Act IV Sc. 1
“So haply Slander,
Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,” etc.
The happy suppliance of Theobald, universally adopted with the change of his for to so.
Sc. 3
“Pays homage to us—thou mayest not coldly set by.”
Sc. 4
“I’ll be with you straight. Go on a little before.”
“But greatly to find quarrel in a straw.”
‘But’ here is somewhat ambiguous. We may take it as yet, nevertheless, or in its original sense of save, except; in which last case ‘to find’ would be finding.
Sc. 5
“Which bewept to the grave did not go.”
Pope, who has been generally followed, struck out ‘not’; but though the printers often omitted the negative (as once already in this play) they rarely added it. We have, however, an instance in Much Ado, iii. 2, and it might be better to suppose the same to be the case here. We might also read ‘unwept,’ which occurs in Rich. III. ii. 2, or, as I have done, ‘unbewept,’ as the initial un is at times omitted. See on Cymb. i. 7.
“All from her father’s death. And now, behold....
O Gertrude, Gertrude!”
‘And now behold’ is added from the 4tos. Punctuated as here it seems effective.
Sc. 7
“And not gone where I had aim’d them.”
“As how should it but be so? how otherwise?
Will you be ruled by me?—Ay, my lord.”
It is manifest that but or not had been omitted. For ‘Ay’ we should read I will. See Introd. p. 68.
“But that I know love is begun by time.”
I cannot make any good sense of this, and I suspect that ‘time’ may be owing to the same word lower down. The love spoken of seems to be that of children for parents, and possibly the word was childhood, birth.
“And then this ’should’ is like a spendthrift sigh
That hurts by easing.”
All the original 4tos read ‘spendthrifts’ (the passage is not in the folio); but this reading must be wrong, for the allusion is evidently to the popular belief, not yet extinct, that every sigh consumes a drop of the blood, and so is injurious to life; ‘spendthrift’ is therefore to be taken in the sense of wasting. “With sighs of love that cost the fresh blood dear” (M. N. D. iii. 2), “Look pale as primrose, with blood-drinking sighs” (2 Hen. VI. iii. 2), “And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs” (3 Hen. VI. iv. 4).
“As make your bouts more violent to that end.”
It might be better to read And for ‘As.’
“How now, sweet queen!”
This, the reading of 2nd folio, makes the line more euphonious.
“There with fantastic garlands she did come.”
The 4tos, followed by the editors, read:
“Therewith fantastic garlands she did make.”
“Or like a creature native and indued.”
Perhaps it should be inured, as ‘indued’ takes with, not unto.