Act II Sc. 1
“Err’d in this point which now you censure him for.”
“What’s open made
To justice, that justice seizes. What know the laws?”
“Some run from brakes of ice and answer none,
And some are condemn’d for a fault alone.”
We have a similar sentiment in Cymb. v. 1. As of ice and of vice are pronounced exactly alike, we may safely assume the latter to be the true reading. The whole difficulty then lies in ‘brakes.’ A brake was certainly, as we are told, a frame to confine restless or vicious horses in when shoeing; but when it is added that it is also an instrument of torture, I become somewhat dubious. At any rate no one would say a rack or a gibbet of vice; so why a brake of vice? I incline then, but with hesitation, to think that we should read wreaks o’ vice. We have “wreak the love” (R. and J. iii. 5); “wreak our wrongs.” (Tit. And. iv. 3.) I put the ambiguous o’, because wreak takes on rather than of after it.
“I thought by the readiness in the office, you had,” etc.
For ‘by the,’ the usual correction (which I have followed) is ‘by your.’ Mr. Collier thinks ‘by this’ might be better; for this and your were used promiscuously. Either might easily be confounded with the. (See Introd. p. 68.)
Sc. 2
“But you might do it, and do the world no wrong.”
This apparently necessary transposition was made by S. Walker. The folio reads “But might you.”
“May call it back again. Well, believe this.”
Here back is the proper addition made in the 2nd folio.
“Becomes them not with half so fair a grace
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipped like him,
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.”
“Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once.”
As the first ‘were’ may have been caused by the second, I would, like Warburton, read for it are. In “We cannot cross the cause why we were born” (L. L. L. iv. 3), the folio reads ‘are born.’
“If the first that did th’ edict infringe.”
So it stands in the folio, and Pope was, it may be, right in reading ‘If the first man,’ but we might also read, and perhaps better, as I have done, ‘the edict did.’
“Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv’d.”
For ‘now’ I felt inclined to read new, with Pope, but I prefer ‘now born,’ and so I have printed it. (See on All’s Well, ii. 3.)
“Are now to have no successive degrees
But here they live to end.”
We should for ‘here’ either read where, or better, with Hanmer, ere.
“Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder!
Merciful Heaven!”
“Than the soft yielding myrtle; but man, proud man!”
“That soft and yielding mind should not be in him.”
Lyly, Campaspe, ii. 2.
“Most ignorant of what he’s most assured of.”
“Not with fond sickles of the tested gold.”
In all the English versions of the Scriptures anterior to the Authorized one, sicle is the word, from siclus of the Vulgate, by which the Hebrew shekel is rendered. Shakespeare therefore knew nothing of this last, and must of course have written sickle. Yet all editors, the Cambridge and myself included, have adopted Pope’s correction, shekel, for which all are highly to blame. The word ‘tested’ proves that Gen. xxiii. 16 was in the poet’s mind.
“Would all themselves laugh mortal.”
It would be simpler and better to read: “Would laugh themselves all mortal.”
“For I am that way going to temptation,
Where prayers cross.—At what hour to-morrow shall I
Attend your lordship?—At any time fore noon.”
“Heaven save your honour!—From thee, even from thy virtue.”
Sc. 3
“Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,
Hath blister’d her report.”
Editors follow Warburton in reading flames for ‘flaws’; but as flaw is defect, weakness, the text may be right. Flaw is also gust, blast of wind, which also might make some sense here. We should, then, perhaps read ‘flaw.’
“Showing we would not spare Heaven, as we love it,
But as we stand in fear....”
For ‘spare’ Collier’s folio reads serve.
“Jul. May grace go with you! Duke. Benedicite!”
So Ritson properly arranges. It is evident that the names and May, which I and Steevens have added, were effaced in the MS. In Twelfth Night (i. 5) we have a similar effacement of names of speakers. In the following line ‘love’ should be law, a change made by Hanmer.
Sc. 4
“Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown sear’d and tedious.”
The folio has ‘fear’d’; the correction is Warburton’s. It is a most unusual use of ‘sear’d’ in the sense of dry; sear would seem less strange. So Heath also thought.
“To thy false seeming.—Blood thou art blood still!—
Let us write ‘Good Angel’ on the Devil’s horn,
’Tis not the Devil’s crest.... How now! Who’s there?”
Pope read ‘but blood’; Malone ‘still blood.’
“As to put metal in restricted means.”
It might be better to read, with Malone, moulds instead of ‘means.’
“Ha! say you so, then I shall pose you quickly.”
“Now took your brother’s life or to redeem him.”
Here ‘or’ is a correction by Davenant and Rowe of and of the folio.
“‘Twere equal poise of sin and charity.”
“If that be sin I’ll make it my morn-prayer.”
As Shakespeare has used ‘morn’ elsewhere but once in a compound, it were better, as the metre requires, to read ‘morning’, as Hanmer also read.
“Or seem so, crafty; and that is not good.”
Editors read ‘craftily’; we might also read ‘seeming.’ “Or seeming so in skill” (Winter’s Tale, ii. 1); but no change is necessary. The folio has ‘that’s’; hence the reading of the editors, the Cambridge included.
“Proclaim an enshield beauty.”
The word ‘enshield’ occurs nowhere else. It is of course, as Steevens says, enshielded, covered with a shield. To this there is no very great objection; but as elsewhere (Cor. iv. 6) the poet has ‘inshell’d,’ i.e. covered with a shell, it might be better to read so here also, as I find Tyrwhitt has done.
“Than beauty could display’d.—But mark me now.”
So I think we should read, and not ‘displayed’ and with the metric accent on ‘me.’ Perhaps also for ‘beauty’ we should read itself.
“But in the loss of question.”
There is no need, with Johnson and others, to change ‘loss’; it is quite correct. (See Index s. v. ‘Lose.’)
“No. Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
Are of two houses. Lawful mercy is
Nothing akin to foul redemption.”
Sense and metre alike demand the negative, which had evidently been effaced. Steevens also read ‘akin.’
“Else let my brother die.—
If not a fedary but only he,
Owe and succeed thy weakness.”
“A very obscure passage,” says Mr. Dyce, “in which Rowe printed ‘by weakness,’ and Malone proposes ‘this weakness.’ (On ‘fedary’ see Richardson’s Dictionary, sub Federal.)” And this is all this noted critic has to say! For my part I do not regard this passage as by any means past cure, and I think that Warburton came very near the true sense. The main point is to ascertain the exact meaning of fedary. “Federy and federary,” says Richardson, “in Shakespeare are the same word differently written (having no connexion whatever with Feud or Feudatory), and signify a colleague, associate, or confederate;” and he refers to Minshew, s. v. Feodarie. Now Minshew’s words are “Feodarie alias Feudaris alias Feudatrie, Feudelarius, is an office authorized by the Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries by letters patent, and under the seal of that office,” etc. Cotgrave has “A feodarie, feudal, feodal, feudataire;” in both of which places I think the “connexion with Feud and feudatory” is very apparent; and the last convinces me that a fedary or feodary was a vassal, a liegeman; and that, I have no doubt, is its sense in this place? and in Cymb. iii. 2, where it again occurs, as I shall there show. I do not think Richardson was at all justified in making, as he seems to do, fedary a different word from feodary. There was also feodar a vassal, “For seventeen kings were Carthage feodars.” (Marston. Sophon. Prol.) It must strike every one of taste with surprise that Shakespeare should have written such a leonine verse as
“If not a fedary, but only he.”
And further, whether ‘fedary’ be vassal or confederate, the person should be mentioned to whom he stood in that relation. In the former sense—the only true one—that person must be either Heaven or the Duke, which was omitted by the printer. I am in favour of the former, both for metre-sake and because we have elsewhere, “The rest of your fees, O Gods! the senators of Athens” (Tim. iii. 5); and “God’s vassals drop and die” (Hen. V. iii. 2). I read thus:—
“We are all frail.—Isab. Else let my brother die.—
If not a fedary of Heaven, but only he,
Owe and succeed this weakness.... Ang. Nay, women are frail too.”
Isabella replies at once, fully assenting to Angelo’s observation. After a brief pause, she is proceeding to reason on the subject, when he interrupts her. We may observe that ‘owe’ and ‘succeed’ are legal terms, which here form a hysteron-proteron, like some other common phrases. Perhaps, indeed, we might transpose them; for Isabella is speaking quite calmly and composedly. The change of ‘thy’ to this is perfectly legitimate; and to may have been omitted or effaced after ‘succeed.’
“Who would believe me? Oh! these perilous mouths!”
The same addition was proposed by Mr. Seymour.
“To such abhorr’d pollution as this.”
Though this addition is not absolutely necessary, it gives such force to the sentiment that I willingly believe it may have come from the poet’s pen.