Act III Sc. 2
“Give fire, she is my prize.”
Most certainly ‘my’ should be thy; the confusion is common.
Sc. 3
“Cried Game? said I well?”
Mr. Douce, Mr. Dyce, and myself, all independently corrected ‘Cried I aim?’ and Warburton had proposed Cry aim. The correction might therefore appear to be certain; and yet I am dubious of it. ‘Cried game’ is the reading of the 4tos, as well as of the folio; and as the first 4to and the folio were printed from independent MSS., it is not at all likely that two transcribers or printers should have fallen into the same error. ‘Cried Game? said I well?’ would suit the abrupt tone of the Host, and signify, Did I intimate sport?
“Thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow.”
The 4to reads bent for ‘beauty’; so the right word may be bend. I have given ‘bent’.
“By the Lord, thou art a tyrant to say so.”
For ‘tyrant’ the 4tos read traitor. I have adopted this reading, though dubious of its being the best.
“What thou wert if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature is.”
So also Capell.
“I love thee, and none but thee.”
The metre proves this to be the right text.
“So, now uncape.”
I think Hanmer was right in reading uncouple; for ‘uncape,’ as a term of the chase, is unknown. The final letters of uncouple had probably been effaced in the MS.
Sc. 4
“Farewell, gentle Mistress Page. Färewell, Nan.”
Both sense and metre gain, I think, by this addition. Policy, if nothing else, should make Fenton return the farewell of Mrs. Page. Capell read ‘my gentle.’
“A fool and a physician.”
We should certainly read with Hanmer or for ‘and.’
Sc. 5
“As they’d have drowned a bitch’s blind puppies.”
The original copies read ‘a blind bitch’s’; Hanmer made the obvious transposition.