codicils _or_ will, _to be among friends set
down for legacies_.
I.i.82 (230,5) [young squarer] A _squarer_ I take to be a cholerick,
quarrelsome fellow, for in this sense Shakespeare uses the word
to _square_. So in Midsummer Night's Dream it is said of Oberon
and Titalia, that _they never meet but they_ square. So the sense
may be, _Is there no_ hot-blooded _youth that will keep him company
through all his mad pranks_?
I.i.103 (231,6) [You embrace your charge] That is your _burthen_, your
_incumbrunce_.
I.i.185 (233,7) [to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder] I know not
whether I conceive the jest here intended. Claudio hints his
love of Hero. Benedick asks whether he is serious, or whether
he only means to jest, and tell them that _Cupid is a good
hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter_. A man praising a pretty
lady in jest, may shew the quick sight of Cupid, but what has it
to do with the _carpentry_ of Vulcan? Perhaps the thought lies no
deeper than this, _Do you mean to tell us as new what we all know
already?_
I.i.200 (234,8) [wear his cap with suspicion?] That is, subject his
head to the disquiet of jealousy.
I.i.217 (235,1) [_Claud_. If this were so, so were it uttered] This
and the three next speeches I do not well understand; there
seems something omitted relating to Hero's consent, or to Claudio's
marriage, else I know not what Claudio can wish _not to be
otherwise_. The copies all read alike. Perhaps it may be better
thus,
Claud. _If this were so, so were it_.
Bene. _Uttered like the old tale_, &c.
Claudio gives a sullen answer, _if it is so, so it is_. Still
there seems something omitted which Claudio and Pedro concur in
wishing.
I.i.243 (236,3) [but that I will have a recheate winded in my
forehead] That is, _I will wear a horn on my forehead which the
huntsman may blow_. A _recheate_ is the sound by which dogs are
called back. Shakespeare had no mercy upon the poor cuckold, his
_horn_ is an inexhaustible subject of merriment.
1.1.258 (236,4) [notable argument] An eminent subject for satire.
1.1.259 (237,5) [Adam] Adam Bell was a companion of Robin Hood, as
may be seen in Robin Hood's Garland; in which, if I do not mistake,
are these lines,
_For he brought Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough,
And William of Cloudeslea,
To shoot with this forester for forty marks,
And the forester beat them all three._
(see 1765, III,182,2)
I.i.290 (238,4) [ere you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience] _Before you endeavour to distinguish yourself any more
by antiquated allusions, examine whether you can fairly claim
them for your own_. This, I think is the meaning; or it may be
understood in another sense, _examine, if your sarcasms do not
touch yourself._
I.iii.14 (241,6) [I cannot hide what I am] This is one of our
authour's natural touches. An envious and unsocial mind, too proud
to give pleasure, and too sullen to receive it, always endeavours
to hide its malignity from the world and from itself, under the
plainness of simple honesty, or the dignity of haughty independence.
I.iii.19 (241,7) [claw no man in his humour] To _claw_ is to flatter.
So _the pope's claw-backs_, in bishop Jewel, are the pope's _flatterers_.
The sense is the same in the proverb, _Mulus mulum scabit_.
I.iii.28 (242,8) [I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose
in his grace] A _canker_ is the _canker_ rose, _dog-rose, cynosbatus,_
or _hip_. The sense is, I would rather live in obscurity the wild
life of nature, than owe dignity or estimation to my brother. He
still continues his wish of gloomy independence. But what is the
meaning of the expression, _a rose in his grace_? if he was a _rose_
of himself, his brother's _grace_ or _favour_ could not degrade him.
I once read thus, _I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a
rose in his_ garden; that is, I had rather be what nature makes
me, however mean, than owe any exaltation or improvement to my
brother's kindness or cultivation. But a less change will be
sufficient: I think it should be read, _I had rather be a canker in a
hedge, than a rose by his grace_.
II.i.3 (244,1) [I never can see him, but I am heart-burn'd an hour
after] The pain commonly called the _heart-burn_, proceeds from an
_acid_ humour in the stomach, and is therefore properly enough
imputed to _tart_ looks.
II.i.53 (245,3) [Well then, go you into hell] Of the two next speeches
Mr. Warburton says, _All this impious nonsense thrown to the bottom
is the players, and foisted in without rhyme or reason_. He
therefore puts them in the margin. They do not deserve indeed so
honourable a place, yet I am afraid they are too much in the manner
of our authour, who is sometimes trying to purchase merriment
at too dear a rate. (see 1765, III,190,9)
II.i.73 (246,4) [if the prince be too important] _Important_ here, and
in many other places, is _importunate_.
II.i.99 (247,6) [My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is
Jove] [T: house is love] This amendation, thus impressed with all
the power of his eloquence and reason, Theobald found in the
quarto edition of 1600, which he professes to have seen; and in
the first folio, the _l_ and the _I_ are so much alike, that the
printers, perhaps, used the same type for either letter. (1773)
II.i.143 (249,2) [his gift is in devising impossible slanders] [W:
impassible] _Impossible_ slanders are, I suppose, such slanders as,
from their absurdity and impossibility, bring their own confutation
with them.
II.i.195 (251,4) [usurer's chain] I know not whether the _chain_ was,
in our authour's time, the common ornament of wealthy citizens,
or whether he satirically uses _usurer_ and _alderman_ as synonymous
terms.
II.i.214 (252,5) [It is the base, the bitter disposition of Beatrice,
that puts the world into her person] That is, _It is the disposition
of Beatrice, who takes upon her to personate the world, and
therefore represents the world as saying what she only says herself_.
_Base, tho bitter_. I do not understand how _base_ and _bitter_ are
inconsistent, or why what is _bitter_ should not be _base_. I believe,
we may safely read, _It is the base_, the _bitter_ disposition.
II.i.253 (253,8) [such impossible conveyance] [W: impassible] I know
not what to propose. _Impossible_ seems to have no meaning here,
and for _impassible_ I have not found any authority. Spenser uses
the word _importable_ in a sense very congruous to this passage,
for _insupportable_, or _not to be sustained_.
_Both him charge on either side,
With hideous strokes and_ importable _power,
Which forced him his ground to traverse wide_.
It may be easily imagined, that the transcribers would change
a word so unusual, into that word most like it, which they could
readily find. It must be however confessed, that _importable_
appears harsh to our ears, and I wish a happier critick may find a
better word.
Sir Tho. Hammer reads _impetuous_, which will serve the purpose
well enough, but is not likely to have been changed to _impossible_.
_Importable_ was a word not peculiar to Spenser, but used by the
last translators of the Apocrypha, and therefore such a word as
Shakespeare may be supposed to have written. (1773)
II.i.330 (256,2) [Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am
sun-burn'd] What is it, _to go the world_? perhaps, to enter by
marriage into a settled state: but why is the unmarry'd lady
_sun-burnt_? I believe we should read, _Thus goes every one to the wood_
but I, and I am sun-burnt_. Thus does every one but I find a shelter,
and I am left exposed to wind and _sun. The nearest way to
the_ wood, is a phrase for the readiest means to any end. It is
said of a woman, who accepts a worse match than those which she
had refused, that she has passed through the _wood_, and at last
taken a crooked stick. But conjectural criticism has always
something to abate its confidence. Shakespeare, in All's well that
Ends well, uses the phrase, _to go to the world_, for _marriage_. So
that my emendation depends only on the opposition of _wood_ to
_sun-burnt_.
II.i.380 (258,4) [to bring signior Benedick, and the lady Beatrice
into a mountain of affection, the one with another] _A mountain of
affection with one another_ is a strange expression, yet I know not
well how to change it. Perhaps it was originally written, _to
bring Benedick into a mooting of affection_; to bring them not to
any more _mootings_ of contention, but to a _mooting_ or conversation
of love. This reading is confirmed by the preposition _with; a
mountain with each other,_ or _affection with each other,_ cannot be
used, but _a mooting with each other_ is proper and regular.
II.iii.104 (265,7) [but, that she loves him, with an enraged
affection, it is past the infinite of thought] [W: the definite of]
Here are difficulties raised only to shew how easily they can be
removed. The plain sense is, _I know not what to think_ otherwise,
_but that she loves him with_ an enraged _affection: It_ (this
affection) [is past the infinite of thought. Here are no abrupt stops,
or imperfect sentences. _Infinite_ may well enough stand; it is
used by more careful writers for _indefinite_; and the speaker only
means, that _thought_, though in itself _unbounded_, cannot reach or
estimate the degree of her passion.
II.iii.146 (267,8) [O, she tore the letter into a thousand half-pence]
[i.e. into a thousand pieces of the same bigness.] This is
farther explained by a passage in As you Like it.
--_There were none principal; they were all like one
another as_ half-pence _are_. [Theobald.] How the quotation explains
the passage, to which it is applied, I cannot discover.
II.iii.188 (268,9) [contemptible spirit] That is, a temper inclined
to scorn and contempt. It has been before remarked, that our authour
uses his verbal adjectives with great licence. There is
therefore no need of changing the word with sir T. Hammer to
_contemptuous_.
III.i.52 (273,3) [Misprising] Despising, contemning.
III.i.96 (275,8) [argument] This word seems here to signify _discourse_,
or, the _powers_ of reasoning.
III.i.104 (275,7) [She's lim'd] She is ensnared and entangled as a
sparrow with _birdlime_.
III.i.107 (275,9) [Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand] This
image is taken from falconry. She had been charged with being
as wild as _haggards of the rock_; she therefore says, that _wild_
as her _heart_ is, she will tame it _to the hand_.
III.ii.31 (277,2) [There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless
it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises] Here is a play
upon the word _fancy_, which Shakespeare uses for _love_ as well as
for _humour, caprice_, or _affectation_.
III.ii.71 (278,3) [She shall be buried with her face upwards] [T:
heels upwards] This emendation, which appears to me very specious,
is rejected by Dr. Warburton. The meaning seems to be,
that she who acted upon principles contrary to others, should
be buried with the same contrariety.
III.iii.43 (282,5) [only have a care that your bills be not stolen]
A _bill_ is still carried by the watchmen at Litchfield. It was
the old weapon of the English infantry, which, says Temple, _gave
the most ghastly and deplorable wounds_. It may be called _securis
falcata_.
III.iv.44 (289,3) [Light o' love] A tune so called, which has been
already mentioned by our authour.
III.iv.49 (290,4) [you'll look he shall lack no burns] A quibble
between _barns_, repositories of corn, and _bairns_, the old word
for children.
III.iv.56 (290,5) [For the letter that begins them all, H] This is
a poor jest, somewhat obscured, and not worth the trouble of
elucidation.
Margaret asks Beatrice for what she cries, _hey ho_; Beatrice
answers, for an _H_, that is, for an _ache_ or _pain_.
III.iv.57 (290,6) [turn'd Turk] [i.e. taken captive by love, and
turned a renegade to his religion. Warburton.] This interpretation
is somewhat far-fetched, yet, perhaps, it is right.
III.iv.78 (291,7) [some morel] That is, some secret meaning, like
the _moral_ of a fable.
III.iv.89 (291,8) [he eats his meat without grudging] I do not see
how this is a proof of Benedick's change of mind. It would afford
more proof of amourosness to say, _he eats_ not _his meat
without grudging_; but it is impossible to fix the meaning of
proverbial expressions: perhaps, _to eat meat without grudging_,
was the same as, _to do as others do_, and the meaning is, _he is
content to live by eating like other mortals and will be content,
notwithstanding his boasts, like other mortals, to have a wife_.
III.v.15 (293,9) [I am as honest as any man living, that is an old
man, and no honester than I] [There is much humour, and extreme
good sense under the covering of this blundering expression. It
is a sly insinuation that length of years, and the being much _hacknied
in the ways of men_, as Shakespeare expresses it, take off the
gloss of virtue, and bring much defilement on the manners. Warburton.]
Much of this is true, but I believe Shakespeare did not intend
to bestow all this reflection on the speaker.
III.v.40 (294,1) [an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind]
This is not out of place, or without meaning. Dogberry, in his
vanity of superiour parts, apologizing for his neighbour, observes,
that _of two men on an horse, one must ride behind_. The _first_
place of rank or understanding can belong but to _one_, and that
happy _one_ ought not to despise his inferiour.
IV.i.22 (296,2) [Interjections? Why, then some be of laughing] This
is a quotation from the Accidence.
IV.i.42 (296,3) [luxurious bed] That is, _lascivious_. _Luxury_ is the
confessor's term for unlawful pleasures of the sex.
IV.i.53 (297,5) [word too large] So he uses _large jests_ in this play,
for _licentious, not restrained within due bounds_.
IV.i.57 (297,6) [I will write against it] [W: rate against] As to
_subscribe to_ any thing is to _allow_ it, so to _write against_ is to
_disallow_ or _deny_.
IV.i.59 (297,7) [chaste as is the bud] Before the air has tasted its
sweetness.
IV.i.75 (298,8) [kindly power] That is, _natural power_. _Kind_ is
_nature_.
IV.i.93 (298,9) [liberal villain] _Liberal_ here, as in many places of
these plays, means, _frank beyond honesty_ or _decency_. _Free of
tongue_. Dr. Warburton unnecessarily reads, _illiberal_.
IV.i. 101 (299,1) [O Hero! What a Hero hadst thou been] I am afraid
here is intended a poor conceit upon the word _Hero_.
IV.i.123 (300,2) [The story that is printed in her blood?] That is,
_the story which her blushes discover to be true_.
IV.i.128 (300,3) [Griev'd I, I had but one? Chid I for that at frugal
nature's frame?] [W: nature's 'fraine] Though _frame_ be not the word
which appears to a reader of the present time most proper to exhibit
the poet's sentiment, yet it may as well be used to shew that
he had _one child_, and _no more_, as that he had a _girl_, not a _boy_,
and as it may easily signify _the system of things_, or _universal
scheme_, the whole order of beings is comprehended, there arises
no difficulty from it which requires to be removed by so violent
an effort as the introduction of a new word offensively mutilated.
IV.i.137 (301,4) [But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd,
And mine that I was proud on] [W: "as mine" in three places] Even
of this small alteration there is no need. The speaker utters
his emotion abruptly, But _mine_, _and mine_ that _I loved_, &c. by an
ellipsis frequent, perhaps too frequent, both in verse and prose.
IV.i.187 (303,6) [bent of honour] _Bent_ is used by our authour for the
utmost degree of any passion, or mental quality. In this play
before Benedick says of Beatrice, _her affection has its full bent_.
The expression is derived from archery; the bow has its _bent_, when
it is drawn as far as it can be.
IV.i.206 (304,8) [ostentation] Show; appearance.
IV.i.251 (305,1) [The smallest twine nay lead me] This is one of our
author's observations upon life. Men overpowered with distress,
eagerly listen to the first offers of relief, close with every
scheme, and believe every promise. He that has no longer any
confidence in himself, is glad to repose his trust in any other that
will undertake to guide him.
IV.ii.70 (311,6) [_Sexton_. Let them be in hand] There is nothing in
the old quarto different in this scene from the common copies,
except that the names of two actors, Kempe and Cowley, are placed at
the beginning of the speeches, instead of the proper words, (see
1765, III,249,7)
V.i.15 (313,7)
[If such a one will smile and stroke his beard;
And, sorrow wag! cry; hem, when he should groan]
Sir Thomas Hammer, and after him Dr. Warburton, for _wag_ read
_waive_, which is, I suppose, the same as, _put aside_ or _shift off_.
None of these conjectures satisfy me, nor perhaps any other reader.
I cannot but think the true meaning nearer than it is imagined.
I point thus,
_If such an one will smile, and stroke his beard,
And, sorrow wag! cry; hem, when he should groan;_
That is, _If he will smile, and cry_ sorrow be gone, _and hem instead_
of groaning. The order in which _and_ and _cry_ are placed is harsh,
and this harshness made the sense mistaken. Range the words in
the common order, and my reading will be free from all difficulty.
_If such an one will smile, and stroke his beard,
Cry, sorrow, wag! and hem when he should groan._
V.i.32 (314,8) [My griefs cry louder than advertisement] That is,
than _admonition_, than _moral instruction_.
V.i.102 (318,4) [we will not wake your patience] [W: wrack] This
emendation is very specious, and perhaps is right; yet the present
reading may admit a congruous meaning with less difficulty than
many other of Shakespeare's expressions.
The old men have been both very angry and outrageous; the
prince tells them that he and Claudio _will not_ wake _their patience_;
will not any longer force them to _endure_ the presence of those
whom, though they look on them as enemies, they cannot resist.
V.i.138 (319,6) [to turn his girdle] We have a proverbial speech,
_If he be angry, let him turn the buckle of his girdle_. But I do
not know its original or meaning.
V.i.166 (320,7) [a wise gentleman] This jest depending on the colloquial
use of words is now obscure; perhaps we should read, _a wise
gentle man_, or _a man wise enough to be a coward_. Perhaps _wise
gentleman_ was in that age used ironically, and always stood for
_silly fellow_.
V.i.231 (322,9) [one meaning well suited] That is, _one meaning is
put into many different dresses_; the prince having asked the same
question in four modes of speech.
V.ii.9 (326,3) [To have no man come over me? why, shall I always
keep below stairs?] [T: above] I suppose every reader will find
the meaning of the old copies.
V.ii.l7 (327,4) [I give thee the bucklers] I suppose that _to give
the bucklers_ is, _to yield_, or _to lay by all thoughts of defence_,
so _clipeum abjicere_. The rest deserves no comment.
V.iii.13 (330,7) [_Those that slew thy virgin knight_] _Knight_, in its
original signification, means _follower_ or _pupil_, and in this
sense may be feminine. Helena, in All's well that Ends well,
uses _knight_ in the same signification.
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST
I.i.31 (342,2)
[To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
With all these, living in philosophy]
The stile of the rhyming scenes in this play is often entangled
and obscure. I know not certainly to what _all these_ is to be
referred; I suppose he means, that he finds _love_, _pomp_, and
_wealth_ in _philosophy_.
I.i.75 (344,4) [while truth the while Doth falsly blind] _Falsly_ is
here, and in many other places, the same as _dishonestly_ or
_treacherously_. The whole sense of this gingling declamation is only
this, that _a man by too close study may read himself blind_, which
might have been told with less obscurity in fewer words.
I.i.82 (344,5)
[Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light, that it was blinded by]
This is another passage unnecessarily obscure: the meaning is,
that when he _dazzles_, that is, has his eye made weak, _by fixing
his eye upon a fairer eye, that_ fairer _eye shall be his heed_, his
_direction_ or _lode-star_,(See Midsummer-Night's Dream) [_and give him
light that was blinded by it_.
I.i.92 (345,6)
[Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame;
And every godfather can give a name]
[W: "shame" or "feign"] That there are _two ways of setting_ a passage
_right_ gives reason to suspect that there may be a third way
better than either. The first of these emendations _makes a fine
sense_, but will not unite with the next line; the other makes a
sense less fine, and yet will not rhyme to the correspondent word.
I cannot see why the passage may not stand without disturbance.
_The consequence_, says Biron, _of too much knowledge_, is not any
real solution of doubts, but mere empty _reputation_. That is, _too
much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every godfather can
give likewise_. (1773)
I.i.95 (345,7) [Proceeded well to stop all good proceeding] To _proceed_
is an academical term, meaning, _to take a degree_, as _he_ proceeded
_bachelor in physick_. The sense is, _he has taken his degrees
on the art of hindering the degrees of others_.
I.i.153 (348,1) [Not by might master'd, but by especial grace] Biron,
amidst his extravagancies, speaks with great justness against the
folly of vows. They are made without sufficient regard to the
variations of life, and are therefore broken by some unforeseen
necessity. They proceed commonly from a presumptuous confidence,
and a false estimate of human power.
I.i.159 (349,2) [Suggestions] Temptations.
I.i.162 (349,3) [quick recreation] Lively sport, spritely diversion.
I.i.169 (349,4)
[A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny]
This passage, I believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a
man nicely versed in ceremonial distinctions, one who could distinguish
in the most delicate questions of honour the exact boundaries
of right and wrong. _Compliment_, in Shakespeare's time, did
not signify, at least did not only signify verbal civility, or
phrases of courtesy, but according to its original meaning, the
trapping, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the same
manner, and on the same principles of speech with _accomplishment.
Compliment_ is, as Arwado well expresses it, _the varnish of a
complete man_.
I.i.174 (350,6) [in the world's debate] The _world_ seems to be used in
a monastick sense by the king, now devoted for a time to a monastic
life. _In the world, in seculo_, in the bustle of human affairs,
from which we are now happily sequestred, _in the world_, to which
the votaries of solitude have no relation.
I.i.252 (353,1) [_base minow of thy mirth_] A _minnow_ is a little fish
which cannot be intended here. We may read, _the base_ minion _of
thy mirth_.
I.ii.5 (355,2) [dear imp] _Imp_ was anciently a term of dignity. Lord
Cromwell in his last letter to Henry VIII. prays for _the_ imp _his
son_. It is now used only in contempt or abhorrence; perhaps in
our authour's time it was ambiguous, in which state it suits well
with this dialogue.
I.ii.36 (356,3) [crosses love not him] By _crosses_ he means money. So
in As you like it, the Clown says to Celia, _if I should bear you,
I should bear no cross_.
I.ii.150 (360,7) [_Jaq_. Fair weather after you!
_Dull_. Come, Jaquenetta, away]
[Theobald had reassigned two speeches] Mr. Theobald has endeavoured
here to dignify his own industry by a very slight performance.
The folios all read as he reads, except that instead of
naming the persons they give their characters, enter _Clown,
Constable, and Wench_.
I.ii.168 (361,8) [It is not for prisoners to be silent in their words]
I suppose we should read, it is not for prisoners to be silent in
their _wards_, that is, in _custody_, in the _holds_.
I.ii.183 (361,9) [The first and second cause will not serve my turn]
See the last act of As you like it, with the notes.
II.i.15 (362,1)
[Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues]
Chapman here seems to signify the _seller_, not, as now commonly,
the _buyer_. _Cheap_ or _cheping_ was anciently the _market_, _chapman_
therefore is _marketman_. The meaning is, that _that the estimation
of beauty depends not on the_ uttering or _proclamation of the
seller, but on the eye of the buyer_.
II.i.45 (363,2) [Well fitted] is _well qualified_.
II.i.49 (363,3) [match'd with] is _combined_ or _joined_ with.
II.i.105 (365,4) ['Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord; And
sin to break it] Sir T. Hammer reads,
Not _sin to break it_.
I believe erroneously. The Princess shews an inconvenience very
frequently attending rash oaths, which, whether kept or broken,
produce guilt.
II.i.203 (369,6) [God's blessing on your beard!] That is, mayst thou
have sense and seriousness more proportionate to thy beard, the
length of which suits ill with such idle catches of wit.
II.i.223 (370,7) [My lips are no common, though several they be]
_Several_, is an inclosed field of a private proprietor, so Maria
says, _her lips_ are _private property_. Of a lord that was newly
married one observed that he grew fat; Yes, said sir Walter
Raleigh, any beast will grow fat, if you take him from the
_common_ and graze him in the _several_.
II.i.238 (370,8) [His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see]
That is, _his tongue being impatiently desirous to see as well as_
_speak_.
II. i. 241 (370,9) [To feel only looking] Perhaps we may better read,
_To_ feed _only_ by _looking_.
II. i. 262 (371,1) [_Boyet_. You are too hard for me] [Theobald did not
end Act II here] Mr. Theobald has reason enough to propose this
alteration, but he should not have made it in his book without
better authority or more need. I have therefore preserved his
observation, but continued the former division.
III.i (372,2) [_Enter Armado, and Moth._] In the folios the direction
is, _enter Braggart and Moth_, and at the beginning of every speech
of Armado stands _Brag_, both in this and the foregoing scene between
him and his boy. The other personages of this play are
likewise noted by their characters as often as by their names.
All this confusion has been well regulated by the later editors.
III.i.3 (372,3) [Concolinel] Here is apparently a song lost.
III. i. 22 (373,5) [These are complements] Dr. Warburton has here
changed _complements_ to _'complishments_, for accomplishments, but
unnecessarily.
III. i. 32 (374,8) [but a colt] _Colt_ is a hot, mad-brained, unbroken
young fellow; or sometimes an old fellow with youthful desires.
III. i. 62 (375,9) [You are too swift, Sir, to say so] How is he too
swift for saying that lead is slow? I fancy we should read, as
well to supply the rhyme as the sense,
_You are too swift, sir, to say so, so soon
Is that lead slow, sir, which is fir'd from a gun?_
III. i. 68 (375,1) [By thy favour, sweet welkin] Welkin is the sky, to
which Armado, with the false dignity of a Spaniard, makes an apology for
sighing in its face.
III. i. 73 (376,3) [no salve in the male, Sir] The old folio reads, _no
salve in_ thee _male, sir_, which, in another folio, is, _no salve,
in the male, sir_. What it can mean is not easily discovered: if
_mail_ for a _packet_ or _bag_ was a word then in use, _no salve in the
mail_ may mean, no salve in the mountebank's budget. Or shall we
read, _no enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy--in the_ vale, _sir--O, sir.
plantain_. The matter is not great, but one would wish for some
meaning or other.
III. i.112 (377,5) [how was there a Costard broken in a shin?] _Costard_
is the name of a species of apple.
III. i.136 (378,7) [my in-cony Jew] [W. jewel] I know not whether it
be fit, however specious, to change _Jew_ to _jewel_. _Jew_, in our
author's time, was, for whatever reason, apparently a word of endearment.
So in Midsummer-Night's Dream,
_Most tender Juvenile, and eke most lovely_ Jew. (see 1765, II,144,9)
III.i.182 (381,2) [This signior Junto's giant-dwarf. Don Cupid] Mr.
Upton has made a very ingenious conjecture on this passage. He
reads,
_This signior_ Julio's _giant-dwarf_--
Shakespeare, says he, intended to compliment Julio Romano, who
drew Cupid in the character of a giant-dwarf. Dr. Warburton
thinks, that by Junio is meant youth in general.
III.i.188 (382,3) [Of trotting paritors] An _apparitor_, or _paritor_.
is an officer of the bishop's court who carries out citations;
as citations are most frequently issued for fornication, the
_paritor_ is put under Cupid's government.
III.i.189 (382,4)
[And I to be a corporal of his field,
And wear his colours! like a tumbler's hoop!]
The conceit seems to be very forced and remote, however it be
understood. The notion is not that the _hoop wears colours_, but
that the colours are worn as a _tumbler_ carries his _hoop_, hanging
on one shoulder and falling under the opposite arm.
III.i.207 (383,5) [Some men must love my lady, and some Joan] To this
line Mr. Theobald extends his second act, not injudiciously, but,
as was before observed, without sufficient authority.
IV.i.19 (384,6) [Here,--good my glass] To understand how the princess
has her glass so ready at hand in a casual conversation, it
must be remembered that in those days it was the fashion among
the French ladies to wear a looking-glass,' as Mr. Bayle coarsely
represents it, _on their bellies_; that is, to have a small mirrour
set in gold hanging at the girdle, by which they occasionally
viewed their faces or adjusted their hair.
IV.i.35 (385,8) [that my heart means no ill] [W: tho'] _That my heart
means no ill_, is the same with _to whom my heart means no ill_; the
common phrase suppresses the particle, as _I mean him_ [not _to_ him]
_no harm_.
IV.i.41 (386,9) [a member of the commonwealth] Here, I believe, is a
kind of jest intended; a member of the _common_-wealth is put for
one of the _common_ people, one of the meanest.
IV.i.49 (386,1)
[An' your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
One o' these maids girdles for your waist should be fit]
[W: my waste ... your wit ... my waste] This conjecture is ingenious
enough, but not well considered. It is plain that the ladies girdles
would not fit the princess. For when she has referred the
clown to _the thickest and the tallest_, he turns immediately to
her with the blunt apology, _truth is truth_; and again tells her,
_you are the thickest here_. If any alteration is to be made, I
should propose,
_An' your waist, mistress, were as slender as_ your _wit_.
This would point the reply; but perhaps he mentions the slenderness
of his own wit to excuse his bluntness.
IV.i.59 (387,3) [Break the neck of the wax] Still alluding to the
capon.
IV.i.65 (388,5) [_king_ Cophetua] This story is again alluded to in
Henry IV.
_Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof._
But of this king and beggar, the story, then doubtless well
known, is, I am afraid, lost. Zenelophon has not appearance of
a female name, but since I know not the true none, it is idle to
guess.
IV.i.99 (389,7) [ere while] Just now; a little while ago. So
Raleigh,
_Here lies Hobbinol our shepherd_, while e'er.
IV.i.108 (390,9) [Come, lords, away] Perhaps the Princess said rather,
--_Come_, ladies, _away_.
The rest of the scene deserves no care.
IV.ii (392,2) [_Enter Dull, Holofernes, and Sir Nathaniel_] I am not
of the learned commentator's [Wurburton] opinion, that the satire
of Shakespeare is so seldom personal. It is of the nature of
personal invectives to be soon unintelligible; and the authour
that gratifies private malice, _aniuam in vulnere ponit_, destroys
the future efficacy of his own writings, and sacrifices the esteem
of succeeding times to the laughter of a day. It is no
wonder, therefore, that the sarcasms, which, perhaps, in the
authour's time, _set the_ playhouse _in a roar_, are now lost among
general reflections. Yet whether the character of Holofernes
was pointed at any particular man, I am, notwithstanding the
plausibility of Dr. Warburton's conjecture, inclined to doubt.
Every man adheres as long as he can to his own pre-conceptions.
Before I read this note I considered the character of Holofernes
as borrowed from the Rhombus of sir Philip Sidney, who, in a kind
of pastoral entertainment, exhibited to queen Elizabeth, has
introduced a school-master so called, speaking _a leash of languages
at once_, and puzzling himself and his auditors with a jargon like
that of Holofernes in the present play. Sidney himself might
bring the character from Italy; for, as Peacham observes, the
school-master has long been one of the ridiculous personages in
the farces of that country.
IV.ii.29 (395,4)
[And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be,
Which we taste and feeling are for those parts that do fructify
in us, more than he]
Sir T. Hammer reads thus,
_And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be,
For those parts which we taste and feel do fructify
in us more than he._
And Mr. Edwards, in his animadversions on Dr. Warburton's notes,
applauds the emendation. I think both the editors mistaken,
except that sir T. Hammer found the metre, though he missed the
sense. I read, with a slight change,
_And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be_,
When _we taste and feeling are for those parts that
do fructify in us more than he_.
That is, _such barren plants_ are exhibited in the creation, to
make us _thankful when we have more taste and feeling than he, of
those parts_ or qualities _which_ produce fruit _in us_, and preserve
as from being likewise _barren plants_. Such is the sense, just
in itself and pious, but a little clouded by the diction of sir
Nathaniel. The length of these lines was no novelty on the
English stage. The moralities afford scenes of the like measure.
(1773)
IV.ii.32 (396,5)
[For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet,
or a fool;
So were there a patch set on learning, to see
him in a school]
The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a _patch_,
or low fellow, as folly would become me.
IV.ii.99 (399,2) [_Vinegia. Vinegia, Chi non te vedi, ei non te
pregia_] [This reading is an emendation by Theobald] The proverb,
as I am informed, is this; _He that sees Venice little, values it
much; he that sees it much, values it little_. But I suppose Mr.
Theobald is right, for the true proverb would hot serve the
speaker's purpose.
IV.ii.156 (403,6) [colourable colours] That is specious, or fair
seeming appearances.
IV.iii.3 (403,7) [I am toiling in a pitch] Alluding to lady Rosaline's
complexion, who is through the whole play represented
as a black beauty.
IV.iii.29 (404,8) [The night of dew, that on my cheeks down flows]
I cannot think the _night of dew_ the true reading, but know not
what to offer.
IV.iii.47 (405,9) [he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers] The
punishment of perjury is to wear on the breast a paper expressing
the crime.
IV.iii.74 (406,2) [the liver-vein] The liver was anciently supposed
to be the seat of love.
IV.iii.110 (408,5) [_Air, would I might triumph so_!] Perhaps we may
better read,
Ah! _would I might triumph so!_
IV.iii.117 (409,7) [ay true love's fasting pain] [W: festring]
There is no need of any alteration. _Fasting_ is _longing, hungry,
wanting_.
IV.iii.148 (410,8) [How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?]
[W: geap] To _leap_ is to _exult_, to skip for joy. It must stand.
IV.iii.166 (410,9) [To see a king transformed to a knot!] _Knot_ has
no sense that can suit this place. We may read _sot_. The rhimes
in this play are such, as that _sat_ and _sot_ may be well enough
admitted.
IV.iii.180 (412,2) [With men like men] [W: vane-like] This is well
imagined, but perhaps the poet may mean, with _men like_ common
_men_.
IV.iii.231 (414,3) [She (an attending star)] Something like this is
a stanza of sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will
forgive the insertion.
_--Ye stars, the train of night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light:
Ye common people of the skies,
What are ye when the sun shall rise_.
IV.iii.256 (415,6) [And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well]
[W: crete] This emendation cannot be received till its authour
can prove that _crete_ is an English word. Besides, _crest_ is
here properly opposed to _badge_. _Black_, says the King, is the
_badge of hell_, but that which graces the heaven is _the crest of_
beauty. _Black_ darkens hell, and is therefore hateful; _white_
adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely.
IV.iii.290 (417,8) [affection's men at arms] _A man at arms_, is a
soldier armed at all points both offensively and defensively.
It is no more than, _Ye soldiers of affection_.
IV.iii.313 (418,2) [Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye] i.e. a
lady's eyes gives a fuller notion of beauty than any authour.
IV.iii.321 (418.3) [In leaden contemplation have found out Such
fiery numbers] _Numbers_ are, in this passage, nothing more than
_poetical measures_. _Could you_, says Biron, _by solitary contemplation,
have attained such poetical_ fire, _such spritely numbers,
as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty_? The astronomer,
by looking too much aloft, falls into a ditch.
IV.iii.358 (422,9)
[Or for love's sake, a word, that loves all men;
Or for men's sake, the author of these women;
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men]
Perhaps we might read thus, transposing the lines,
_Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men;
For women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Or for men's sake, the authours of these women_.
The antithesis of _a word that all men love_, and _a word which
loves all men_, though in itself worth little, has much of the
spirit of this play.
IV.iii.386 (423,2) [If so, our copper buys no better treasure] Here
Mr. Theobald ends the third act.
V.i.3 (423,3) [your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious]
I know not well what degree of respect Shakespeare intends
to obtain for this vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a
finished representation of colloquial excellence. It is very
difficult to add any thing to this character of the school-master's
table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Castiglione
will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so
justly delineated, so widely dilated, and so nicely limited.
It may be proper just to note, that _reason_ here, and in many
other places, signifies _discourse_; and that _audacious_ is used in
a good sense for _spirited, animated, confident_. _Opinion_ is the
same with _obstinacy_ or _opinionated_.
V.i.14 (424,4) [He is too picked] To have the beard _piqued_ or shorn
so as to end in a point, was, in our authour's time, a mark of a
traveller affecting foreign fashions: so says the Bastard in K.
John,
--_I catechise
_My_ piqued _man of countries_.
V.i.29 (425,6) [(_Ne intelligis, Domine._) to make frantick, lunatick?]
There seems yet something wanting to the integrity of this passage,
which Mr. Theobald has in the most corrupt and difficult
places very happily restored. For _ne intelligis domine, to make
frantick, lunatick_, I read, (nonne _intelligis, domine?_) to _be_
mad, frantick, lunatick.
V.i.44 (427,6) [_honorificabilitudinitatibus_] This word, whencesoever
it comes, is often mentioned as the longest word known.
(1773)
V.i.110 (429,6) [dally with my excrement] The authour has before
called the beard _valour's excrement_ in the Merchant of Venice.
V.ii.43 (432,5) ['Ware pencils!] The former editions read,
Were _pencils_----
Sir T. Hammer here rightly restored,
'Ware _pencils_-----
Rosaline, a black beauty, reproaches the fair Catherine for
painting.
V.ii.69 (434,9) [None are so surely caught when they are catch'd,
As wit turn'd fool] These are observation worthy of a man who
has surveyed human nature with the closest attention.
V.ii.87 (434,1) [Saint Dennis to St. Cupid!] The Princess of France
invokes, with too much levity, the patron of her country, to oppose
his power to that of Cupid.
V.ii.117 (435,2) [spleen ridiculous] is, a ridiculous _fit_.
V.ii.205 (439,5) [Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars] When
queen Elizabeth asked an ambassadour how he liked her ladies, _It
is hard,_ said he, _to judge of stars in the presence of the sun._
V.ii.235 (440,6) [Since you can cog] To _cog_ signifies _to falsify the
dice,_ and _to falsify a narrative,_ or _to lye._
V.ii.281 (442,7) [better wits have worn plain statute-caps] This
line is not universally understood, because every reader does
not know that a statute cap is part of the academical habit.
Lady Rosaline declares that her expectation was disappointed by
these courtly students, and that _better wits_ might be found in the
common places of education. [Gray had offered a different explanation]
I think my own interpretation of this passage right. (see
1765, II,197,3)
V.ii.295 (443,8)
[Fair ladies, mask'd, are roses in their bud;
Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shewn,
Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown]
[Hammer: angels vailing clouds] [Warburton exercised his sarcasm
on this] I know not why Sir T. Hanmer's explanation should be
treated with so much contempt, or why _vailing clouds_ should be
_capping the sun. Ladies unmask'd,_ says Boyet, _are_ like _angels
vailing clouds,_ or letting those clouds which obscured their
brightness, sink from before them. What is there in this absurd
or contemptible?
V.ii.309 (444,1) [_Exeunt ladies_] Mr. Theobald ends the fourth act
here.
V.ii.337 (447,4) [--behaviour, what wert thou, 'Till this
mad man shew'd thee? and what art thou now?] [These are two
wonderfully fine lines, intimating that what courts call _manners,_
and value themselves so much upon teaching, as a thing no where
else to be learnt, is a modest silent accomplishment under the
direction of nature and common sense, which does its office in
promoting social life without being taken notice of. But that
when it degerates into shew and parade, it becomes an unmanly
contemptible quality. Warburton.] What is told in this note is
undoubtedly true, but is not comprised in the quotation.
V.ii.348 (448,5) [The virtue of your eye must break my oath] I believe
the author means that the _virtue,_ in which word _goodness_
and _power_ are both comprised, _must dissolve_ the obligation of the
oath. The Princess, in her answer, takes the most invidious part
of the ambiguity.
V.ii.374 (449,6)
[when we greet
With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,
By light we lose light: your capacity
Is of that nature, as to your huge store
Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor]
This is a very lofty and elegant compliment.
V.ii.419 (450,7) [Write, _Lord have mercy on us_, on those three] This
was the inscription put upon the door of the houses infected with
the plague, to which Biron compares the love of himself and his
companions; and pursuing the metaphor finds the _tokens_ likewise
on the ladies. The _tokens_ of the plague are the first spots or
discolorations, by which the infection is known to be received.
V.ii.426 (451,8) [how can this be true, That you stand forfeit,
being those that sue?] That is, how can those be liable to forfeiture
that begin the process. The jest lies in the ambiguity of _sue_,
which signifies _to prosecute by law_, or to _offer a petition_.
V.ii.440 (451,9) [you force not to forswear] _You force not_ is the
same with _you make no difficulty_. This is a very just
observation. The crime which has been once committed, is committed
again with less reluctance.
V.ii.471 (452,2) [in will and error. Much upon this it is:--And
might not you] I, believe this passage should be read thus,
--_in will and error_.
Boyet. _Much upon this it is_.
Biron. _And might not you_, &c.
V.ii.490 (453,5) [You cannot beg us] That is, we are not fools, our
next relations cannot _beg_ the wardship of our persons and
fortunes. One of the legal tests of a _natural_ is to try whether he
can number.
V.ii.517 (454,6)
[That sport best pleases, that doth least know how.
Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
Dies in the zeal of that which it presents]
The third line may be read better thus,
--_the contents_
_Die in the zeal of_ him _which_ them _presents_.
This sentiment of the Princess is very natural, but less generous
than that of the Amazonian Queen, who says, on a like occasion,
in Midsummer-Night's Dream,
_I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd_,
_Nor duty in his service perishing_.
V.ii.547 (455,8) [A bare throw at novum] This passage I do not understand.
I fancy that _novum_ should be _novem_, and that some allusion
is intended between the play of _nine pins_ and the play of the _nine_
worthies, but it lies too deep for my investigation.
V.ii.581 (457,2) [A-jax] There is a conceit of _Ajax_ and _a jakes_.
V.ii.694 (461,4) [more Ates] That is, more instigation. Ate was
the mischievous goddess that incited bloodshed.
V.ii.702 (461,5) [my arms] The weapons and armour which he wore in
the character of Pompey.
V.ii.744 (463,8) [In the converse of breath] Perhaps _converse_ may,
in this line, mean _interchange_.
V.ii.755 (464,2) [which fain it would convince] We must read,
--_which fain_ would it _convince_;
that is, the entreaties of love which would fain _over-power_ grief.
So Lady Macbeth declares, _That she will_ convince _the chamberlain
with wine_.
V.ii.762 (464,3) [Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief]
As it seems not very proper for Biron to court the princess for
the king in the king's presence, at this critical moment, I
believe the speech is given to a wrong person. I read thus,
Prin. _I understand you not, my griefs are double:
Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief._
King. _And by these badges_, &c.
V.ii.779 (465,4) [Suggested us] That is, _tempted_ us.
V.ii.790 (465,5) [As bombast, and as lining to the time] This line
is obscure. _Bombast_ was a kind of loose texture not unlike what
is now called wadding, used to give the dresses of that time bulk
and protruberance, without much increase of weight; whence the
same name is given a tumour of words unsupported by solid
sentiment. The Princess, therefore, says, that they considered this
courtship as but _bombast_, as something to fill out life, which
not being closely united with it, might be thrown away at pleasure.
V.ii.795 (466,7) [We did not quote them so] [We should read, _quote_,
esteem, reckon. Warburton] though our old writers spelling by
the ear, probably wrote _cote_, as it was pronounced. (see 1765,
II,218,5)
V.ii.823 (467,8) [To flatter up these powers of mine with rest] Dr.
Warburton would read _fetter_, but _flatter_ or _sooth_ is, in my
opinion, more apposite to the king's purpose than _fetter_. Perhaps we
may read,
_To flatter_ on _these_ hours of time _with rest_;
That is, I would not deny to live in the hermitage, to make the
year of delay pass in quiet.
V.ii.873 (469,2) [dear groans] _Dear_ should here, as in many other
places, be _dere_, sad, odious.
V.ii.904 (470,3) [_When daisies pied, and violets blue_] The first
lines of this song that were transposed, have been replaced by
Mr. Theobald.
V.ii.907 (470,5) [_Do paint the meadows with delight_] [W: much
bedight] Much less elegant than the present reading.
(472,7) General Observation. In this play, which all the editors
have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of him.
Vol. III
A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM
I.i.6 (4,2) [Long withering out a young man's revenue] [W: wintering]
That the common reading is not good English, I cannot perceive,
and therefore find in myself no temptation to change it.
I.i.47 (5,6) [To leave the figure, or disfigure it] [W: 'leve] I know
not why so harsh a word should be admitted with so little need, a
word that, spoken, could not be understood, and of which no example
can be shown. The sense is plain, _you owe to your father a being
which he may at pleasure continue or destroy_.
I.i.68 (6,8) [Know of your youth] Bring your youth to the question.
Consider your youth. (1773)
I.i.76 (7,9) [But earthlier happy is the rose
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