Act IV Sc. 1
“There have I made my promise upon the
Heavy middle of the night to call upon him.”
Capell, I think rightly, arranges thus:
“There have I made my promise to call upon him
Upon the heavy middle of the night.”
Transpositions of this kind, made by the printers, are not uncommon. (See on Tr. and Cr. v. 2.) Capell read ‘on him.’
“Good Friar, I know you do, and I have found it.”
So Pope also conjectured.
“Run with these false and most contrarious quest.”
I incline to read their. The 2nd folio added s to ‘quest.’
“Our corn’s to reap, for yet our tithe’s to sow.”
Warburton properly read tilth.
Sc. 2
“If it be too little for your thief,” etc.
I quite agree with those who make this part of Abhorson’s speech.
“This is a gentle Provost. Seldom when.”
Mr. Singer reads ‘seldom-when’ as one word, and quotes in defence of it seldom-time, any-when, seldom-what; and he might have added seld-when, from Gower’s Conf. Amantis. In any case, ’Tis seems wanting before it, as in “’Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb” (2 Hen. IV. iv. 4).
“That wounds the unsisting postern with those strokes.”
The printer, by a most common error, omitted re in unresisting. Surely the critics in general should have seen this, as Rowe did.
“This is his lordship’s man.”
The folio reads ‘lord’s man’; but both sense and metre require the correction adopted by the editors, after Pope.
“Is it now apparent?”
So Pope. The folio transposes ‘Is’ and ‘It.’ (See on Two Gent. ii. 4.)
“As a man that apprehends death no more.”
So I should have printed it, but did not.
“Perchance of the Duke’s death, perchance his entering
into some monastery, but, by chance, nothing
of what’s here writ.”
Hanmer also added here.
Sc. 3
“And to transport him in the mind he is in.”
“And how shall we continue, Claudio.”
Persons are not continued. Perhaps we should read ‘continue to keep.’
“Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To the under generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.”
I adopt Hanmer’s emendation, ‘under’ for ‘yond’ of the folio. “The under-generation,” says Mr. Dyce, “is the human race that dwells under heaven.” In Timon (i. 1) we have “this beneath-world,” i.e. this world under heaven.
“Quick, quick, despatch, and send the head to Angelo.”
“By cold gradation and weal-balanc’d form.”
Surely the correct reading is well. So also Rowe.
“Mark what I say, which you shall find to be
By every syllable a faithful verity.”
“There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom
In that good path, that I would wish it go in
And you shall have your bosom on the wretch.”
The punctuation of the first line, which is that given by the editors, while aiming at sense, makes it unreadable. We should read “Pace, if you can, your wisdom.” Or, retaining this line unaltered, we might in the third line read Then for ‘And.’ (See on M. N. D. ii. 1.)
“I am combined by a sacred vow.”
As ‘combined’ makes no good sense, we might read constrained. “But other vows constrain another course” (Marston Ant. and Mel. II. v. 6). Perhaps the word was confined, in the sense of limited, held in.
Sc. 4
“How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;
For my authority bears of a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch,
But it confounds the breather.”
There is evidently something wrong here. What is the meaning of ‘dares?’ Mr. Singer says overawes (as larks?), and in proof of ‘no’ being crying No, he quotes: “I wear a sword to satisfy the world no” (Fletch. Chances, iii. 4). “I am sure he did it for I charged him no” (Id. Wife for Month, iv. 3). In the next line Mr. Dyce reads so, others such, for ‘of.’ My own decided opinion is, that in the first line the poet wrote saies (says), which of course, being written with a long s in the beginning, might easily be taken for ‘dares.’ ‘Says her no,’ then, is forbids her, as in “Who shall say me Nay?” (1 H. IV. iii. 1); “God defend his Grace should say us Nay” (Rich. III. iii. 7); and in this play (ii. 2), “Did I not tell thee Yea?” In the second line I would omit ‘of.’ See on Rich. II. v. 1; Cymb. iii. 5.
“Might in the time to come have ta’en revenge
By so receiving,” etc.
For ‘By’ we should apparently read For; yet in Jeronimo (ii. 1) we have:—
“Kneel by thy father’s loins, and thank my liege
By honouring me, thy mother, and thyself,
With this high staff of office.”
Either, then, the printers made the same confusion in both places, or by was used in the sense of for.
Sc. 5
“To Valentius, to Rowland, and to Crassus.”
In ‘Valentius’ an n may have been omitted.
Sc. 6
“He says to veil his full purpose.”
“The generous and gravest citizens
Have hent the gate; and very near upon this time
The Duke is entering. Therefore, hence away.”
Something had evidently been lost at the end of the second line. Perhaps also we should read ‘The most generous.’