Act IV Sc. 1
“Might I but live to see thee in my touch I’d say I had eyes again.”
The proper word of course is feel, not ‘see’; but the text may be right. We have elsewhere, “I see it feelingly.” We might also read by for ‘in.’
“Sirrah, thou naked fellow!”
Sc. 2
“It will come that humanity must perforce.”
“With plumed helm thy slayer begins his threats.”
“But she being widow, and my Gloster with her.”
Sc. 3
“Ay, sir, she took them, read them in my presence.”
The original is I so. Theobald made the change.
“Not to a rage; Patience and Sorrow strove.”
Pope gave ‘strove’ for the original streme.
“You might have seen
Sunshine and rain at once... her smiles and tears
Were like it—a better way.”
For ‘way’ Theobald read May. Warburton proposed wetter May.
“’Tis so they are afoot.”
We should, with Warburton, read said not ‘so.’
Sc. 6
“Pull off my boots; pull harder, harder; so!”
“Who by the art of known and feeling sorrow.”
We should certainly read knowing.
“Got ’tween the lawful sheets.”
We might supply ‘were unto me.’
“What! with the case of eyes?”
With Rowe I read this. Case is pair.
“Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light one.”
Sc. 7
“Madam he sleeps still.”
“Be so good, madam, when we do awake him.”
The folio has “Madam, be so good.”
“Fourscore and upward [not an hour more or less] and to deal plainly with you.”
I agree with the 4tos, and with the more judicious critics, in omitting the bracketted words. (See on Ham. iii. 1. v. 2.) The addition seems requisite.
“To make him even go o’er the time he has lost.”
The poet’s word may not have been go, but a verb is lost. Its place may have been taken by ‘even.’