Act II
“Chor. Linger your patience on, and we’ll digest
The abuse of distance, force a play.”
Here ‘Linger’ is a causative verb. (Introd. p. 71). Editors, in their ignorance of the meaning of ‘digest,’ to regulate, arrange, read well. By ‘abuse of distance’ is meant the abuse we make of it by transporting the audience from one country to another. For ‘force a play,’ which makes no sense, and to complete the measure, I read ‘as we forge our play,’ as we being, I am almost certain, the omitted words; forge is frequent in the sense of shape, form. The confusion of our—the r being hardly sounded—and a was natural; it occurs again, I think, in 2 Hen. VI. iv. 1. At the end of this Chorus we have “We’ll not offend one stomach with our play,” where, by the way, the allusion is to sea-sickness.
“The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed.”
This line is out of place. In my Edition I have put it after “Confirm’d conspiracy,” etc., evidently its right place.
“But till the King come forth—and not till then.”
For the first ’till,’ caused in the usual manner, I read ere; for it is just before the King appears that the scene changes.
Sc. 1
“There shall be smiles.”
Farmer and Collier’s folio read smites. “Norfolk, we must have knocks” (R. III. v. 3). In Ant. and Cleop. iii. 2, we have also smile for smite. See also Tr. and Cr. v. 11.
“And there’s an end.”
The 4tos read “And there’s the humour of it,” which is perhaps better.
“O well a day, Lady, if he be not hewn now.”
Theobald reads drawn for ‘hewn,’ but no change seems necessary; for ‘hewn’ is i. q. hewing. It may also have been meant to show her ignorance of language.
“Will you shog off now? I would have you solus.”
Sc. 2
“And on his more advice we pardon him.”
Collier’s folio properly reads our for ‘his.’
“Who are the late commissioners?”
As they were future, ‘late’ can hardly be right.
“To furnish him with all appertinents.”
The 2nd folio supplied him.
“And other devils that suggest by treasons.”
He may have written bye-treasons.
“With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch’d.”
It might be better to omit ‘being.’
“Why so didst thou; or seem they grave and learned.”
“For me, the gold of France did not seduce me.”
“Which I, in sufferance, heartily will rejoice at.”
Sc. 3
“And ’a babbled of green fields.”
The folio reads ’and a table of green fields’; the text is the correction of Theobald, which has been universally accepted; yet talkt would come nearer to table than ‘babbled,’ and it also better suits the metre; in which I find I had been anticipated by an Anon. ap. Theobald. The Dame afterwards says he “talked of the Whore of Babylon.” Collier’s folio reads ‘for his nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green freeze,’ which is ingenious, but nothing more. The nib of a pen in such a situation is usually black, and so does not strike the eye. ‘A table of green fells’ has also been conjectured. It has been supposed that Falstaff’s mind was wandering, and so may have reverted to his youthful days in the country. But may not he, who must have been a man of some education, have been repeating the 23rd Psalm (so well suited to one in his condition), in which are the words “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures”?
Sc. 4
“Whiles that his mountain sire—on mountain standing.”
We have already had (i. 2), “Whiles his most mighty father on a hill;” and ‘mighty’ might be the word here also, instead of the almost oriental ‘mountain,’ suggested by what followed.