Act III Sc. 1
“Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me, as odious; but.”
The first line here is short, which it should not be, as it does not begin or end a paragraph. (See Introd. p. 82.) We should therefore arrange thus:
“Point to rich ends. This my mean task would be
As heavy to me as ‘tis odious; but.”
It is very remarkable that I never noticed this until after my Edition had been printed. However, I rectified it in the corrections.
“But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,
Most busy, lest when I do it....”
This punctuation removes all difficulty. The entrance of Miranda causes him to break off.
“So perfect and so peerless are created.”
The folio reads peetiesse. It escaped the Camb. editors.
“And would no more endure
This wooden slavery, than to suffer
The flesh-fly blow my mouth.”
Though, as Malone has shown, this construction is quite correct, still, as Pope also saw, the metre demands ‘than I would suffer.’ In the Maid’s Tragedy (iv. 2) we have
“’Tis fit an old man and a counsellor
To fight for what he says,”
where we must either read ‘fit for,’ or ‘should fight,’ to make any sense.
“Beyond all limit of what’s else in the world.”
“Much business appertaining to my project.”
“Now does my project gather to a head.”—v. 1.
Sc. 2
“As you like this give me the lie another time.”
Perhaps for ‘As’ we should read An.
“Trin. Wilt come? I’ll follow, Stephano.”
The first sentence here belongs, I think, to Stephano’s last speech. See on As You Like it, ii. 1.
Sc. 3
“If I should say I saw such islanders.”
The folio has ‘islands.’ So in the Queen of Corinth (iii. 1), “Our neighbour islands would make of us.” In both places sense and metre alike require islanders.
“I cannot too much muse...
Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing—
Although they want the use of tongue—a kind
Of excellent dumb discourse.”
“They vanished strangely.—‘Tis no matter, since.”
“Each putter out of five for one.”
We should perhaps read on for ‘of’; or, with Thirlby and Malone, transpose ‘five’ and ‘one,’ of which both Gifford and Dyce approved. Yet it may be that no change is necessary, for of and on are constantly used interchangeably, and o’ stands for both. The ‘of’ of the text may, however, have been caused by the initial letter of the following word.
“I will stand to and feed,” etc.
Mason arranged thus:—
“I will stand to and feed, although my last.
No matter, since I feel the best is past.
Brother, my lord the duke, stand to and do as we.”
Mr. Dyce properly rejects this arrangement, but on the last line he observes “They cannot with any propriety be reduced to a single line.” Was Mr. Dyce unaware of the existence of six-foot lines in these plays? The true reason for rejecting this arrangement is, that in this play Shakespeare does not employ couplets.
“Hath caused to belch you up, and on this island.”
The first folio has ‘up you’; the necessary and obvious transposition was made in the fourth. Some editors, most unjustifiably, throw out ‘you.’
“One dowle that’s in my plume.”
For ‘dowle’ I read with confidence down, believing it to be a printer’s error for dowlne, a mode of spelling down:
“There lies a dowlney feather, which stirs not.
Did he suspire, that light and weightless dowlne
Perforce must move.”
2 Hen. IV. iv. 2, fol.
Singer refers to dictionaries, etc., of the 17th century for the use of dowle; but they all probably found it only in this place.