Act II Sc. 1
“Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim.”
Mr. Dyce reads auburn, and he gives undoubted instances of Abraham or Abram being used for this word. Still I incline to the general reading, first given by Upton, of Adam, with an allusion to Adam Bell, the great archer; and I think there may be another to Adam, the first man; for Shakespeare may have known that in classic mythology Love was the first of beings. There would be humour, then, in ‘young Adam’ denoting the union of youth and age.
Sc. 2
“Her vestal-livery is but pale and green.”
The reading of 4to 1597; the others and the folio have ‘sick and green.’
“As glorious to this night being o’er my head.”
Theobald most tastelessly read the sight.
“When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds.”
The reading of 4to 1597; the others and the folio read ‘puffing,’ caused, as has been observed, by passing spelt with long ss in the MS.
“To cease thy strife, and leave me to my grief.”
The undated 4to reads suit for ‘strife,’ which has been generally, and rightly, adopted. In the poem of Romeus and Juliet, the latter uses the very expression cease your suit on the same occasion.
“Romeo!—My dear!—At what o’clock to-morrow?”
For ‘My dear,’ the reading of the undated 4to, that of 1597 has Madam; the others and the folio My niece; the 2nd folio My sweet, the usual reading.
Sc. 4
“She will indite him to some supper.”
The 4to 1597 has invite; but Benvolio was probably anticipating the nurse’s language.
“Bid her devise some means to come to shrift
This afternoon.” * * * *
There is something lost here; perhaps to the Franciscan convent.
“Ris for the... no; I know it begins” etc.
Editors in general read, after Tyrwhitt, ‘R is for the dog.’ Mr. Collier has ‘R is for thee? no.’
Sc. 5
“My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me. * * * *
But old folks many faine as they were dead,
Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead.”
In the second line we might add would bandy her again. ‘Many faine’ in the next is nonsense; for ‘many,’ marry has been proposed, and I adopt it, reading fare (to go, to move along, a Spenserian term) for ‘fame.’ In Cor. ii. 2 we have again ain for ar. For ‘pale’ we should probably read dull.
“And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavy.”
Timon, ii. 1.
We have elsewhere (Mer. of Ven. ii. 7) “dull lead.” Moreover lead is not pale, and the Nurse would seem to have been rather a jolly, rubicund sort of woman; if fare be the right reading, it would almost require dull. On the other hand, we have in Chaucer (Tr. and Cr. ii), “With asshen pale as lede,” and (Dream) “That pale he wax as any lede.”
“They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.”
I had been anticipated by Hanmer in reading ‘straightway’ and ‘my’. Sidney Walker, too, I find, read ‘at my next news.’ In the errata of a work printed in 1754 I have met “for my r. any.” I, however, read in preference,
“They will be straight in scarlet at my news.”