Act III Sc. 2
“This sessions—to our great grief we pronounce it.”
“To prate and talk for life and honour ’fore
Who please to come and hear.”
We might be inclined to read plead for ‘prate’; but no change is required.
“Since he came
With what encounter so uncurrent I
Have strain’d to appear thus.”
I read ‘have I Strain’d to appear thus?’ in which I had been anticipated by Hanmer. An ‘uncurrent encounter’ was an unusual kind of meeting; and ‘strain’d’ signifies pulled against the line of my duty as a wife—a metaphor taken from dogs in a leash—
“What I was I am,
More straining on for plucking back, not following
My leash unwillingly” (iv. 3).
It might also signify, acted indecorously, “Unless he know some strain in me that I know not myself.” Merry Wives, ii. 1.
“You will not own it.—More than I am mistress of.”
So also Hanmer corrected.
“Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,
No father owning it.”
If we read ‘left to itself’ we might get better sense.
“But yet hear this; mistake me not. No! life—
I prize it not a straw.... But, for mine honour.”
So we may best punctuate, with Hanmer. We might perhaps read ‘For life,’ as above.
“Which you knew great, and to the hazard boldly.”
The 2nd folio reads ‘certain hazard.’
“What studied torments, tyrant, hast thou for me?
What wheels? what racks? what fires? what flaying, boiling,
In leads or oils?”
See above, i. 2. Introd. p. 55.
“Who is lost too. Take your patience to you, sir.”
Sc. 3
“Which may, if Fortune please, both breed thee, pretty one.”
So Rowe also.
“A boy or a child, I wonder.”
I think we should read ‘maid-child’, a term we meet with in Pericles, v. 3. We have man-child in Cor. i. 3, and in the Bible. I made the correction without being aware of the passage in Pericles.
“You’re a made old man.”
In the folio it is mad; but this correction, given by Theobald, is indubitable.