I think we should read 'morning,' and this for 'his.' It is the adjacent Mediterranean that is meant.
The folio reads "From thine invention offers." See on Temp. iii. 1.
Mr. Singer and myself have both conjectured 'caparisons.'
Hanmer also added Here.
Collier's folio adds who is.
Warburton's reading 'deputation,' is not to be disputed.
'Smite' is the proper correction for 'smile' of the folio. See on Hen. V. ii. 2.
The folio has thine for 'mine'; Rowe also added my.
Malone has shown from North's Plutarch that persuade, not 'dissuade,' was the poet's word. In the first line for 'and' I read He, which may have been written A'.
The right word is 'opposition,' also the reading of Hanmer and Warburton.
He had no guests. Theobald read gests, which must be right, though Shakespeare uses it nowhere else.
It is rather remarkable that Mr. Dyce and I should have simultaneously conjectured Do merrily, of which I think there can be little doubt. See Introd. p. 67.
Rowe proposed Further on; Capell Hie we on; Tyrwhitt Let us go; and Malone Let's seek a spot. I read "We'll take our stand."
Here both 'But' and 'still' may cause some difficulty. The former is to be taken in its original and proper sense, except, unless; the latter in the sense of quiet.
The folio has pannell'd; Hanmer made the correction.
In my Edition, yielding to an impulse I could not resist, I have added a final r to 'charme' both here and a few lines before; thus making it accord with 'witch' and 'gypsy,' as he also calls her. But he likewise terms her 'spell,' and Perdita (W. T. iv. 3) is called 'enchantment,' both, however, in the vocative. It is also rather improbable that the last letter of the same word should have been effaced in two places; but this may be explained by supposing an effacement of the ends of many of the lines in a page of the MS.; and while the others were restored, 'charme,' as making sense, was not supposed to have been injured. By 'Egypt' is meant the Queen, so styled elsewhere also. 'Grave' is heavy, powerful, oppressive; as in the gravibus Persis of Horace, Carm. iii. 5. 4.
It might be better to read dislimbs.
It is evident that the final syllable had been effaced.
The folio has in for 'e'en'; the correction is Johnson's.
I adopt Malone's excellent addition, which has everything in its favour.
We should perhaps read, as has been proposed, Weigh'd for 'Wag'd.'
'Live' is the correction of Southern and Pope of leave in the folio. 'To be' is being. See Introd. p. 70.
With Mr. Dyce I would read dug, the correction of Warburton. Of may have been lost in the beginning of the last line. Still 'dung' may be right, denoting earth; so I have retained it in my Edition.
For 'as' Mason would read and.
Hanmer read 'accessary'; but perhaps without need.
So Theobald; the folio has Antony.
For 'his' we should read their or the.
'Suites' is shoots (see on L. L. L. iv. 3). Some read smites.
The poet may have written weak.
For 'The' we should read Ye, as in Cor. i. 6.
Pope most properly read awry for 'away,' which was caused probably by the rime with play.
For 'do' the folio reads speak.
The folio reads 'our last and least.'
So the 4tos; the folio reads 'than hath.'
How could the pure and gentle Cordelia suppose herself to be suspected of murder? which, moreover, accords not with the other charges she enumerates. Collier's folio reads or other for 'murder or.' I feel strongly persuaded that the poet's word was misdeed, which, if a little effaced, might easily be taken for 'murder.'
By pointing thus, as Rowe also did, we obviate the necessity of adopting Edwards' ingenious reading of top for 'to.'
We should surely read man. 'Nature' is in the following line, and hence the error.
Johnson read courts. 'Cohorts' is not a Shakespearian term.
It is only thus I can make sense.
The usual reading is, To hold my very course.
So perhaps the poet wrote.
It is strange that the editors have not seen that Reg. is out of place. It belongs to the third line. (See on Hen. V. i. 1.) In her usual forward impatient manner she takes, as we say, the words out of Cornwall's mouth. There is evidently a line lost after the fourth. We might read "Have been the cause of this our sudden visit."
This is the proper arrangement.
Neither hefted nor hested, the other reading, makes sense; the conjecture hearted may, then, be right.
Malone made the same omission.
As these seem to be the words of the French King to his son in a ballad quoted by Steevens, I have given the French cesse instead of the Spanish cesa for the cease of the 4tos, sessy of the folio.
Capell saw that a line was wanting here; for what follows must be the words of the Giant. He would read with the 4tos come; but there was no necessity, for in these ballads the first and third lines rarely rimed. The lost line may have been something like this: "The Giant saw him, and out he ran."
The originals read health, which is wrong beyond question, as is proved by the proverb in Fordun and Ray, cited by the critics.
'Store' an obvious error for stone.
For 'sinews' Theobald read senses, which has been generally received, but perhaps without necessity.
The proper word of course is feel, not 'see'; but the text may be right. We have elsewhere, "I see it feelingly." We might also read by for 'in.'
The original is I so. Theobald made the change.
Pope gave 'strove' for the original streme.
For 'way' Theobald read May. Warburton proposed wetter May.
We should, with Warburton, read said not 'so.'
We should certainly read knowing.
We might supply 'were unto me.'
With Rowe I read this. Case is pair.
The folio has "Madam, be so good."
I agree with the 4tos, and with the more judicious critics, in omitting the bracketted words. (See on Ham. iii. 1. v. 2.) The addition seems requisite.
The poet's word may not have been go, but a verb is lost. Its place may have been taken by 'even.'
We might add 'in their time.'
So all the 4tos—the place is not in the folio. Editors most properly read him for 'me.'
I adopt this arrangement of Mr. Hunter's instead of that of the folio, usually followed.
Here 'the' is evidently an error for thy.
We might add, For the two armies were.
Holinshed, treating of this very matter, says, "to assist him in that rebellious quarrel." Hence the usual correction of quarrel for 'quarry' seems to be justified. In the old writers quarrel in the sense of cause, party, is frequent. It was in ordinary use at that time, alike in French and English.
We might add, with Vengeance at his side.
So Pope, from breaking of the 2nd folio.
Fletch. Hum. Lieut. i. 1.
We might, but not so well perhaps, read 'o'ercharg'd' (see on M. N. D. ii. 1). 'They so,' though it makes a rime, would give energy.
Collier's folio, I think rightly, reads comes for 'seems' (see on All's Well, ii. 3). We can hardly take 'to speak' in the sense of about to speak.
Both sense and metre require Did. The battle was over, and the enemy defeated.
Though 'tale' makes good sense, it might be better to read, with Rowe, hail, of which Mr. Dyce gives many examples. Came is Rowe's correction for 'Can' of the folio.
Beyond question we should read, with Malone, thrusted.
The I' is not absolutely necessary, but I think Shakespeare wrote it. See on Hamlet, iii. 1.
There is every reason to suppose that the poet wrote 'are not,' the reading of the 2nd folio.
It is strange that our critics have not seen that the raven is figurative, and means the man. I find that the German Delius had also perceived it. In the third line I think we should read 'spirits of evil'; for a foot is wanting, and good as well as evil spirits 'tend on mortal thoughts.' The ordinary correction, 'Come, come,' is a mere make-shift, and is tame and feeble.
Perhaps we should read with for 'for,' taking 'take' in the sense of tinge, infect, a sense it often bears.
The word 'blanket' certainly seems too familiar and even vulgar an expression, especially as the more dignified 'pall thee' had just been used. Malone quotes from Drayton's Mortemeriados, 1596, "The sullen night in misty rug is wrapp'd." But even this is not so low as 'blanket.' Collier's folio reads blankness, but that surely is whiteness. Perhaps we might venture to read blackness, as in Ant. and Cleop. (i. 4) we have "Night's blackness." At that time 'peep' was to gaze earnestly and steadily at anything; not furtively, as now. 'To cry' in the next line may be crying. See Introd. p. 70.
The second line here is short by a foot; and as it does not end a paragraph, there must be something wrong. The defect, however, is easily remedied; we have only to read,
The structure of the last line is like that of "Thy knee bussing the stones" (Cor. iii. 1). "The mind is its own place" (Par. Lost, i. 254), and similar places. There can be little doubt, I think, that on't was effaced at the end of the third line; for the poet could hardly, even in his most careless moment, have termed solid parts of a building 'pendent nests,' etc. Wordsworth, with this very place in his mind, wrote: "On coigns of vantage hang their nests of clay" (Misc. Son. 34). It is also in favour of this reading that it throws the metric accent on this, thereby adding force. 'Coign of vantage' would seem to be coin d'avantage, Fr., and denoting a projection of some kind.