Act III Sc. 1
“If I were so, fair Thisby, I were only thine.”
“So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape.”
This and the two following lines are transposed in Roberts’ 4to and the folio.
Sc. 2
“Being o’er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep
And kill me too.”
Mr. Dyce, with whom I agree, adopts the excellent reading of Coleridge and Sidney Walker, ‘knee-deep.’
“Once o’er shoes we are straight o’er head in sin.”
Woman Killed with Kindness.
“And from thy hated presence part I so.”
Pope added so, which is required by metre and rime, and yet is wanting in all the old editions.
“This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss.”
For ‘princess’ Hanmer read pureness; Collier proposes impress; but no change is needed. ‘White’ is whiteness, and ‘princess of pure white’ is sovereign lady of whiteness, i.e., white in the highest degree. I suspect that Chaucer wrote emperes in
“The emprise and the flower of flowers alle.”
Leg. of Good Women.
“For parting us.—Oh! is this all forgot?”
The 2nd folio read ‘O and is’; Malone added now; we might also add then. A syllable certainly is wanting.
“But miserable most to love unlov’d...
This you should pity rather than despise.”
“Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.”
Here ‘prayers’ is the correction by Theobald of praise of the original editions.
“Away you Ethiop.—No, no, sir, seem
To break loose; take on as you’d follow me,
But yet come not. You are a tame man, go.”
This is the reading of the folio, which, with the addition of me—evidently rubbed out at the end—gives excellent sense and metre. For ‘sir’ the 4tos read he’ll, which makes the passage abrupt.
“Out loathed medicine! [O] hated potion, hence!”
The same omission was made by Pope.
“Hate me! wherefore? O me! What news, my love?”
For ‘news’ Collier’s folio, followed by Singer, reads means. I think they are right.
“I with the morning’s love have oft made sport.”
Rowe read light for ‘love,’ and Johnson and Singer have followed him. But it seems to be Cephalus that is meant.