Act IV Sc. 1
“That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.”
The meaning of ‘purpose’ is not very clear; perhaps it should be purchase.
“He came, saw... saw two.”
Both 4to and folio read ‘see.’ Rowe made the obvious correction.
“A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.”
It was the 4th folio that supplied it.
“An if my hand be out, then, belike, your hand is in.—
Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin.”
‘Pin’ is the correction of the 2nd folio; both the 4to and 1st folio have is in, as in preceding line, and possibly so the poet wrote it; for it makes a kind of sense, and he may have had his reasons for using it.
“Armado a’ the tother side.”
So I read, as the 4to has ath toother side, and the folio ath to the side. The usual reading is “on the one side;” but we are not to look for rigid consistency in Costard’s language.
“To see him kiss his hand! and how sweetly ’a will swear.”
A line riming with this seems to be lost.
Sc. 2
“So were there a patch set on learning to see him at school.”
Misled by Singer, I gave in my Edition, set, the reading of Collier’s folio, for ‘see,’ which may be right.
“And to humour the ignorant I have call’d the deer,” etc.
Rowe was right, I think, in supplying I have. Singer reads I will call; Collier’s folio I call; he Cambridge editors call I.
“Makes fifty sores, O sore L!”
The reading of the Cambridge editors is one soul.
“Of piercing a hogshead!”
The poet, I suspect, wrote Oh! not ‘Of’; and so I have ventured to give it.
“Celestial, as thou art, oh! pardon Love this wrong,
That he sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.”
We might also read, with S. Walker, ‘the heaven’s; but I prefer what is in the text. A syllable was undoubtedly omitted.
“Where if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace.”
For ‘before repast’ of the 4to, the folio has ‘being repast’ in a parenthesis; and it may possibly be right, the school-master, in his pedantic way, using ‘repast’ as a participle. The grace, then, would be after dinner.
Sc. 3
“The dew of night that on my cheeks down flows.”
Both 4to and folio read ‘The night of dew,’ and so most editions; but the context requires the transposition. The same is the case in the last line but one of this sonnet, where 4to and folio read ‘dost thou.’
“Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
The shape of Love’s Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity.”
This is no rime; the poet must have written sobriety in the second line.
“Disfigure not his shop.”
As ‘hose’ has just occurred, Theobald read slop, which both Singer and Dyce properly adopt. The usual reading is shape.
“Oh, most divine Kate!
Oh, most prophane coxcomb!”
Both rime and metre demand pate in the second line (see Introd. p. 63). The whole dialogue, with this exception, is in rime.
“By earth, she is not. Corporal, there you lie.”
Theobald, who is usually followed, reads “By earth she is but corporal; there you lie.” I think, however, the text is right. In iii. 1 Berowne, styling Love a “great general,” adds, “and I to be a corporal of his field!” so he may well apply that title to Dumain. See Index s. v.
“That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.”
Capell read lasting.
“Of faith enfringed, which such zeal did swear?”
“To see a king transformed to a gnat.”
For ‘gnat,’ of which it is not very easy to see the meaning, Mr. Staunton would read quat, the conjecture of Mr. Becket, and surely not better. We also meet sot and knot, equally bad. In Pericles (ii. 3), however, princes wanting in liberality are compared to gnats.
“Not you by me, but I betray’d to you.”
Capell transposed ‘by’ and ‘to’; which seems to be right. Yet ‘to’ may have been suggested for by, by the preceding line.
“With men like men of inconstancy.”
As something is evidently wanted, the 2nd folio read ‘of strange,’ and that is the usual reading; Theobald ‘moon-like men.’ I have read, as I find S. Walker had done,
“With men like you, men of inconstancy.”
“Is ebony like her? O wood divine!
A wife of such wood were felicity.”
The ‘wood’ of the first line is Rowe’s certain correction of word.
“The hue of dungeons and the school of night.”
It is most certain that ‘school’ cannot have been the poet’s word. The usual reading is that of Warburton, scowl; but that substantive is not used by Shakespeare, and it gives but an indifferent sense. Theobald read stole, which also is not Shakespearian; I myself cloak, as the “cloak of night” occurs in R. and J. ii. 2, Rich. II. iii. 2. But the Cambridge editors seem to have hit on the exact word, suit written, as pronounced, shoot. In the Puritan (ii. 1), we have a play on suitor and archer, i.e. shooter; we retain this sound in sure and sugar. In Hamlet we have “suits of solemn black” and “suits of woe” (i. 2), and “suit of sables” (iii. 2) for mourning, and in Rom. and Jul. iii. 2,
“Come civil Night,
Thou sober-suited matron all in black!”
“Have at you then, Affection’s men at arms.”
Capell sagaciously saw that in this speech, from “For when would you” to “From whence doth spring,” and from “For where is any” to “And in that vow,” are passages which the poet had cancelled in the “corrected and augmented” play. The same occurs in Rich. III. v. 3, and on a much smaller scale, however, in Rom. and Jul. iii. 3, iv. 1.
“Why, universal plodding prisons up.”
There can be no doubt of this, the reading of Theobald—prisons for poisons.
“For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye.”
As beauty is not taught, we should perhaps read wisdom. Perhaps, however, the error may be in ‘Teaches.’
“And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.”
Though this passage be very obscure, I doubt if it be corrupt. By ‘voice’ may be meant the assenting voice, the voices all sounding in unison, which induces repose over heaven. Compare the opening of Gray’s Progress of Poesy. The original editions commit the usual error of putting ‘make’ for ‘makes.’
“And plant in tyrants mild humility.”
The reading of Griffith and Collier’s folio humanity is, I think, right. I have adopted it in my Edition.
“Allons, allons!”
The correction of Theobald for ‘Alone, alone!’ of the originals. The poet, however, does not use French words in this play, and I think we should read All on, all on! or rather Along, along! (See on Temp. v. 1.) “Along my lords! Well, Cromwell is half dead.”—Thomas Cromwell, iv. 5.
“Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men.”
As a word cannot love, Hanmer, for ‘loves,’ read moves, Heath joys, Mason leads. I read ‘Love’s’ for ‘love’s’ and god for ‘word.’