Act II Sc. 1
“And why so, my dear lord?—Not for because.”
“Or a half-moon made with a pen.—Who taught you this?”
“All’s true that is mistrusted.”
For ‘is’ it might be better to read was. The change was not unusual.
“Has made thee swell thus.—But I’d say he had not.”
Has might seem to have been the poet’s word.
“More, she’s a traitor; and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows her
To be what she should shame to know herself,
But with her most vile principal.”
‘Federary’ is an unknown word. It may be a printer’s error for federate; but I rather think—as I find that Malone, followed by Singer and Dyce, reads, and which is also more metrical—that the right word is fedary, to be taken in the same sense as in Meas. for Meas. and Cymb. As Polyxenes is styled ‘her principal,’ the meaning may be that she (and Camillo ‘with her’) had transferred her allegiance to him.
“You did mistake,—No, no, if I mistake.”
“I would land-damn him.”
As ‘land-damn’ seems to be an unknown term, it might be better to read, with Collier’s folio, lamback, derived perhaps from lambiccare, It. There is also a vulgar term lambaste. ‘Damn’ was probably suggested by the same word in the preceding line.
Sc. 3
“We have always truly served you and beseech you.”
“They have been absent. ’Tis good speed, and foretells.”
We might also read it; or, with Pope, ‘This good speed.’