Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo: 525 I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue. ness: There's more behind that is more gratulate. 530 536 What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine. [Exeunt. ISRAEL GOLLANCZ'S NOTES TO MEASURE FOR MEASURE I. i. 8, 9. The gap is not in the Folios, but is due to Theobald's plausible theory that the obscurity of the passage is owing to some careless omission on the part of the printers. Various attempts have been made to explain the lines; by Johnson : "But that to your sufficiencies your worth is abled;" by Farmer: "But your sufficiency as worth is able;" and Theobald supplied the missing words thus, "But that to your sufficiency you add Due diligency as your worth is able.” I. i. 43. Hold therefore, Angelo; the Duke probably says these words on tendering the commission to Angelo. I. ii. 27. there went but a pair of shears between us; that is, we are of one piece. I. ii. 116, 117. Compare Romans, ix. 15, 18: "For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy;" and again, «Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.” I. ii. 128. morality; the Folios misprint "mortality." I. ii. 143. Propagation; Folio 1 reads "propogation; corrected in Folio 2. "Prorogation," "procuration," "preservation,” have been suggested by various editors; but the text as it stands is probably correct, though not altogether clear. "Propagation" "increase;" perhaps the word implies "increase of interest," and "for propogation" "that she might continue to receive the interest, which was to be hers while she remained unmarried." = = " and I. iii. 43. To do in slander; so the Folios; "me "it" have been suggested for "in," but no change is "do in " "bring in, bring upon me." necessary; II. i. 39. Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none; the line as it stands in the Folios is obviously corrupt, Shakespeare prob" brakes thickets, hence and has occasioned much discussion. ably wrote " brakes of vice; ' entanglements; "brakes of vice" is antithetical to "a fault alone" in the next line. Compare Henry VIII. i. 2. 75, “the rough brake That virtue must go through." The line therefore means, "Some escape from whole thickets of sin, and pay no penalty." Judging by the passage in Henry VIII., through for from would perhaps be an improvement. II. i. 125. an open room; Schmidt reads "public room;" perhaps it means "open to the sun; light, cheerful." II. ii. 79. Like man new made. Commentators are strongly tempted to refer the words to "new-made man,” "And that is, Adam. Holt White paraphrased thus: you, Angelo, will breathe new life into Claudio, as the Creator animated Adam by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life." Malone explains: "You will then appear as tender-hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence, immediately after his creation." Schmidt and others, "Like man redeemed and regenerated by divine grace." The lines are perhaps capable of this interpretation: And mercy will breathe within your lips, even as Mercy (God) breathed within the lips of new-made man. II. ii. 90. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept. Holt White says: “Dormiunt aliquando leges, moriuntur nunquam,' is a well-known maxim in law." II. ii. 159. Where prayers cross; that is, where his prayer to possess Isabella crosses with hers, "Heaven keep your honour safe!" II. iii. 11. The flaws of her own youth; possibly Warburton's correction "flames should be adopted. Compare Hamlet, iii. 4. 84, 85, "To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire." Hanmer's II. iii. 40. O injurious love (Folios loue'). suggestion of "law" for "loue" has been generally accepted; the law respited her "a life whose very comfort " was "a dying horror." II. iv. 9. Fear'd; probably an error of 'feared,' that is, seared,' which, according to Collier, is the reading of Lord Ellesmere's copy of the first Folio. II. iv. 103. That longing have been sick for; Rowe suggested, "That longing I've been sick for." II. iv. 172. O perilous mouths; the line is defective as it stands. Walker conjectures "O pernicious mouths," and Seymour, "O these perilous mouths." III. i. 95, 98. Prenzie. The source of this strange word has baffled students; it seems identical with the Scottish primsie, "demure, precise," which in its turn is connected with prim (in Old French prin, pren). Under any circumstances there is no reason why the word should be changed, as has been proposed, to "princely" (the reading of the second Folio), or to "priestly," "pensive,” etc. III. ii. 7-9. furred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify that craft, being richer than innocency, etc. Cowden Clarke says: "The passage seems to us to imply, furred (that is, lined with lamb-skin fur inside, and trimmed with foxskin fur outside) with both kinds of fur, to show that craft (fox-skin), being richer than innocency (lamb-skin), is used for decoration." III. ii. 10, 11. Good father friar good brother father; the joke, as Tyrwhitt pointed out, would be clearer in French, "mon père frère mon frère père.” III. ii. 36. From our faults, as faults from seeming, free ! So Folio 1. Folios 2 and 3, "Free from our faults," etc. Folio 4, "Free from all faults," etc. Hanmer corrects the latter part of the line thus: "As from faults seeming free." As it stands in the text, it would seem to mean, "Would that we were as free from faults, as our faults are from seeming (hypocrisy)." One feels inclined to hazard, "Free from our faults, as from false seeming free." Cp. ii. 4. 15, "To thy false seeming." III. ii. 214. security enough to make fellowships accurst ; cp. Proverbs, xi. 15. III. ii. 243–264. These lines are in all probability not Shakespeare's, but by another hand. |