142. Line 34: after THIS.-This is omitted in F. 1, added in F. 2.

143. Lines 44-47:

which, if it speed,

Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed, And lawful meaning in a LAWFUL act; Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact. For lawful act in line 46 Warburton substituted "wicked act," and so Dyce; but Malone satisfactorily explains the original reading: "The first line relates to Bertram. The deed was lawful, as being the duty of marriage. . . but his meaning was wicked, because he intended to commit adultery. The second line relates to Helena, whose meaning was lawful, in as much as she intended to reclaim her husband. The act or deed was lawful,

for the reason already given. The subsequent line relates to them both. The fact was sinful, as far as Bertram was concerned, because he intended to commit adultery; yet neither he nor Helena actually sinned; not the wife, because both her intention and action were innocent; not the husband, because he did not accomplish his intention; he did not commit adultery."

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

144. Lines 19-22: therefore we must every one be a man of his own fancy, not to know what we speak one to another; so we seem to know, is to know straight our purpose." We must each fancy a jargon for himself, without aiming to be understood by one another, for provided we appear to understand, that will be sufficient for the success of our project."-Henley. Sir Philip Perring, with great plausibility, proposes to shift the semicolon from another to fancy.

145. Line 22: Choughs' language.-Compare:

146. Line 43: Wherefore, what's the INSTANCE?-ACcording to Schmidt, instance is "motive," "that which set him on." So:

The instances that second marriage move

Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
-Hamlet, iii. 2. 192, 193.

But Johnson, followed by Rolfe, with greater probability explains it as proof: Parolles is seeking for some proof of his exploit. So: "They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances" (Much Ado, ii. 2. 42).

147. Line 45 and buy myself another of BAJAZET'S MULE.-Warburton conjectured mute, and so Dyce. A mule is doubtless used as typical of a dumb creature. Reed quotes a story of a "Philosopher" who "for th' emperor's pleasure took upon him to make a Moyle [mule] speak;" but what the allusion is in Bajazet's mule has not yet been explained.

ACT IV. SCENE 2.

148. Lines 21-31: 'T is not the many oaths that make the truth, &c.-This speech is at a first reading very perplex

ing, but its meaning becomes clearer on reperusal. Diana's meaning is, I think, as follows: "A mere multitude of oaths is no evidence of integrity of purpose; a single vow made conscientiously is enough, and such a vow a man takes by what he reverences most, namely, by God's great attributes; but even were I to swear by such an awful oath as this that I loved you well, when I loved you so ill that I was trying to induce you to commit a sin, you would not believe me: in fact, an oath taken in the name of a pure and holy Being to commit an impure and unholy sin against him has no validity at all: therefore-your oaths, sworn as they are in God's name to do him a wrong, are so many empty words and worthless stipulations, but in my opinion are unsealed, that is, are unratified, and have no binding force whatever."

149. Line 25: If I should swear by GOD's great attributes. -So the Globe editors; the Folio has Joues, probably in accordance with the statute to restrain the abuse of the divine name (3 James I. chap. 21).

150. Lines 38, 39:

I see that men MAKE ROPES IN SUCH A SCARRE,
That we'll forsake ourselves.

This is the great crux of the play. None of the many
emendations which have been proposed being really
satisfactory, I have printed the words just as they stand
in the Folio, except that the latter prints rope's instead
of ropes.
That there is an error somewhere few will
doubt, although there have been several ingenious but
far-fetched attempts at explanation. All that can be
affirmed with any confidence is that the words, "That
we'll forsake ourselves," are intended to convey Diana's
pretended surrender to the proposals of Bertram, "we
will prove unfaithful to our principles, we will give in;"
and that the previous line must have given some sort of
reason or excuse for such apparent weakness.
"Diana
ought, in all propriety," says Mr. Halliwell [Phillipps] in
his folio Shakespeare, "to make some excuse to Bertram
(and to the audience) for the abrupt change in her feel-
ings and conduct,-some acknowledgment of his powers
of persuasion, or some confession of her own impressi-
bility." Diana then abruptly demands the ring, and Ber-
tram fancies his triumph is complete. A scarre is a
broken precipice, or, according to others, a ravine, or
merely a scare (fright).

I subjoin some of the principal emendations which have been suggested:

Rowe: "make hopes in such affairs."

Malone: "make hopes, in such a scene."

Mitford, printed by Dyce: "make hopes, in such a case.'
Halliwell [Phillipps]: "may cope's in such a sorte."
Staunton: "make hopes, in such a snare."
Kinnear: "have hopes, in such a cause.'

151. Line 73: Since Frenchmen are so BRAID.-Steevens quotes Greene's Never too Late, 1616 (ed. Dyce, p. 302): Dian rose with all her maids Blushing thus at love's braids.

i.e. crafts, deceits. The word, which is, however, here an adjective, comes from braid, to twist; what is deceitful being, metaphorically speaking, twisted and tortuous.

To seek new friends and stranger companies. -Mids. Night's Dream, i. 1. 219. 157. Line 103: ENTERTAINED my convoy.-Taken into service guides, &c. For entertain compare: Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room. -Much Ado, i. 3. 60.

158. Line 113: this counterfeit MODULE.- Module is a variant of model. Model comes through the Italian and French from the Latin modulus, a measure; module apparently comes direct from the Latin. Parolles is a counterfeit module, because he pretended to be a soldier and was really a fool.

159. Line 135: Stage-direction: the Folio has, Enter Parolles with his Interpreter, and Inter. Int. or Interp. is prefixed to the speeches of the First Soldier.

160. Line 158: All's one to HIM.-In the Folios this concludes the preceding speech. Capell made the change. Rowe printed "All's one to me."

161. Line 182: if I were to live this present hour; i. e. and die at the end of it. Hanmer printed "live but this present hour." Dyce, following W. S. Walker, boldly prints "if I were to die." Tollet suggests that Parolles meant to say die, but fear occasioned the mistake.

162. Line 213: getting the shrieve's fool with child."Female idiots were retained in families for diversion as well as male, though not so commonly" (Douce, Illustrations, p. 198).

163. Line 222: your LORDSHIP.-The Folios have Lord, without the period, but the abbreviation was no doubt intended: corrected by Pope.

164. Line 268: by THE general's looks.-So F. 3; F. 1 and F. 2 have your, a mistake arising from the abbreviation y in the MS.

165. Line 280: He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister. -He will steal anything, however trifling, from any place, however holy.-Johnson.

166. Line 303: a place there called Mile-end.--Mile-end Green was the usual drilling ground for the London trainbands. See II. Henry IV. iii. 2. 298.

167. Lines 313, 314: and cut the entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession FOR it perpetually; i.e. and set free the estate from payment of all remainders, and (grant or sell) a perpetual succession for it. Dyce suspects some error. Hanmer altered for it to "in it.”

ACT IV. SCENE 4.

166. Line 9: Marseilles.-F. 1 spells the name of this town here Marcellæ, and in iv. 5. 85, Marcellus.

169. Line 16: Nor YOU, mistress. So F. 4. F. 1, F. 2, and F. 3 have: "Nor your Mistress.'

170. Lines 20, 21:

As it hath fated her to be my MOTIVE
And helper to a husband.

A motive is that which moves anything, so, means, instrument. Compare:

my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear [i.e. the tongue]. -Rich. II. i. 1. 192, 193.

171. Lines 30-33:

Yet, I pray you:

But, with the word, the time will bring on summer,
When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp.

Perhaps the passage admits of this explanation. Helena has just before said:

You, Diana,

Under my poor instructions yet must suffer
Something in my behalf:

To which Diana has replied:

Let death and honesty
Go with your impositions, I am yours
Upon your will to suffer:

And Helena now continues: "Yet, I pray you,” i.e. for a while I pray you BE mine to suffer: "but, with the word, the time will bring on summer," &c.; i.e. but so quickly that it may even be considered as here while we speak, the time will, &c.-Dyce. Rolfe, with greater probability, thinks that the words Yet, I pray you, merely serve to resume the thread of Helena's discourse, after Diana's impulsive interruption.

ACT IV. SCENE 5.

172. Lines 2-4: whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour.-An allusion to the fashion of wearing yellow. Warburton points out that the mention of saffron suggested the epithets unbaked and doughy, saffron being commonly used to colour pastry. So in the Winter's Tale the shepherd's son says: "I must have saffron to colour the warden pies" (Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 48).

Yellow starch was much used for bands and ruffs, and is said to have been invented by Mrs. Turner, an infamous woman, who was concerned in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and was executed at Tyburn (1615) in a lawn ruff of her favourite colour (see Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. xi. p. 328). Reed quotes Heywood, If you Know not me, you Know Nobody: "many of our young married men have tane an order to weare yellow garters, points, and shootyings; and tis thought yellow will grow a custom" (Heywood, Dramatic Works, vol. i. p. 259, ed. 1874).

179. Line 6: (Stage-direction) Enter a GENTLEMAN.-SO Rowe, followed by most editors. F. 1 has: Enter a gentle Astringer; F. 2: Enter a gentle Astranger; F. 3: Enter a Gentleman a stranger. An astringer or ostringer is, as Steevens discovered before the appearance of his second edition, a keeper of goshawks. There is, however, no apparent reason why the personage accosted by Helena should be a keeper of goshawks or of anything else, and throughout this scene the Folio prefixes "Gent" to his speeches, while in scene 3 it introduces him simply as a Gentleman."

ACT V. SCENE 2.

66

180. Line 1: Good MONSIEUR Lavache.-So Dyce. F. 1 has "Good M Lauatch."

181. Line 26: I do pity his distress in my SIMILES of comfort.-Warburton's certain emendation for "smiles of comfort" of the Folios.

182. Line 35: under HER.-Her was added in F. 2.
183. Lines 41, 42:

Par. My name, my good lord, is Parolles.
Laf. You beg more than "word," then.

A quibble: Parolles (paroles) in French is not "word but "words." F. 3 has "more than one word."

"

We lost a jewel of her; and our esteem
Was made much poorer by it.

Does our esteem mean "the esteem in which we are held by others," or "the esteem in which we hold others?" Schmidt, who explains the phrase by "we are less worth by her loss," seems to take the former view; but surely the King is contrasting his own power of estimating and appreciating true worth with that of Bertram, for he goes on to say that Bertram "lack'd the sense to know her estimation home." Now the King's esteem in which he held others was all the poorer, inasmuch as one estimable person so esteemed was lost; and this is much what Staunton means when he interprets our esteem by "the sum of all we hold estimable."

Richest eyes are eyes that have seen most beauty. pare: "to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands" (As You Like It, iv. 1. 23).

188. Line 48: Contempt his scornful PERSPECTIVE did

Our own love waking cries to see what's done,
While SHAMEFUL HATE sleeps out the afternoon.

The Globe editors read "while shame full late," &c., but change seems objectionable, because it destroys the antithesis between "love" which wakes, and "hate" which continues to sleep; I have therefore retained the original reading, which Sir Philip Perring explains as follows: hate, the "displeasures" of line 63, having destroyed our friends and done its work, enjoys its afternoon slumber, while love awakes, though too late, and weeps to see the havoc hate had made. This is fairly satisfactory; but I would add that "after weep their dust" seems to be connected by a kind of zeugma with the preceding verb "destroy," for it is we who weep, not our "displeasures;" and that the main point of the antithesis is, that hate continues to sleep unconcerned, while love awakes to weep. The Globe marks line 65 "our own love," &c., as corrupt.

190. Lines 71, 72: Count. Which better than the first, &c. -These two lines were first given to the Countess by Theobald: in the Folios they are part of the preceding speech.

191. Line 79: The last that E'ER I took her leave at court. -The last time that I ever bade her farewell at court. So the Folio, but with e'er spelt ere. Rowe printed: "The last that e'er she took her leave;" Hanmer: "The last time e'er she took her leave;" Dyce: "The last time, ere she took her leave."

192. Lines 95, 96:

noble she was, and thought

I stood ENGAG'D.

The plain meaning is: When she saw me receive the ring she thought I stood engaged to her.-Johnson. This is the most natural interpretation; but the Folio happens to *pell the word ingag'd, which Tyrwhitt, Malone, Staunton, and Schmidt (who even calls the reading engaged preposterous) explain to mean "not engaged." En and in are, however, sometimes interchangeable even in modern spelling.

193. Line 102: the tinct and multiplying medicine.The tincture, by which alchemists professed to turn baser metals into gold, and the philosopher's stone, which had the power of making a piece of gold larger.

194. Line 114: conjectural.-So F. 2; misspelt in F.1 connecturall.

195. Lines 121-123:

My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,
Shall TAX my fears of little vanity,

Having vainly fear'd too little.

"However the matter turns out, with the proofs I have already, I shall not be accused of harbouring mere groundless suspicions; hitherto I have erred in not being suspicious enough." Tax is spelt taze in F. 1.

196. Lines 148-150:

I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and TOLL for this: I'll none of him.

This is the reading of F. 1 (toll spelt toule), and probably means, "I will buy a new son-in-law in a fair, and pay toll for the liberty of selling this one;" F. 2 has: "and toule him for this," &c., which Percy takes to mean: "I'll buy me a son-in-law as they buy a horse in a fair; toul him, i.e. enter him on the toul or toll-book, to prove I came honestly by him, and ascertain my title to him." Those editors who have adopted this reading of course put a colon at "toll him:"-" and toll him: for this I'll none of him."

197. Line 155: I wonder, sir, SITH wives are MONSTERS to you. So Dyce. F. 1 has: "I wonder, sir, sir, wiues are monsters to you." F. 2 has: "I wonder, sir, wives such monsters to you."

198. Line 195: He blushes, and 'tis IT.-So Capell; F. 1 has: "and 'tis hit." Pope reads, "and 't is his;" and so Dyce.

199. Lines 215-217:

and, in fine,

HER OWN SUIT, COMING with her MODERN grace,
Subdu'd me to her rate.

For this reading, Her own suit, coming, I am indebted to Sir Philip Perring (Hard Knots, p. 166). F. 1 has Her insuite comming. Dyce, Staunton, and the Globe editors print W. S. Walker's conjecture: “Her infinite cunning;” perhaps we might read: "her onset, coming." Modern here seems to be used rather in the sense of modish, than in its ordinary Shakspearean sense of trite, commonplace. Johnson thinks it may mean meanly pretty, but he gives no other instances of the usage. Mr. W. W. Williams (The Parthenon, Nov. 1, 1862, p. 849) suggested modest, and Mr. B. G. Kinnear (Cruces Shakespearianæ, p. 160) native.

200. Line 221: May justly diet me.-See note 155. 201. Lines 305, 306:

Is there no EXORCIST

Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes? An exorcist in Shakespeare is a person who can raise spirits, not one who can lay them. So:

Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up

My mortified spirit. -Julius Cæsar, ii. 1. 323, 324. 202. Line 314: And ARE.-So Rowe; the Folios have, "And is."

73

3 247

Canary 11 (sub.) ii. 1 77 Capriccio 12.... ii. 3 310 Captious..

1 Lucrece, 922; Sonn. xxxv. 13. 2-in infantry; used frequently

in the ordinary sense.

3 As a sub. used repeatedly. 4 in a bare or naked condition; it occurs three times only. 5 nakedness here and in Sonn.

v. 8; xcvii. 4. In I. Henry IV. iv. 2. 77 the word occurs in the sense of "leanness."

6 Used elsewhere as a sub.

7 Of corn. The reading of Ff. (in a figurative sense). See note 186.

8 Used adjectively. 9 Used figuratively a cheat; occurs frequently in ordinary

sense.

10 Used transitively in Ant and Cleo. iy. 8. 33.

11a dance; and so used as a verb in Love's Labour's Lost, iii. 1. 12. Occurs three times the wine of that name.

12 An anglicized Italian word fancy, humour. See note 105.

Eagerness.... Eats 19 (intrans.) Embodied... Embossed 20. Embowelled 21.

31 Used in a peculiar sense comprehensive; occurs in Richard III. iv. 1. 59 = inclosing.

36

soiled; used, figuratively, in Hamlet, iv. 5. 81.

37 Used with in- professional experience; occurs frequently in its more usual senses.

38 Used figuratively estimation; occurs frequently elsewhere in various other senses.

Haggish.. Hawking 30. Headsman... iv. 3 342 *High-repented V. 3 *Holy-cruel iv. 2 Hoodman..... iv. 3

i.

2 29 Naturalize i. 1 105 Neatly...

Necessitied.

36 None-sparing.. iii. 32 Nose-herbs.... *Now-born ... 136

iv.

i. 1 223 3 168

3

85

2

108

iv. 5 20

ii.

3 186

Idolatrous. In (verb) i. 1 175 Inaidible.. V. 3 173 Inaudible iii. 6 107 Inclusive 31. i. *Indian-like. Intenible.

ང ཌ:ཌ

iii.

4

23