The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [2400]
And human mortals want their wonted year,
yet will not this licence of alteration much mend the narrative;
the cause and the effect are still confounded. Let us carry critical temerity a little further. Scaliger transposed the lines of Virgil's Gallus. Why may not the same experiment be ventured upon Shakespeare.
The human mortals want their wonted year,
The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
An od'rous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mock'ry set. The spring, the summer,
The chiding autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
No night is now with hymn or carol blest;
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air;
And thorough this distemperature, we see
That rheumatick diseases do abound.
And this same progeny of evil comes
From our debate, from our dissension.
I know not what credit the reader will give to this emendation, which I do not much credit myself.
II.i.114 (31,4) [By their increase] That is, By their produce.
II.i.130 (32,6) [Which she, with pretty and with swimming gate, Following] [cf: follying] The foregoing note is very ingenious, but since follying is a word of which I know not any example, and the Fairy's favourite might, without much licentiousness of language, be said to follow a ship that sailed in the direction of the coast; I think there is no sufficient reason for adopting it. The coinage of new words is a violent remedy, not to be used but in the last necessity.
II.i.157 (35,8) [Cupid all-arm'd] All-armed, does not signify dressed in panoply, but only enforces the word armed, as we might say all-booted. I am afraid that the general sense of alarmed, by which it is used for put into fear or care by whatever cause, is later than our authour.
II.i.220 (38,4) [For that It is not night when I do see your face]
This passage is paraphrased from two lines of an ancient poet,
—Tu nocte vel atra
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis.
(see 1765, I,118,6)
II.i.251 (39,5) [over-canopy'd with the luscious woodbine] All the old editions have,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine.
On the margin of one of my folio's an unknown hand has written lush woodbine, which, I think, is right.
This hand I have since discovered to be Theobald's, (see 1765,
I,119,4)
II.ii. (41,9) [quaint spirits] For this Dr. Warburton reads against all authority,
——quaint sports.——
But Prospero, in The Tempest, applies quaint to Ariel.
II.ii.30 (42.2) [Be it ounce]
The ounce is a snail tiger, or tiger-cat. (1773)
II.ii.45 (43,3)
[O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence;
Love takes the meaning in love's conference]
[Warburton wished to transpose "innocence" and "conference"] I am by no means convinced of the necessity of this alteration. Lysander in the language of love professes, that as they have one heart, they shall have one bed; this Hernia thinks rather too much, and intreats him to lye further off. Lysander answers,
O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence.
understand the meaning of my innocence, or my innocent meaning. Let no suspicion of ill enter thy mind.
Love takes the meaning, in love's conference.
In the conversation of those who are assured of each other's kindness, not suspicion, but love takes the meaning. No malevolent interpretation is to be made, but all is to be received in the sense which love can find, and which love can dictate.
II.ii.89 (45,6) [my grace] My acceptableness, the favour that I can gain. (1773)
II.ii.120 (46,7) [Reason becomes the marshal to my will] That is,