Act IV Sc. 1
“Can you not read it? is it not fairly writ?”
The reply proves that we should read so.
“And quench this fiery indignation.”
The context shows that ‘this’ should be his.
Sc. 2
“Doth make a stand at what your Highness wills.”
“And more, more strong then lesser, is my fear.”
I read ‘in my fear.’ We have Is for In also in Jul. Cæs. i. 3; the same confusion of these words occurs more than once in Chaucer. I have often met with it in books printed in the last century; and I myself, in writing these Notes, have frequently confounded these words.
“If what in rest you have in right you hold,
Why then your fears—which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong—should move you to mew up
Your tender kinsman,” etc.
As it is plain, from what went before, that they should not have that effect, editors have made a transposition of ‘then’ and ‘should.’ It seems to me, however, that here, as in so many other places, the printer omitted the negative after ‘should.’ I do not perfectly understand ‘rest’ in the preceding line, but it may be tranquillity, tranquil, undisturbed possession, a sense it bears in Scripture. See Ps. xcv. 11, cxvi. 7.
“That you’d have bid us ask his liberty.”
“How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Makes ill deeds done!”
So also Capell and Collier’s folio have transposed in the last line.
“As bid me tell my tale in express words.”
For ‘As’ Pope read Or, Malone And.
“Thou art a murderer.—Do not prove me so;
Yet am I none.”
For ‘not,’ which makes no sense, we should read you or but. I prefer the latter.