The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [2407]
IV.i.214 (193,8) [malice bears down truth] Malice oppresses honesty, a true man in old language is an honest man. We now call the
jury good men and true.
IV.i.382 (198,8) [I am content] The terms proposed have been misunderstood. Antonio declares, that as the duke quits one half of the forfeiture, he is likewise content to abate his claim, and desires not the property but the use or produce only of the half, and that only for the Jew's life, unless we read, as perhaps is right, upon my death.
V.i.63 (204,3) [Such harmony is in immortal souls] [W: sounds] This passage is obscure. Immortal sounds is a harsh combination of words, yet Milton uses a parallel expression:
Spiritus & rapidos qui circinat igneus orbes,
Nunc quoque sidereis intercinit ipse choreia
Immortale melos, & inenarrabile curmen.
It is proper to exhibit the lines as they stand in the copies of the first, second, third, and fourth editions, without any variation, for a change has been silently made, by Rowe, and adopted by all the succeeding editors.
Such harmony is in immortal souls, But while this muddy vesture of decay Doth grosly close in it, we cannot hear it.
That the third is corrupt must be allowed, but it gives reason to suspect that the original was,
Doth grosly close it in.
Yet I know not whether from this any thing better can be produced than the received reading. Perhaps harmony is the power of perceiving harmony, as afterwards, Musick in the soul is the quality of being moved with concord of sweet sounds. This will somewhat explain the old copies, but the sentence is still imperfect; which might be completed by reading,
Such harmony is in th' immortal soul, But while this muddy vesture of decay Doth grosly close it in, we cannot hear it. (1773)
V.i.66 (205,4) [wake Diana with a hymn] Diana is the moon, who is in the next scene represented as sleeping.
V.i.99 (207,6) [Nothing is good, I see, without respect] Not absolutely good, but relatively, good as it is modified by circumstances.
V.i.129 (208,7) [Let me give light] There is scarcely any word with which Shakespeare delights to trifle as with light, in its various significations.
V.i.203 (210,2)
[What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleas'd to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?]
This is a very licentious expression. The sense is, What man could have so little modesty or wanted modesty so much, as to urge the demand of a thing kept on an account in some sort religious. (see 1785, 1,476,7)
V.i.249 (212,4) [I once did lend my body for his wealth] For his advantage; to obtain his happiness. Wealth was, at that time, the term opposite to adversity, or calamity.
V.i.294 (213,5) [Lor. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way Of starved people] [Shakespeare is not more exact in any thing, than in adapting his images with propriety to his speakers; of which he has here given an instance in making the young Jewess call good fortune, manna. Warburton.] The commentator should have remarked, that this speech is not, even in his own edition, the speech of the Jewess.
V.i.307 (214,6) [Exeunt omnes] It has been lately discovered, that this fable is taken from a story in the Pecorope of Ser Giovauni Fiorentino, a novellist, who wrote in 1378. The story has been published in English, and I have epitomised the translation. The translator is of opinion, that the choice of the caskets is borrowed from a tale of Boccace, which I have likewise abridged, though I believe that Shakespeare must have had some other novel in view.
(223) General Observation. Of The MERCHANT of VENICE the stile is even and easy, with few peculiarities of diction, or anomalies of construction. The comick part raises laughter, and the serious fixes expectation. The probability of either one or the other story cannot be maintained. The union of two actions in one event is in this drama eminently happy. Dryden