Twelfth Night
Act I Sc. 1
“Oh! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets.”
As a sound breathing is pure nonsense, Pope read south for ‘sound’; and, with the exception of Mr. Knight and Mr. Staunton, all the editors, I believe, have followed him. Yet even this correction does not remove the difficulty, for south alone, no more than north, east, or west, is never used of the wind. It seems to me then that the poet wrote south wind, and as the th was usually suppressed in south, north, etc., as sou’-west, sou’-east, the printer pronounced sou wind or, it may be, sou ‘ind, which easily became ‘sound’ in his mind, and so he printed it. (See Introd. p. 67.) It is rather remarkable that this very correction is made by an Anon. in the Cambridge Shakespeare. The same idea, I may observe, occurs in the Antonio and Mellida of Shakespeare’s contemporary, Marston (Act I.):
“Smile heaven and softest southern wind
Kiss her cheek gently with perfumed breath.”
Both were probably indebted to “Her breath is more sweet than a gentle south-west wind, that comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters” in Sidney’s Arcadia. For a similar omission of wind, see on Temp. i. 2.
“So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted.”
“The element itself, till seven years heat ’em,
Shall not behold her face at ample view.”
That is, not for seven summers, possibly with an allusion to racing, as in Win. Tale, i. 2. As the element is the sky, the heaven, we might also read it.
“Of her sweet perfections with one self-king.”
That is with Love. We might also transpose, but, I think, with a loss of force. We have an instance of this prefixing of the genitive in Temp. iii. 3.
Sc. 2
“They say she hath abjur’d the company
And sight of men.”
This is the judicious transposition of Theobald. The folio has ‘sight’ in the first, ‘company’ in the second line, to the manifest injury of the metre.
Sc. 3
“Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Aguecheek.”
Warburton’s conjecture of volto for ‘vulgo’ is ingenious, and may be right, meaning putting on a grave countenance, like a Castilian.
“An thou let her part so sir Andrew.”
It was left to the 3rd folio to supply the needful her.
“Thou seest it will not curl by nature.”
Theobald’s indubitable emendation of ‘cool my nature’ of the folio.
“In a flame-coloured stock.”
This is Pope’s correction of ‘dam’d coloured’ of the folio. Knight reads damask; Collier’s folio dun, which is very bad indeed. We meet in other dramatists with straw-, peach-, carnation-colour’d stocks. It is perhaps impossible to recover the right word, yet I see little objection to flame-colour; for if we suppose flame pronounced as in Latin and French (see Introd. p. 74), flame-coloured might easily become ‘damn’d (pr. dam) coloured’ in the printer’s mind. In confirmation we have elsewhere in the folio ‘scar-crow,’ not ‘scare-crow,’ and other like words.
Sc. 4
“Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound;
And all is semblative a woman’s part.”
I have read ‘in sound’; for and and in are perpetually confounded. I also read ‘semblative to.’
Sc. 5
“Of fools to be no better than the fools’ zanies.”
So also Capell.
“At your door like a sheriff’s post, and be the supporter
Of a bench.”
For ‘and’ I read or, and so did Hanmer.
“If you be not mad, begone; if you have reason, be brief.”
Mason omitted the negative, but perhaps needlessly.
Oli. “Tell me your mind.—Vio. I am a messenger...”
This is Warburton’s arrangement, the folio giving the whole to Viola. (See on Meas. for Meas. ii. 3.) I have added the sign of the break, which seems necessary.
“Look you, sir; such one I was, as this present.... Is it not well done?”
By reading and pointing thus we get most excellent sense, and increase the vivacity and humour of the passage. Mason, whom Singer follows, read “as this presents,” which no doubt may be right, but is far less effective.
“With adorations, with fertile tears.”
See Introd. p. 55.
“The countes man, he left this ring behind him.”
Capell, who is invariably followed, made it county’s. I, however, read, as in iii. 3, ‘count his.’ With one exception (Mer. of Ven. i. 2), County is peculiar to Romeo and Juliet; formosissima in Much Ado, ii. 1, we should, I think, read Count.