Act III Sc. 1
“As true as I believe you think them false.”
The poet probably wrote ‘you’ll’ think.
“I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;
For Grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.”
Hanmer reads stout for ‘stoop,’ but I see no need of change. We talk of a person being bowed to the earth with grief, and this is what the poet meant. ‘Owner’ was used of one who simply had, as “But like the owner of a foul disease” (Ham. iv. 1).
“But as we under Heaven are supreme head,
So under Him that great supremacy.”
Collier’s folio reads Heaven for ‘Him,’ which is very good.
“In likeness of a new, untrimmed bride.”
This would seem intended to express the indecent haste of the wedding, the bride having, as it were, no trousseau, but being married in her ordinary clothes. In ii. 2 it was termed an “unlook’d-for, unprepared pomp.” Theobald proposed ‘and trimm’d’ and ‘betrimm’d’; Dyce reads ‘uptrimm’d.’
“A cased lion by the mortal paw.”
As ‘cased’ is skinned, it can hardly be right. I read, as Mitford, I find, had done, caged.
“So looks a pent-up lion, o’er the wretch
That trembles under his devouring paws.”
3 Hen. VI. i. 3.
As Shakespeare had re-made this play not long before, the image may have remained in his mind. We might also read raged, i.e. enraged—
“In war was never lion rag’d more fierce” (Rich. II. ii. 1); or, with Theobald, chafed—
“So looks the chafed lion
Upon the daring huntsman that ha gall’d him”
(Hen. VIII. iii. 2).
“By what thou swear’st against the thing thou swear’st.”
I rather think that the second ‘swear’st’ should be swor’st. Possibly to or by was lost at the end of the line; but we have, “Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.” Lear, i. 1.
Sc. 2
“Some airy devil hovers in the sky.”
Warburton proposed fiery, needlessly.
“Here, Hubert, keep this boy.—Philip, make up.”
Sc. 3
“Of hoarding abbots; imprison’d angels
Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace.”
Never was a more happy and a more certain correction than S. Walker’s transposition of ‘imprison’d angels’ and ‘Set at liberty,’ which restores the metre of two lines.
“Sound on into the drowsy race of Night.”
As Shakespeare had read, in the Faerie Queen, of Night “To run her timely race” (i. 5. 45), the attempted corrections of ‘race’ are all superfluous. So also is Warburton’s reading of one for ‘on’; for ‘Sound on’ is keep sounding.
“Then in despight of brooded, watchful day.”
As ‘brooded’ is brooding, no just objection can be made. Pope proposed broad-eyed, Mitford broad and.
Sc. 4
“So by a roaring tempest, on the flood
A whole armado of convicted sail,” etc.
For ‘convicted’ I read conflicted, i.e. dashed, or dashing together. We have “conflicting wind and rain” (Lear, iii. 1), “conflicting elements” (Tim. iv. 3). It seems more probable than any of the various corrections proposed.
“No scope of Nature, no distempered day.”
I adopt Pope’s reading, ‘scape.
“Strong reasons make strong actions.”
So 2nd folio properly reads; the 1st has ‘strange actions.’