Act II Sc. 1
“Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause
Of joy:—so have we all; for our escape,” etc.
I make the transposition of “So have we all—of joy,” in the second line boldly; for surely neither Shakespeare nor any other writer would put a parenthesis between a noun and its genitive. Gonzalo is speaking quite calmly, and without any perturbation. We have an exactly similar printer’s error in
“Add more,
From thine invention, offers.”
Ant. and Cleop. iii. 10.
“One of these two must be necessities.”
Wint. Tale, iv. 3.
See also Hen. VIII. iii. 1.
“Every day some sailor’s wife,
The master’s of some merchant—and the merchant
Have just our theme of woe.”
The word ‘merchant’ occurs here in two different senses; and when this play was written Shakespeare had long since abstained from such practices. One of them, therefore, must belong to the printer; if the first, then we might, and I think should, read vessel, if the second, owner. ‘Merchant’ certainly occurs in the sense of merchantman. See B. and F. Coxcomb, i. 3.
“Ant. Ha, ha, ha! So you’re paid.”
Theobald’s arrangement; the folio gives ‘So,’ etc., to Seb.
“To the shore that o’er his wave-worn basis bow’d,
As stooping to relieve him.”
Possibly the poet wrote receive, which seems more appropriate.
“Weigh’d, between loathness and obedience, at
Which end o’ the beam should bow.”
The editors in general read, with Malone, she’d for ‘should’; but surely she was not the balance. We get very good sense by omitting either ‘at’ or ’o’; in my Edition I have, as Pope had done, omitted the latter; for o’, or of, was sometimes added by the printers. (See on M. for M. iv. 4.) ‘Weigh’d’ is pondered.
“Boürn or bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none.”
Editors have taken strange liberties with the whole of this passage. Here they omit ‘Bourne.’
“Will you laugh me asleep? for I am very heavy.—
Go sleep, and hear us not.”
It is very strange that none of the editors should have seen that the negative had been effaced or omitted. Surely the very last thing that Antonio could have wished was that he should hear them; and how could he if he went to sleep? Not, we may also see, is required by the metre. The latter part may be a half-aside.
“I am more serious than my custom, you
Must be so too; if you heed me; which to do.”
“The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaims.”
“Which throes thee much to yield.—Thus, sir.”
Perhaps to complete the measure and improve the sense we should add, I say. The folio spells ‘throes’ throwes.
“Be rough and razorable; she that from whom
We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again—
And by that destiny—to perform an act.”
Though in my Edition I have not altered the text, I think we should read ‘from whom coming’ with Singer; ‘we were all,’ and ‘cast up.’ Musgrave proposed ‘destin’d,’ which is probably right. Rowe, followed by the other editors, omitted ‘that’ in the first line.
“Twenty consciences
That stand ’twixt me and Milan, candied be they
And melt ere they molest!”
I must confess I do not clearly understand this passage. Surely as he was, as he had just said, in actual possession of Milan, his conscience could not ‘stand’ between him and it. Perhaps, however, we are to view ‘stand’ as in the conjunctive mood, and expressing a condition. Neither do I see clearly the meaning of ‘candied’ and ‘melt’ in this place.
“That’s verily. ’Tis best we stand upon our guard.”
Pope’s reading, verity, is most certain. “’Tis verity, I assure you” (Mass. New Way, etc. i. 1).
Sc. 2
“And another tempest a brewing.”
“Young scamels from the rock.”
Theobald, in my mind most properly, proposed sea-mells, of the existence of which term Malone and Reed have given abundant proofs; by the usual change of l to w we have sea-mew, the term now in use. Yet some editors persist in retaining the old printer’s error, as limpets are in some places called scams or scammels, not reflecting that old limpets are to be preferred. Mr. Dyce reads staniels, after another conjecture of Theobald’s.
“Nor scrape trencher nor wash dish.”
In the folio it is ‘trenchering,’ caused by the participles in the preceding line.