Act III Sc. 2
“Love’s thrice-repured nectar.”
Mr. Collier found this excellent reading in one of the 4tos, 1609. The reading of all the others and of the folio is reputed. Nothing is more common than the confusion of r and t.
“Lady, you have bereft me of all words.”
The original editions put ‘Lady’ at the end of the line.
“But you are not wise,
Or else you love not; for to be wise and love
Exceeds man’s might. That dwells with gods above.”
As far as I am aware, not a single critic has discerned the absolute necessity for the negative in this place. “The gods themselves cannot be wise and love” (Marston, Dutch Courtezan, ii. 1). Both dramatists were probably indebted to Spenser:—
“To be wise and eke to love
Is granted scarce to gods above.”
Shep. Cal. March;
and he to Publius Syrus “Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur.”
“With a bed; which bed,” etc.
Sense and metre demand this addition of Hanmer’s.
Sc. 3
“That through the sight I bear in things to Jove.”
For ‘to Jove’ most critics follow Mason in reading to come. Collier hints at above. But the text is right; to occurs constantly in the sense of at, chez, apud: ex. gr. “Being a great favourite to Queen Elizabeth” (Ashmole, Hist. of Berkshire, i. 249). “My heart to her, but as guestwise sojourned” (M. N. D. iii. 2). “Lord Angelo having affairs to heaven” (Meas. for Meas. iii. 1).
“But let determin’d things to Destiny
Hold unbewail’d their way.”
Ant. and Cleop. iii. 6.
It is to be observed that the word in the originals is love, not ‘Jove,’ and the very same error occurs in i. 3.
“In most accepted pain.”
For ‘pain,’ which makes little or no sense, Warburton, who is generally followed, read pay. I prefer payment, as effacement may have left only a part of the m.
“But this Antenor
I know is such a wrest in their affairs.”
I might incline to read trust for ‘wrest.’ “Their tribune and their trust” (Tit. Andron. i. 2). See also Ps. xl. 4, lxxi. 5. A wrest was what we now term a tuning-key. “This small instrument, the tongue being left in tune by the wrest of awe.” King James’s Edict, etc., quoted by Singer.
“Good morrow, Ajax.—Ay, and good next day too.”
“For speculation turns not to itself
Till it hath travell’d and is married there
Where it may see itself.”
I see no reason for adopting, as some do, mirror’d of Collier’s and Singer’s folios. There was, I believe, no such verb at that time. I prefer arrived, which could easily have become married in a printer’s mind.
“Where they are extended; who, like an arch, reverberate.”
Rowe read which and ‘reverberates,’ of which the first is needless, the second may be right.
“By an act that very chance doth throw upon him.”
“As done. Perseverance, dear my lord it is.”
“Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path.”
This line would gain both in perspicuity and melody if we were to read ‘but one.’
“And leave you hindmost.”
As this line is short, and as further on there is a line with two superfluous feet, it is evident that there has been a misarrangement. I have, therefore, in my Edition, rearranged this and the following lines. I have there read, “Fallen in the first rank;” but it might be better, though less forcible, to read:—
“Fallen in first rank, lies there for pavement to.”
“And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’erdusted e’er is given.”
“Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves.”
I incline to read emulations.
“Whilst emulation in the army crept.”—ii. 2.
“When, for so slight and frivolous a cause,
Such factious emulations shall arise.”
1 Hen. VI. iv. 1.
Here one word appears, as elsewhere, to have become two in the printer’s hands. (See Introd. p. 67.) But as the poet was probably familiar with Chapman’s Iliads, the allusion may be to the various missions of Apollo, Minerva, Hermes, and Iris.
“Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles laid.”