Ai Ai 0: uOuLD Corrigenda and Explanations of the Text of Shakspere CORRIGENDA AND EXPLANATIONS OF THE TEXT OF SHAKSPEEE. GEORGE GOULD. Si quid novisti rectius islis, Candidus imperti : ai non, his utere luecuin. Hou. Epist., lib. i, G. LONDON : J. S. VIRTUE & CO., Limited, 26, IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW, 1881. Price {free by post) Si^jjenre. COEEIGEXDA AND EXPLANATIONS. Not having read the works of Shakspere for more than the third of a century, it has happened to me within the last few j-ears to meet with passages, as quotations, etc., which appeared evidently to contain errors ; but on referring to the Works themselves I was surprised to find the extracts cor- rectly made. Being in possession of leisure, I thought that I might use- fully employ some of it in giving a careful reading to these Plaj's, with the object of detecting errors and seeing how they might be amended, and the result is what I now lay before the reader. It is clear that many of these mistakes have arisen from the type being set up from undecypherable manuscript, and that there has been, in 23laces, much guess-work in making out the copy. This is especially evident in such plays as Cijmheline and Measure for Measure. Very many wrong words arising from these causes have been corrected by the various editors ; that many have not been noticed will appear from a perusal of the following pages ; and that some are still left I can vouch, as I have tried at various undoubted faulty passages, but have been imable to suggest satisfactory corrections, and these I must leave to those better acquainted with Elizabethan literature than I am. That these mistakes should have occurred was in the nature of thi)^.gs. Considering the extreme juvenescence of the art of printing, when probably reader, compositor, and pressman were all one person, the probable inexperience of the editors, the absence of supervision of the author, it would have been surprising if there had not been a very large number of over- sights ; for even now, after all the improvements in the art of printing, in works having the great advantage of the super- vision of their authors, very vexatious mistakes are not of uncommon occurrence. "Without going back to the misprint where Queen Mab is made to be "drawn by a team of little atfomies", in the reprint of Shakspere's works on which I M-mJJLKlXlV X |f^fIVERSITY OF CALIFORN SANTA BARBARA 3 chiefly rely, and wbich was printed at one of the largest printing-offices in London, Knight's Pictorial Shakspere, I have met with very many misprints and occasionally serious ones; for instance, "sliver " turned into "silver'^ ; "wise'' into " wife " ; " bands " into " hands ", etc. ; and yet these mistakes hap^Dcned in a work that was probably set up from print, and was revised by an editor of great experience. So we are bound in reason to rfiake due allowance for the short- comings of the early editors and printers, and may be thank- ful they were not worse. So much for the misprints. I have not given the jjassages in full, as every one to whom this can be of use will have a copy of Shakspere's Works by him to refer to. In perusing these Works, I have been staggered at the outrageous manner in which they are pointed. There is no abomination that could be perpetrated in this way that can- not be found here in abundance. To specify some of these. A comma is constantly placed between the noun and the action of the verb ; between comparisons ; before the relative when part of a continuous proposition ; and with all conjunc- tions without rhyme or reason. Shakspere mostly uses the word " indeed " as meaning " in verity " or as a kind of supersuperlative, and hardly ever as a mere expletive for carrying on an argument, yet it is becommaed all the same. Then the intensatives are not properly attended to, and notes of interrogation are occasionally placed where there is no question. We have also the words " could'st ", " may'st ", " can'st ", etc., in abundance ; perhaps the apostrophes are considered ornamental. Then some of the pointing is such as to give a sense contrary to what the author evidently intended ; in others it leads to nonsense. It would take too much space to give examples of these things. However, here is an instance. In Timon of Athens, we have " crimes, like lands, are not inherited ". Here Shakspere is made to say that neither crimes nor lands are inherited, which is false. Prosaically it is, "crimes are not inherited like lands"; the sense is murdered by the points. Again, we have the idiom with the double pronoun, such as "I am a soldier, I"; " I told you, I " ; " Thou drunkard, thou " ; " You ladies, you " ; " Thou knave thou." This last is the only proper way. The idiom in the second person is quite current nowa- days. If the verses of Shakspere were read according to the ordinary punctuation, they would sound lilce the croaking of frogs in a marsh, instead of divine poesy, and Sheridan's joke on John Kemble, to play a bar of music between each of his words, would be hardly appreciable. Let us, then, have Sbakspere's poetry in its own glorious proportions, free and flowing, and not in the miserable little bits in which it has hitherto been served out to us. What I contend for is that the Works of Shakspere shpuld be pointed on the same principles and edited with the same conscientious care as, say, the Oxford and Cambridge editions of the Greek dramatists, and that only grammatical points and such as are ancillary to the sense should be used. George Gould. 25, Marine Street, Bermondsey. April 18th, 1881. Romeo aihd Juliet. Act 1, sc. 2. "Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light." — The conceit of this is that the women at the festival are such stars that they illumine the dark heaven in the same way as the stars in heaven illumine the dark earth. No alteration is needed. Act 1, sc. 3. " See how one another lends content." — I think " content " should be " concent ", agreement, harmonj^ "One another " is not to be read in the usual way as ricissim, but as it were " one to another ". Act 2, sc. 2. "And, but thou love me." — Read "An but ", i.e., if but. Act 3, sc. 2. " Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night ! That ritncncaf/es' eyes may weep," etc. — This may safely be altered to " That in no ways eyes may peep ". It is in effect the same thought as in Metcheth, " Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark ", and both passages may be explained, by the definition of " looking through the deep- veiled tegument of tenebrosity ". This gets rid of many outrageous alterations. It may be considered that the three words were written as one, as was not unusual with old writers. — Further on, " Beautifal tyrant." — These words are not contrarious as they ought to be. Possibly "beautiful" should be "bountiful", or, better, "mercifuP\ Act 3, sc. 3. " Hath rush'cf aside the law."—" Rush'd " should probably be " pushed ". — Further on, " which thou at once would lose ". — I think " lose " should be " loose ", the opposite of meet, i.e., conjoin. Hamlet. Act 1, sc. 1. " A6 stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun," etc. — There is a similar but more extended passage in Julius C(vsar, Act 2, sc. 2 (which see). The whole of these portents are to be found in Ovid's Metamorp/wses, book 15, lines 783 — 798, and, as they seem to have been most strangely o\erlooked, they are here printed at length. Anna ferunt nigras inter crepitantia nubes, Terribilesijiie tubas, auditaque cornua cuelo Pnemonuisse nefas. Plicebi quoque tiistis imago Lurida sollicitis prtebebat lumina terris. Spepe faces vis?e mediis ardere sub astris ; Stepe inter nimbus gut tie cecidere cruentie. Cceruleus et vultum fenugine Liicifer atra Sparsus erat, sparsi Innares sanguine ciutus. Tristia mille locis Stygias dedit oniina bubo: Mille locis lacrimavit elmr, cantut^que feruntur Auditi, Sanctis et verba minacia lucis. Victima nulla litat, magnu.'-que instare tuniultus Fibra monet, c;iesiuuque caput reperitur in extis. Inque foro, circiunque domos, et tem])la deoruni Nocturnos ululasse canes, umbrasque silentuui Erravisse ferunt, motainque tremoribus urbem. I think we may get a reasonably good reading of the above passage, about which there lias been so much conti'oversy, thus: "And stars with trains of fire : fell dews of blood" : i.e., dews of blood fell. This would represent Saepe faces visae mediis ardere sub astris : Sajpe inter nimbos guttae cecidere cruentse. The last clause is represented by " drizzled blood " in Jidiiis Ccesar. Act 1, sc. 2. " 1 am too much i' th' sun." — This is sup- posed to refer to the proverb of going from God's blessing to a warm sun, which may be further explained b}'^ a passage in the Merchant of Venice: "You have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough ", which seems to show that the " warm sun " meant worldly prosperity. Act 2, sc. 2. "A good kissing carrion " me^ns a good carrion for kissing and needs no alteration. — Further on, " too dear, a halfpennj^ ". — There should be no comma. It destroys the sense. It is not that a halfpenny too much is paid, but too much is paid for a halfpenny. Act 3, sc. I. "You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock [, but] we shall relish of it [virtue] : I lov'd you not." — The comma should be taken out where the first bracket is and "but" changed to " that ". It is a figure taken from grafting. In Winter s Tale, Act 4, sc. 3, we have : " We marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race," The point is that Hamlet, the old stock, cannot be made to partake of the flavour of the bud of nobler race, virtue. Act 3, sc. 2. "To hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." — I can see no meaning for the word " pressure " in this place and think it should be " presence ", port, air, mien. At all events, I should like to submit this view to consideration, and let everyone who thinks about it look in his glass and ask himself what " pressure" can have to do in the matter. Act 3, sc. 4. " You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife ; But would you were not so ! You are my mother." — The last clause should read "But (would you were not so) you are my mother ". — Further on, " O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words." — " Con- traction " should be " contrition ", then the two clauses are in harmony with each other and mutually explanatory. Act 4, sc. 5. "Do you see this, God." — This way of pointing these words makes Laertes address himself to God instead of the King. It should read : " Do you see this ? — O God ! " After he has called the King's attention to Ophelia, he gives way to his anguish in an exclamation. Act 5, sc. 1. " He hath borne me on his back a thousand times ; and now how abhorred my imagination is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft." — According to this way of pointing the passage, Hamlet's gorge rises at the thought of having while a boy been carried pickaback by the defunct. This is absurd. It should be at the stinking skull, which he may be considered as bringing closer to him and whose parts he remembers to have kissed. " Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft." I suggest that the passage should read : " He hath borne me on his back a thousand times. And now, how abhorred my imagination is — my gorge rises at it — here hung those lips," etc., so as to make Hamlet's gorge rise at the remembrance of the part he has acted with the stinking skull which he holds at present in his hand, instead of the pickaback of a man who has been dead " thrce-and- twenty years ". Act 5, sc. 2. "Rashly," etc., down to "Up from my cabin ". — It seems to me that from " Let ns know " down to Horatio's speech, " That is most certain " has been inter- posited at some time, and that " Up from my cabin " read on after "rashness for it". "Let us" I think should be "Yet we ". The passage might be printed : " Eashly And praise be raslinegs for it. — [Yet ive know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well When our dear plots do pall ; and that should teach us There 's a divinity that shapes our ends Rough-hew them how we A\ill. Hor. That is most certain.] Ham. — Up from my cahin," etc. Head in this way, and putting a slight stress on " that ", the sense is perfect and needs no fighting over. There is a passage in lining Lear, Act 4, sc. 1, which should be read in connection with the above, as serving to explain one another. " Full oft 'tis seen Our means secure us ; and our mere defects Prove our commodities." — Further on, "Stick fiery oif indeed." — " Stick " is probably a misprint for " show ". — Further on, "Which have solicited". — "Solicited" is clearly wrong. Might it be " ensued" or "resulted" ? " Eventu- ated " would make a twelve-syllable line, which would be allowable. In the line above, " the " should be contracted. Cymbeline. Act 3, sc. 4. " Some jay of Italy, Whose mother was her pai)iting." — Nothing can be made of this. To add one more to the many conjectures, may not the last words be " Whose honour was her plaything ", in reference to the double mean- ing of the jay ? Othello. Act 1, sc. 2. " That weaken motion." — " Motion " should be " reason ". Act 3, sc. 3. "Jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on." — Hanmer, followed by Malone, reads " make " instead of " mock ", and this is without doubt the true reading ; but they failed to explain the meaning of the passage, and the wild conjectures that have been offered are enough to take one's breath away. The passage simply means that "jealousy is a green-eyed monster 8 that lives on food of his own engendering ". In the Merchant of Venice, Act 3, sc. 2, we have "green-eyed jealousy". This shows that Shakspere himself means jealousy itself for the green-eyed monster, and that a chima}ra is not meant, or anything of the kind. In the next scene of this act, Emilia says : " It [jealousy] is a monster Begot on itself, born on itself." Further, in many cursive handwritings the original word " mocke " would be undistinguishable from " make " except by the sense. Act 4, sc. 2, " The fixed figure /or the time of scorn To point his slow and moving finger at." — Yards of controversy might have been spared by observing that the two words " for " and " of" are transposed: probab y done by the printer in correcting. — Further on, " dafts " should be "daftst ". TiMoN OF Athens. Act 1, sc. 1. " Leaving no tract behind." — " Tract " should be " track ", vestigium. Act 1, sc. 2. " Much good du-h thy good heart, Ape- mantus ! " — Here the name of the speaker is omitted, perhaps dropped or drawn out, and " dich " is a misprint for •' diet ". The passage should read : " Alcib. Much good diet thy good heart, Apemantus ! " Act. 2, sc, 2. " ImjcnioHslij I speak." — Read " ingenu- ously ". King Lear. Act 3, sc. 1. "This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch. The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry." — I think that " couch " is most probably a misprint for " vouch ", in the sense of to obtend. The object of the passage is to show that the savagest creatures in their most ferocious condition, under the circumstances, would be kindly to one another. The comma should come out after " vouch ". It may not be unnecessary to say that " cub-drawn " means to be in a condition of suckling offspring. Macbeth. Act 1, sc. 3, " Rumpfed ronyon," — I am inclined to think, although I cannot prove it, that these words were intended to mean " wrinkled mangy" [woman understood]. We have the English word "rumpled", and in German there is the word " riimpfen ", which means "to wrinkle". I should like to submit this view to the consideration of the learned. There is no difiiculty about " ronyon ". Act 2, sc. 2. " The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red." — The passage is pointed as it ought to be. It is surprising how anj'" editor could have been troubled about such ver}'^ common English. 'J here can be no question about the "seas" being "multitudinous" and that they are "green ". Then " incarnadine" is a verb, to make red. Thus the second line is merely a repetition and enforcement of the first. BjTon uses this idiom in the Childe Harohl : " Making it [the ground] all one emerald." Act 3, sc. 4. — The speech of Lady Macbeth has not been reduced to sense. This can be done by altering the punctua- tion and changing the word " 'tis " to " 'less ", and perhaps " sold " should be " cold ". I propose to read it thus : " ]\Iy royal lord, You do not give the clieer ; the feast is sold That is not ©ften vouch'd while 'tis a-niakiug ; 'Less given with welcome, to feed were best at home ; From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony : Meeting were bare without it." Act 4, sc. 1, we have : "Though j^ou untie the winds and let them fight Against our chiu'ches : though the yesty waves Confound and sAvallow navigation up ; Though hladcd corn be lodg'd," etc. If this last line refers to the ordinary summer accident of corn being blown down, there is a manifest descent in the verse. Some utterly destructive agency is required to put it in harmony with the rest of the sentence. At one time, I thought it might refer to the condition which sometimes happens when the corn is ripe and is blown out bj' the winds ; but it has been pointed out that the corn is only " bladed " and has not come to the " ear ". Schiller translates the passage : " Miisste finstrer Hagelregen Die Ernte niederschlagen." If this interpretation can be accepted, it somewhat gets over the difiiculty ; but can it? There are two other passages in Shakspere referring to lodged corn : in Henr// the Sixth, Part 2, Act 3, sc. 2, " Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd " ; and in Richanl the Second, Act 3, sc. 3, " We'll make foul weather with despised tears ; Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn And make a dearth," etc. In this last passage there are two factors, and a dearth is to result from the " lodging ", 10 Troilus and Cressida. Act 3, sc. 3. " Things to hve."—l think " love " should be " come " ; that is, he leaves Troy because he has a fore- knowledge that it will be destroyed. Act 3, sc. 3. ''A)id. Cassandra, call nii/ father to persuade." — Here " my " should be " thy ". Andromache elsewhere calls King Priam "my father", but there she is addressing the King himself, and not sending a message by his own daughter. CORIOLANUS. Act 1, sc. 5. " See here these movers." — " Movers " should be " soldiers ". Act 4, sc. 1. " Being gentle wounded " — Should be " gentle- minded ", etc. The meaning of the passage is, that in fair weather the largest ship and smallest cock-boat may alike float in safety ; but when the storm comes, '* when fortune's blows are most struck home ", it requires " a noble cunning " to navigate the frail vessel and the gentle mind in safety. Julius C-(Esar. Act 2, sc. 1. "If thoupath."—" Path " should be " put ", which is consonant with the argument. Antony and Cleopatra. Act 1, sc. 4. " Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, Goes to and back, lacking the varying tide, To rot itself with motion." — This is as the passage stands in the original. "Lacking" should be "tacking". The flag is the weed, which is carried hither and thither by the varying tide. Theobald altered the word to " lackeying ", and this has been the accepted reading since ; but it is difiicult to see how a rotting weed can " lackey " anything. Act 2, sc. 1. "My powers are crescent and my auguring hope Says if will come to the full." — Theobald changed this, as I think injudiciously, to " My power 's a crescent ", thereby altering the idea of the author. I think either that the first line should be let alone, and " it " altered to " they", or, if the alteration is made in the first line, " My power is crescent " will preserve the integrity of the idea. Then the power will be crescent in the same manner as the moon. But there are a great many false concords in Shakspere besides this. Act 3, sc. 11. " The mered question." — " Mered " should be " vexed." — Further on, " drop our clear judgments," read " dull ". 11 Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act 1, sc. 1. " To Milan let me hear from thee by letters", etc. — This has been a stumbling-block to some commentators. Expressed in prose, it is : " Let me hear from thee by letters to Milan," etc. It is strange that educated Englishmen should require an ordo vcrborum for Shaksjjere. — Further on, "laced mutton." — Johnson gives the meaning of these words as " a whore ", and is supported by the commentators. I can see no such meaning in the passage. On the contrary, Speed is trying it on for a gratuity, and is hardly likely to use insulting expressions of Proteus's lady. In Bailey's Dictionary of Slang, the meaning is given as " a woman "^ and I think it correct. Act 2, sc. 1. " To fast like one that talus diet."— " Takes " should be "hates". — Further on, " These follies are within you, and shine through you like the water in an urinal ; that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady." — To make any sense of this, it would require the urinal to be of transparent glass, which glass was not in IShakspere's time, and besides was too expensive to be used for any such purpose. But the passage is misconceived. It should read : " These follies are within you and shine through you ; like the water in an urinal, that ", etc. What Speed says is that he can see the signs of Valentine being in love in the same way as a physician can diagnose a patient's disease by looking at the water in an urinal. Love's Labour's Lost. Act 4, sc. 3. " With men like men." — The difficulty here would be got rid of by putting a comma after the first "men", and reading with a slight stress on " like ". — Further on, " The suspicious head of theft." — " Head " should be " tread". Merry Wives of Windsor. Act 2, sc. 1. "Like sir Actfeon Ae." — For "he" read "be". Act 5, sc. 5. " Ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me." — This may be taken to mean that Falstaff is borne down by the leaden weight of ignorance, which is much better than any of the proposed alterations. Comedy of Errors. Act 1, sc. 1. " To seek thy help by beneficial help." — " Fine ", instead of the first " help ", would pass muster. 12 The word is used in the sense of penalty in the Merchant of Venice. Act 2, so. 1. " Would that alone alone he would detain.^' — Sense would be made by reading the second " alone " as " from me ". Midsummer Night's Dream. Act 1, sc. 1. " Like to a stepdame or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's revenue." — I think " wither- ing " should be read " widowing " ; i.e., having the rights of widowhood or dower. In Measure for Measure, Act 5, the Duke " widows" Mariana with Angelo's property. Act 3, sc. 1. "I shall desire you of vnore acquaintance." — This should read " of you " — an obvious printer's blunder. Act 3, sc. 2. " Latch'd " does not mean "licked over", but " closed ". — Further on, " flower of purple die ", read -dye". Act 5, sc. 1. " Ay, that left pap, AVhere heart doth Aojo." — For " hop " read " rap " for rhyme. — Further on, " These lily lips, This cherry nose ", should be " With cherry tips " — thus making both rhyme and reason. Merchant of Venice. Act 3, sc. 4. " Tranect." — This is a mongrel word fz'om the Italian " tra ", between, and the Latin " necto ", to join, and is appliable to any kind of conveyance between two points. Act 4, sc. 1. "I pray you, think you question with the Jew." — This line seems not to have been understood by the commentators. "Think" means consider or remember; " question " means to argue or talk over, and is used in this sense three lines lower. The meaning of the line then is : " You know what kind of man the Jew is, and you only waste time in reasoning with him." All's Well that Ends Well. Act 1, sc. 3. "You are my mother," etc. (see Play). — This apparent!}' hopeless passage may be made sense of, I think, in this way. " You are my mother, madam ! Would that you were, So that my lord your son were not my brother, Indeed my mother ! — Or were yovi Loth our mothers, I care no more for than I do /ear heaven, So that I were not hit< sister. Can it he other But I your daughter, lie must be my brother ] " The meaning I attach to the line where the alteration is 13 made is, that Helena only cares for tlie matter so far as she fears God. It seems to me that she is struj^gling against being brought into what is known as spiriti;al affinity with the Countess. For instance, in Shakspere's time, if the Countess had been Helena's godmother, she would have been Bertram's sister, and the marriage would have been inces- tuous unless a dispensation had been obtained. This may account for the word "mothers ". Twelfth Night. Act 1, sc. 5. " Comptible ". — The meaning given for this is "accountable, ready to hand " ; but the sense seems more to require " domptable" ; i.e., "overcome", though I do not like to suggest an alteration. Act 3, sc. 4. " U)i/iafc//\i rainier."— For "unhatch'd" read " unhack'd ". The allusion is to the making a knight on the field of battle as contradistinguished from " carpet considera- tion " by a spick-span new sword. Measure for Measure. Act 1, sc. 3. "Propagation of a dower." — "Propagation" is quite correct and means continuation. Act 2, sc. 1. " Stmigld in virtue "—read " strait ". — Further on, " Some run from hrahes of ice, and answer none ; And some condemned for a fault alone." — What is wanted to be said here is that one man escapes after the commission of many offences, and is never brought to the question, while another suffers for his first offence. This sense may be brought out by changing " brakes " to " banks ", in the sense of heaps, and making " ice " " vice ". — These are mis- takes that might easily be made in printing. The passage would then read : " Some run from banks of vice and answer none," etc. It will be remembered that in Old Mother Hubbard " none " rhymes with " bone ". Act 2, sc. 3. " Falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blistered her report." — There is not the slightest reason for altering the word " flaws " to " flames ", nor is there any confusion of metaphor. The flaw is a gap or break and the blister is caused by falling. There is a similar idea in Twelfth Night : "That thine own trip shall be thine over- throw." Act 3, sc. 1. " Delighted spirit." — There can be no doubt that " delighted " is a misprint and all the attempted expla- nations wild. What is wanted is a word that will represent the condition of the soul out of the body. How would 14 " delivered " do ? The passage itself seems a reminiscence of Dante's Inferno. Act 4, so. 2. "Meal'd." — This word is amusingly ex- plained to come from the French word "raesler" and to mean " compounded ". — It simply means " dieted " and is antithetical to the " holy abstinence " of two lines above. King John. Act 2, sc. 2. " First assured.'' — " Assured " is an un- doubted misprint for "affied", i.e., betrothed. The kiss was the proper ceremony on betrothal. See Shakspere else- where. King Richard the Second. Act 2, sc. 1. " Against infection and the hand of war." — A number of hard words have been proposed in place of " infection ". It is simply a misprint for " invasion ". Act 3, sc. 2. "As a long parted mother," etc. — This beautiful passage is muddled as at present printed. I pro- pose to read : " As a long-parted mother with her chikl Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting, So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth," etc. The smiles and tears are the mother's and Richard's. — Further on, "Model" — should be "module ", the equivalent of the Latin " modulus ", a small portion. Act 5, sc. 1. "Inn .... alehouse." — Richard is the " inn " " where hard-favoured grief lodges ", and Bolingbroke the " alehouse " where " triumph is a guest ", — This is merely a comparison between greatness fallen into adversity and mediocrity that has risen to high power by means of two places of public entertainment. Act 5, sc. 3. " Heinous ere it be " — Read " e'er." Henry the Fourth, Part I. Act 1, sc. 1. " No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood." — I am disposed to think that the word " entrance " should be " outrance ", in the sense of being in a state of excessive con- tention. Shakspere uses it in Macbeth and Cymheline as " utterance ". " Her " relates to the soil, which in poetry has organs the same as men. Chaucer says, " That feld hath eyen, and the woode hath eeres ", which is supposed to come from " Campus habet lumen, et habet nemus auris acumen ". If this view shall find favour, it will enable us to get rid of 15 the horrible word "Erinnys ", which, besides its other objec- tions, is not even of right quality for the verse. Act 2, sc. 1. " Great oneyers." — There can be no reason- able doubt that Johnson's exphmation is correct, and that these words are merely slang for " great ones ". This would be more evident by putting a hyphen, " great-oneyers ". Henry the Fouth, Part II. Act 2, sc. 2. " I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.'' — " Romans " should be " Roman ". The commen- tators seem to have mis'^ed the point of this altogether. It is Caesar's " Veni, vidi, vici" that is imitated by "I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee ". Act 3, sc. 1. " And leav'st the kingly couch A watch-case or common 'larum bell ? " — I have printed this as it ought to be. The kingly couch is turned into a watch-case or alarum- bell, i.e., is in a continual state of agitation or alarm. — Further on, " seal up " should be " seel up ". Henry the Fifth. Act 4, sc. 3. " Mark then abounding valour," etc. — I think " a bounding " should be two words. The passage may be best explained by transposing the similitude. " Mark then a bounding valour in the English that, being dead, ' kill ' in the relapse of mortality "; that is, by their emanations kill the French. Death rebounds like a bullet's grazing, breaking out into a second course of destruction. It is said that a cannon-ball, at some time, although it appears to be spent, if interfered with, will rebound and break out into a second course of mischief, as stated here. In both cases it is contre-coup. Act 4, sc. 7. " That I have find these bones of mine for ransom."— I think " fin'd " should be " fix'd". This was the King's proposition before. Henry the Eighth. Act 4, sc. 2. " One that by suggestion Tied all the kingdom."— I think " tied " should be " ruled ". Rape of Lucrece. " But when a black-faced cloud," etc. Malone proposed to read " look " for "but". I think the preceding stanza should close with a full-point, and the new stanza commence M'ith " As ", the antithesis being " So ". There is a stanza of similar construction further on. " To find a face where all distress is steled." — I have no 16 doubt this means written as it were by the stylus, the " antique pen " of the Sonnets. The same thought is ex- pressed in Filicaja's noble Sonnet, " infiniti guai, Che in fronte scritti per gran' doglia porte ". The " stelled " of the Twenty-fourth Sonnet evidently refers to some kind of picture. It should be remembered that the old name of a painter was zoographer, animal writer. But see Prometheus Bound, line 788. The thought seems to have been a favourite with Shakspere. Further on w' e have, *' Hard misfortune carv'd on it [the face] with tears ". Also, " Live engraven on m\'' face ". In Borneo and Juliet : " Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face, And find deligh|^vrit there with beauty's pen." Sohnet 25. ''The painrfe warrior famoused for worth.*' — Theobald altered "worth" alternatively to "fight", for the sake of rhyme, and this is the accepted reading ; but it is hardl}^ English. I propose " might ", M^hich will make the sense perfect. PEINTKD Br ,1. S. VIRTDK AND CO., LIMITED, CITV ROAD, LONDON. Dvtf 'TY OF CAI llllll 'ta Barbar 3 1205 03059 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBR A A 001 433 :