The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [2397]
V.ii.823 (467,8) [To flatter up these powers of mine with rest] Dr. Warburton would read fetter, but flatter or sooth is, in my opinion, more apposite to the king's purpose than fetter. Perhaps we may read,
To flatter on these hours of time with rest;
That is, I would not deny to live in the hermitage, to make the year of delay pass in quiet.
V.ii.873 (469,2) [dear groans] Dear should here, as in many other places, be dere, sad, odious.
V.ii.904 (470,3) [When daisies pied, and violets blue] The first lines of this song that were transposed, have been replaced by Mr. Theobald.
V.ii.907 (470,5) [Do paint the meadows with delight] [W: much bedight] Much less elegant than the present reading.
(472,7) General Observation. In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of him.
Vol. III
A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM
I.i.6 (4,2) [Long withering out a young man's revenue] [W: wintering] That the common reading is not good English, I cannot perceive, and therefore find in myself no temptation to change it.
I.i.47 (5,6) [To leave the figure, or disfigure it] [W: 'leve] I know not why so harsh a word should be admitted with so little need, a word that, spoken, could not be understood, and of which no example can be shown. The sense is plain, you owe to your father a being which he may at pleasure continue or destroy.
I.i.68 (6,8) [Know of your youth] Bring your youth to the question.
Consider your youth. (1773)
I.i.76 (7,9) [But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd] Thus all the copies, yet earthlier is so harsh a word, and earthlier happy for happier earthly, a mode of speech so unusual, that I wonder none of the editors have proposed earlier happy.
I.i.110 (8,2) [spotted] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked. (1773)
I.i.131 (9,3) [Beteem them] give them, bestow upon then. The word is used by Spenser.
I.i.157 (10,8) [I have a widow aunt, a dowager] These lines perhaps might more properly be regulated thus:
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child,
And she respects me as her only son;
Her house from Athens is remov'd seven leagues,
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place—
I.i.169-178 (11,1) [Warburton had reassigned speeches here] This emendation is judicious, but not necessary. I have therefore given the note without altering the text. The censure of men, as oftner perjured than women, seems to make that line more proper for the lady.
I.i.183 (12,3) [Your eyes are lode-stars] This was a complement not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode star is the leading or guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the same reason, called the lode-stone, either became it leads iron, or because it guides the sailor. Milton has the same thought in L'Allegro:
Tow'rs and battlements he sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes.
Davies calls Elizabeth, lode-stone to hearts, and lode-stone to all eyes, (see 1765, 1,97,9)
I.i.204 (13,6)
[Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me]
Perhaps every reader may not discover the propriety of these lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to consider the power of pleasing, as an advantage to be much envied or much desired, since Hermia, whom she considers as possessing it in the supreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness.
I.i.232 (15,8) [Things base and vile, holding no quantity] quality seems a word more suitable to the sense than quantity, but either may serve. (1773)
I.i.240 (15,9) [in game] Game here signifies not contentious play, but sport, jest. So Spenser,
'Twixt earnest and 'twixt game.
I.ii (16,2) [Enter Quince the carpenter, Snug the joiner. Bottom