Act IV
“Chorus. To the effects of his fond jealousy, so grieving.”
“If never yet, that Time himself doth say,
He wishes earnestly you never may.”
This is evidently one of the cases in which ‘that’ has taken the place of than, then. See Introd. p. 68.
Sc. 1
“but I fear the angle, that plucks my son thither.”
I adopt Theobald’s reading of and for ‘but.’
Sc. 2
“Within a mile of where my land and living lies.”
Sc. 3
“I should blush
To see you so attired; sworn, I think,
To show myself a glass.”
For ‘sworn’ Theobald, followed by Singer and Dyce, reads swoon; but the text is right; ‘myself’ is simply me:
“Upon my life she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.”
Rich. III. i. 2.
“He will the rather do it when he sees
Ourselves well-sinewed to our defence.”
King John, v. 7.
“Burn hotter than my faith does.—Oh! but, sir.”
“One of these two necessities must be.”
So also Hanmer read. (See on Temp. ii. 1.) The folio has ‘must be necessities.’
“On his shoulder and on his, her face of fire.”
“As your good flock shall prosper.—Sir, welcome.”
A syllable is lost apparently. We might add hither or to us at the end, or, as I have done,’you’re welcome.’ Malone would read ‘welcome, sir,’ which sounds rather flat. Mr. Collier observes that “Shakespeare [i.e. the printer?] was a better judge of verse than Mr. Malone.”
“From Dis’s waggon! daffodils.”
An epithet, probably yellow, which I have given, has evidently been lost here. All the other flowers, we may see, have epithets. Coleridge also saw the want, and supplied golden. How ill-qualified he was for emendatory criticism! Hanmer’s early was much better.
“Nothing but that, but so move still, still so.”
“And the true blood that peeps fairly through it.”
Collier’s folio makes a natural and obvious correction, reading ‘so fairly.’ The usual reading is that of Steevens, a transposition of ‘peeps’ and ‘fairly,’ and I have retained it.
“Nothing she does or seems
But smacks of something greater than herself.”
Here again the same folio makes the correction says for ‘seems’; yet it is not very necessary.
“He tells her something
That makes her blood look on it.”
This is probably the genuine text; but ‘wakes her blood. Look on it!’ the reading of Collier’s folio, is very plausible. It is strange that neither Singer nor Dyce notice this reading. They read with Theobald ‘look out.’
“Pray you, good shepherd, what fair swain is this,
That dances with your daughter?—
They call him Doricles, and he boasts himself
To have a worthy feeding. I have it but
Upon his own report, and I believe it.”
Steevens, quoting passages from Drayton, explains ‘feeding’ in the sense of pasture, and Mason explains ‘worthy’ as valuable, substantial; but neither is convincing. I would, with Hanmer, read ‘breeding:’
“A gentleman, I do assure myself,
And of a worthy breeding, though he hide it.”
Fletcher, Monsieur Thomas, i. 1.
In reading ‘I have it but’ for ‘but I have it’ of the folio, I am supported by Hunter and Singer.
“Who loves another best.”
Hanmer and Mason would read ‘the other,’ and so we should say now; but there is no need of change. It was, in fact, the language of the time; we should still say, “they love one another.”
“Come, buy of me, come buy, come buy, come buy!
Buy lads, or else your lasses cry. Come buy!”
“Clamour your tongues and not a word more.”
Grey proposed Charm for ‘Clamour,’ and in Othello (v. 2) we have the very phrase, “charm your tongue.” But, as far as I have observed, charm in this sense is used only by characters of the educated class. Singer says ‘clamour’ here is a mere corruption of chamour, chaumer, or chaumbre, from the French chômer, ‘to refrain,’ and he adds, “Mr. Hunter has cited a passage from Taylor, the water-poet, in which the word was thus again perverted:—‘Clamour the promulgation of your tongue.’” For my own part I think that, except in orthography, the text is right. The real word was probably clammer or clemmer, the same as the simple clam or clem, to squeeze or press, and the phrase answers to Hold your tongues. “To clam a bell,” says Johnson, “is to cover the dapper with felt, which drowns the blow and hinders the sound.” As for the extract from Taylor, I attach little importance to it, as he probably adopted the word from this very passage. See on Rom. and Jul. iii. 3.
“Why, sir, they stay at door.”
The folio places ‘sir’ at the end of the speech; but the metre requires the transposition, which also makes the reply run more naturally. I neglected to make it in my Edition.
“Can he speak? hear?
Know man from man? dispute his own estate?”
In Romeo and Juliet (iii. 3) we have, “Let me dispute with thee of thy estate;” but in Jonson’s Fox, iii. 2,
“Read you the principles, argued all the grounds,
Disputed every fitness, every grace.”
“Far than Deucalion off.”
‘Far’ is an old form for farther, as near is of nearer. (See Rich. II. iii. 2, v. 1.) We need not then read farther, nor, with Johnson, ‘Far as.’
“Or hoop his body more with thy embraces.”
The folio has ‘hope,’ the orthography of the time.
“Looks on it alike. Will’t please you, sir, begone?”
“To die upon the bed my father died on.”
“And most opportune to our need I have.”
For ‘our’ the folio reads her, probably from the preceding line. Theobald made the correction.
“His welcomes forth; asks thee, the son, forgiveness.”
The folio has there for ‘the.’ The correction was made in the 3rd folio.
“She is as forward of her breeding as
She’s in the rear of our birth.”
“And then your blood had been the dearer by I know not how much an ounce.”
Hanmer added the negative.
“Besides the King to effect your suits, here is the man shall do.”