Act III Sc. 1
“Upon your Grace’s part; black and feärful
Upon the opposer’s.”
“But I am sure the younger of our nature.”
Rowe’s reading of nation for ‘nature’ seems certain.
Sc. 2
“Who sold a goodly manor for a song.”
Both the sense and the metre require this addition. ‘Sold’ is the correction of 3rd folio for hold of the 1st.
“Your old ling and your Isbels of the court.”
We should, I think, read ‘new ling,’ as ‘old ling’ had just been mentioned.
“If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
Thou robbest me of a moiety.”
No doubt are gives sense, but I should prefer as. I have, however, made no change.
“’Tis but the boldness haply of his hand
To which his heart was not consenting to.”
The folio reads “of his hand haply.”
“The fellow has a deal too much of that,
Which holds him much to have.”
The folio reads “of that too much.” As yet no one has made sense of the second line. Perhaps for ‘holds’ we should read hurts, foils, or soils. I have adopted the first. ‘To have’ is, the having. (See Introd. p. 70.)
“Move the still-peering air
That sings with piercing.”
No sense in which peer is used will answer here. I once thought that ‘still’ might be taken in the sense of quiet, tranquil; but I have been unable to find an instance of its being so used in composition. It seems, however, to have found favour in the eyes of Mr. Dyce. The reading generally adopted is that of Steevens, piecing; and though the usual meaning of this verb is, to eke, to add, it is also used in the sense of closing, filling. Mr. Dyce doubts if “a poet with a delicate ear would have written piecing... piercing,” not recollecting that the latter was pronounced percing. I should, however, prefer fleeting, which I have given in my Edition. In the Third Part of The Seven Champions (ch. xiii.), the author of which was more than once indebted to Shakespeare, or vice versâ, we read, “Whose feathery arrows outrun the piercing eye, and cut a passage through the fleetiag air.” Spenser, too, has (F. Q. ii. 8. 2) “the flitting sky (i.e. air).” Elsewhere he says (vii. 7 22) that the air is felt “to flit still,” and in The Tempest (iii. 3) we meet with the “still-closing waters.” At the same time, as ‘peering’ may have been suggested by ‘piercing’ in the next line, the poet’s word may not have resembled it.
“I met the ravin lion when he roar’d.”
As ‘ravin’ only occurs as a verb, the poet probably used here the part. ravening. “As a ravening and a roaring lion” (Ps. xxii. 13) was evidently in his mind.
Sc. 5
“Enter old Widow of Florence, her daughter, Violenta, and Mariana, with other citizens.”
This is the original stage-direction, in which Violenta—an evident mistake for Violante—might appear to be the name of the daughter, though she is always called Diana. Helen, however, at the end of the scene, mentions a ‘gentle maid’ along with Mariana, whom she invites to supper.
“I write good creature: wheresoe’er she is,
Her heart weights sadly.”
Here, as in ii. 3, the verb ‘write’ makes no sense. The 2nd folio has ‘I (ay) right,’ which, from the punctuation, would seem to have been a mere makeshift; the ordinary reading is that of Malone, ‘A right good creature,’ which we may be very sure is not what the poet wrote. As in Hamlet (ii. 1) the 4to, 1604, has “a fetch of wit” for “a fetch of warrant” of the folio, my first impulse was to read I warrant—also that of the editors of the Globe Shakespeare; but I then fixed on “I wis,” and so it stands in my Edition. I am now convinced that the reading of the 2nd folio, when properly pointed, is the true one. I point it thus: “Ay, right.—Good creature! wheresoe’er she is.” The ‘Ay, right,’ expresses the widow’s assent to the truth of her daughter’s observation; she then proceeds to speak of Helena. To my great surprise and gratification, I found, after I had made this natural and certain correction, that I had been completely anticipated in it by Capell. How it does provoke one to think of the wilful blindness or obtuseness of editors! For nearly an entire century they have had the true reading before their eyes, and never could see it! Singer has “Ay, right; good creature” etc.; but the punctuation shows he did not understand the passage.
Sc. 6
“Oh, for the love of laughter let him fetch off his drum.”
“This counterfeit lump of ore will be melted.”
‘Ore’ is Theobald’s correction of ours in the folio.
“Hinder not the honour of his design.”
For ‘honour’ I, with others, have adopted Theobald’s correction humour; which, however, is not absolutely certain.
Sc. 7
“That she’ll demand. A ring the county wears.”
As this is the only place in the play where ‘county’ occurs, and as we have had ‘the count he’ twice already in this scene, I think we ought to read so here also. (See on Twelfth Night, i. 5.)
“Herself most chastely absent. After this.”
The 2nd folio added this, which had evidently been effaced.
“Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,
And lawful meaning in a lawful act.”
If we were not aware of the abjectness of printer-worship, we might wonder at Warburton’s most certain correction wicked for the last ‘lawful’ not having been adopted by every editor.