Act II Sc. 1
“Then is Alcides beaten by his page.”
‘page’ is Theobald’s undoubted correction; 4tos and folio read rage.
“First forward to the temple! After dinner
Your hazard shall be made.”
Surely ‘temple’ has no meaning here. Must not the poet have written table. In Lucrece (st. 168), in the Var. Shakespeare, “Her sacred temple” is printed “Her sacred table.” I am not aware that any critic has observed this palpable error. The term ‘table,’ it may be observed, was much more used by our forefathers than by us. Thus in The Elder Brother (iii. 4) Miramont says to his brother, “May be I’ll see your table too,” i.e. be of your dinner-party.
Sc. 2
“Certainly the Jew is the very Devil’s incarnation.”
“Do you know me, father?”
Mr. Dyce thinks Shakespeare wrote ‘not know,’ which occurs again in Lancelot’s next speech. I have adopted his reading.
Sc. 3
“If a Christian do not play the knave and get thee.”
The 2nd folio properly read did. (See on Jul. Cæs. ii. 2.) This change of tense was not unfrequent. We often meet see for saw.
Sc. 5
“Well thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge.”
It might be better to read ‘the judge.’ Even at the present day printers confound these words.
“Will be worth a Jewès eye,”
I prefer this, the reading of the old copies, to ‘Jewess,’ Pope’s reading, which is usually followed.
Sc. 6
“How like a younker or a prodigal.”
Rowe’s correction for ‘younger.’
Sc. 7
“Go draw aside the curtains.”
So also at end of scene; but as in sc. ix. it is ‘curtain,’ I ascribe the s to the printer.
“But more than these in love I do deserve her.”
See also Capell.
“Gilded timber do worms infold.”
Pope read wood may for ‘timber do’ of the 4tos and folio; Johnson, who is always followed, read tombs; I read woods. The meaning is that gilded wooden work was often worm-eaten.