Act II Sc. 1
Bene. “Well I would you did like me.”
It should be Balt. here and in the next two speeches.
“Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!”
Collier’s folio reads needlessly ‘then, Hero.’
“It is the base, though bitter disposition of Beatrice.”
For ‘though,’ which can hardly be right, the usual reading is the, the correction of Johnson, which is very good; the words were easily confounded, especially when though was written tho’.
“That I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me.”
We should expect him; but ‘me’ may have been the poet’s word. For the first ‘at’ we might perhaps read as.
“All that Adam had left him before he transgressed.”
There must certainly be an error either in ‘left’ or in ‘before.’ For the latter we might read after; for the former perhaps lent or about. I think the true reading is lent, in which I had been anticipated by Collier’s folio. Lend was constantly used in the sense of give. “I can lend you letters to divers officers,” etc. (Jonson, Every Man out, etc. iii. 1.) It is not quite out of use yet.
“County Claudio, when mean you go to church?”
For ‘County,’ which occurs nowhere else in the play, I read Count, which also suits the metre.
Sc. 2
“Hear me call Margaret Hero; hear Margaret term me Claudio.”
The poet no doubt wrote ‘Claudio’ here; but from what precedes it certainly should have been Borachio. These slips were not at all unusual with him.
Sc. 3
“We’ll fit the hid fox with a pennyworth.”
The originals read ‘kid-fox’; but his hiding had just been mentioned, and the name of the game probably alluded to was Hide Fox. Warburton made the correction.
“Since many a lover doth commence his suit thus.”
Something seems evidently wanting for the sense.
“Notes, notes, forsooth, and noting!”
Theobald’s correction; the old copies have nothing.
“O, ay. Stalk on; stalk on; the fowl sits.”
Perhaps for the sake of metre yonder should be added.
“Beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses, O sweet Benedick!”
I agree with Collier’s folio and Singer in reading cries for ‘curses,’ which was suggested by ‘prays.’
“My lord, will you walk in? dinner is ready.”
“And virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot reprove it.”
It would perhaps be better to read ‘disprove it.’
“And choke a daw withal.”
Collier’s folio reads ‘not choke’; but it is dubious.