Act V Sc. 1
“It was a bare petition of a State
To one whom they had punish’d.”
I do not well understand ‘bare’ here. Mason read base, which is not quite satisfactory.
“Pray you, go to him.—What should I do there?”
“Unheard, what then? * * *
But as a discontented friend, grief-shot.”
I would supply How, then, should I return?
“Good faith, I’ll prove him.
Speed how it will, I shall ere long have knowledge
Of my success.”
This is also the punctuation of Delius.
“I tell you he does sit in gold.”
For ‘in gold’ we might read a god: “He sits ’mongst men, like a descended god” (Cymb. i. 7). But it may be his chair of state that is meant.
“What he would do
He sent in writing after me; what he would not
· · · ·
Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions.”
A line is lost between the two last lines.
Sc. 2
“For I have ever verified my friends—
Of whom he’s chief—with all the size that verity
Would without lapsing suffer.”
As ‘verified’ would seem to have been suggested by the following ‘verity,’ we might read, with Hanmer, magnified, or perhaps repeat ‘amplified.’
“Out of your gates with sighs.”
As ‘your’ seems utterly unsuitable here, we might read our or yon.
Sc. 3
“That, if you fail in our request, the blame
May hang upon your hardness.”
Pope also saw that ‘you’ should be we.
Sc. 4
“For the plebeians have got your fellow-tribune.”
Sc. 5
“Holp to reap the fame
Which he did end all his.”
For ‘end’ Rowe read make; Collier’s folio ear; Singer, after a writer in Notes and Queries, reads ear for ‘reap,’ and reap for ‘end.’ I would read inn for ‘end.’ “Give me leave to inn the crop” (All’s Well, i. 3). “All was inned at last into the King’s barn” (Bacon).
“Flutter’d your Volscians in Corioli.”
I think Malone was right in reading Volsces, and I have followed him. Volscians is rarely a subst. in this play.