Act III Sc. 1
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or fill the walls up with our English dead.”
Johnson thought that a line was lost here. I would add In, in! at the end of the first line, and read ‘to’ for ‘unto,’ the printer’s word. Introd. p. 67.
Sc. 3
“Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters.”
‘Defile’ is Pope’s correction of desire in the folio; and it probably is right. It makes very good sense.
Sc. 5
“Can sodden water
A drench for surrein’d steeds, their barley broth,” etc.
For ‘surrein’d’ the 4tos read swolne. Steevens quotes from Jack Drum’s Entertainment, 1601:—
“Writes he not a good cordial sappy style?—
A surrein’d jaded wit, but he rubs on.”
‘Surrein’d’ may mean overriden. In Massinger we have,
“Let passion work, or, like a hot-rein’d horse,
’Twill quickly tire itself.”
Unnat. Comb. iv. 2.
Shakespeare may, however, have written surbeat, or some other word.
“Poor may we call them in their native lords.”
Sense and metre seem to require may.
“They bid us go to the English dancing-schools.”
“And for achievement offer us his ransom.”
Mr. Staunton proposes ‘fore achievement’; but no change need be made.
Sc. 6
“Which they trick up with new-tuned oaths.”
For ‘tuned’ Pope read turned; Collier’s folio coined.
Sc. 7
“The Dolphin longs for the morning.”
The metre requires a syllable.