Act IV Sc. 2
“Grow, Patience!
And let the stinking elder, Grief, untwine
His perishing root with the increasing vine!”
The folio reads patient. I incline to read ‘from with,’ and thy for ‘the’ in the last line.
“For defect of judgement
Is oft the cause of fear.”
For ‘defect’ Theobald read th’ effect, while Hanmer read cure for ‘cause.’ I see no great need of change.
“Thou Divine nature how thyself thou blasonest.”
‘How’ is Capell’s correction for thou of the folio.
“What does he mean? Since the death of my dearest mother.”
“To have turn’d my leaping-time into a crutch.”
I feel almost inclined to read ‘leaping-pole,’ which was of course in use then as now, as it was known to the ancients.
“With female fairies will his tomb be haunted
And worms will not come to thee.”
I agree with Steevens in reading him for ‘thee.’
“Yea and furr’d moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.”
“To winter-ground a plant,” says Steevens, “is to protect it from the inclemency of the winter-season by straw, dung, etc., laid over it.” This seems decisive; otherwise the mention of ‘furr’d moss’ would lead me to read, with Warburton, ‘winter-gown.’
“Come on, away; apart upon our knees.”
A line riming with this is evidently lost.
“Pisanio might have kill’d thee at the heart
And left this head on.”
For ‘this’ we should probably read thy or the.
“I fast and pray’d for their intelligence.”
I think we should read ‘fasted.’
“Try many, all good, serve truly, and yet never
Find such another master.”
Some read ‘and all good’; others ‘serve them.’
Sc. 3
“And he will, no doubt, be found.”
“I heard no letter from my master since.”
Hanmer properly read have had for ‘heard.’