Act IV Sc. 1
“Thy mistress is o’ the brothel.”
I read without hesitation ‘at the brothel.’ The t in at was not sounded. See Introd. p. 52.
“Pluck the lin’d crutch from thy old limping sire.”
In its ordinary sense, and I know no other, ‘lined’ cannot be applied to a crutch. I therefore read lean’d, with an ellipsis, in the usual manner, of on, which would give a tolerable sense. See Tr. and Cr. v. 3.
“Rise mov’d, and gravely leaning on one crutch,
Lift the other like a sceptre.”
Fletch. Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1.
“And yet confusion live!”
I prefer let; Hanmer did the same.
Sc. 2
“As we do turn our backs
From our companion thrown into his grave,
So his familiars to his buried fortunes...
Slink all away, leave their false vows with him,” etc.
If we read Upon or On for ‘From,’ and point as I have done, all seems simple enough. M. Mason ingeniously transposed ‘From’ and ‘to.’ After all, however, ‘From’ may have been the poet’s word.
“And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck.”
A ‘dying deck’ is an odd expression; sinking would apparently make better sense. Yet dying bed, i.e. death-bed, may still be heard.
“Who would be so mock’d with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship, and survive
To have his pomp and all what state comprehends
But only painted, like his varnish’d friends?”
I have ventured on these corrections, as this part of the speech is in rime. The folio reads ‘compounds.’ Collier’s folio and Sidney Walker also propose comprehends. For ‘or to live’ we might read ‘or would live.’ See Temp. iii. 1.
“I’ll follow and enquire him out, and then.”
Sc. 3
“The greater scorns the lesser; not even that nature,
To which all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune
But by contempt of nature. Raise me this beggar,
And deny’t that lord, the senator shall bear
Contempt hereditary, the beggar native honour.
It is the pasture lards the rother’s sides,
The want that makes him lean.”
The excellent correction of ‘rother’ for brother of the folio is due to Mr. Singer, and to Collier’s folio. Rother-(hryther A.S.) beast is juvencus; there was a rother-market in Stratford.
“A thousand herds of rother-beasts he in his field did keep.”
Golding, Ovid. p. 52.
For ‘lean’ the folio has leave, an evident misprint. With respect to the addition to the first line, it is demanded by the metre, and the meaning is that even a diseased beggar, a Lazarus as it were, would have to change his nature to be able to bear prosperity with equanimity.
“Black, white; foul, fair; wrong, right; * * *”
Perhaps the lost words may have been guilt, innocence, or guilty, innocent.
“Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads.”
Hanmer read ‘sick men’s,’ alluding to a practice of hired nurses.
“This, this, it is
That makes the wappen’d widow wed again.”
For ‘wappen’d’ Singer read wapper’d, worn out, debilitated, of the use of which word he gives examples.
“With man’s blood paint the ground gules, gules; for if.”
A foot has certainly been lost. Sense seems to require this addition.
“For that by killing
Of villains thou wast born to conquer my country.”
“For those milk-paps
That through the window barne bore at men’s eyes,
Are not within the leaf of pity writ,
But set ’em down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe.”
This is a difficult passage. ‘Milk-paps’ seems to mean tender young maidens, and editors are probably right in reading bars for ‘barne.’ The ‘bars,’ as Mr. Staunton observes, seem to mean the cross-lacing on the bosom, still to be seen in Switzerland. We should perhaps omit ‘’em,’ not ‘But,’ as the editors do, in the last line.
“And be no turn-coats. Yet may your pains six months thence.”
“Nor sound his quillets shrilly; hoar the flamen.”
Singer adopts Upton’s reading of hoarse for ‘hoar’; but though it would agree with what follows, I know of no such verb. We might read ‘make hoar,’ or ‘make hoarse.’
“Derive some pain from you. Plague all of them.”
“Men daily find it so. Get thee away.”
“Teems and feeds all; whose self-same forming metal.”
“Yield him who all the human sons doth hate.”
Here again, as so often, we have ‘the’ for thy.
“Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas.”
For ‘marrows’ Mr. Dyce reads ‘marrowy,’ Collier’s folio meadows. I read married sc. to the elms, etc. The marriage of the elm and the vine is noticed in Com. of Errors, ii. 2, Cymb. i. 7.
“Whereof ungrateful man, with liquorish draughts,
And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind.”
As ‘pure’ is rather an odd expression in the mouth of Timon, we should perhaps read ‘impure.’ The negative is often thus omitted. See on Com. of Err. ii. 2.
“From change of fortune. Why this spade? this place?”
The folio has ‘change of future’; the correction was made independently by Southern and Rowe.
“Will these moist trees
That have outliv’d the eagle.”
Hanmer’s emendation of moss’d for ‘moist’ has been generally and justly received.
“Willing misery
Outlives incertain pomp, is crown’d before it.”
“At duty, more than I could frame employment;”
There is evidently a line lost here.
“If thou wilt curse thy father, that poor rag.”
For ‘rag’ Johnson read rogue, which is also in Singer’s folio, and is probably right, as he afterwards terms him “poor rogue hereditary.”
“First mend my company. Take thyself away.”
The folio reads thy for ‘my.’
“’Twixt natural son and sire.”
The folio reads sun and fire.
“Do villainy, do, since you profess to do it.”
The reading of the folio is ‘protest,’ and also ‘villain.’
“Break open shops; for nothing can you steal
But thieves do lose it. Steal not the less for this.”
Rowe also added not, which was indispensable.
“It almost turns my dangerous nature wild.”
The context plainly shows that for ‘wild’ we should, with Warburton, read mild.
“No more I pray you—and, he is a steward.”
“If not a usuring kindness, and, as rich men deal gifts.”
It was the opinion of the sagacious Tyrwhitt that ‘If not’ is a mere insertion of the printer’s, suggested by ‘Is not’ in the preceding line. I have, however, little doubt but it should be, as I have printed it, “Is it not a usuring kindness?”
“Exchange it for this one wish, that you had power.”