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The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [2413]

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for the poets to express cruelty by saying, of those who commit it, that they were born of rocks, or suckled by tigresses.

III. v. 48 (305, 8) [That can entame ay spirits to your worship]

[W: entraine] The common reading seems unexceptionable.

III. v. 62 (305, 9) [Foal is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer] [W: being found] The sense of the received reading is not fairly represented; it is, The ugly seem most ugly, when, though ugly, they are scoffers.

III.v.78 (306,2) [Though all the world could see, None could be so abus'd in sight, as he] Though all mankind could look on you, none could be so deceived as to think you beautiful but he.

IV.i.37 (309,3) [swam in a gondola] That is, been at Venice, the sweat at that tine of all licentiousness, where the young English gentlemen waited their fortunes, debased their morals, and sometimes lost their religion.

The fashion of travelling, which prevailed very much in our author's time, was considered by the wiser men as one of the principal causes of corrupt manners. It was therefore gravely censored by Aschaa in his Schoolmaster, and by bishop Hall in his Quo Vadis; and is here, and in other passages, ridiculed by Shakespeare.

IV.i.157 (312,6) [and that when you are inclin'd to sleep] [W: to weep] I know not why we should read to weep. I believe most men would be more angry to have their sleep hindered than their grief interrupted.

IV.i.168 (313,8) [Wit, whither wilt?] This must be some allusion to a story well known at that time, though not perhaps irretrievable.

IV.i.177 (313,9) [make her fault her husband's occasion] That is, represent her fault as occasioned by her husband. Sir T. Banner reads, her husband's accusation.

IV.i.195 (314,1) [I will think you the most pathetical break-promise] [W: atheistical] I do not see but that pathetical may stand, which seems to afford as much sense and as much humour as atheistical.

IV.ii.14 (315,2) [Take thou no scorn] [T: In former editions: Then sing him home, the rest shall bear his burden. This is an admirable instance of the sagacity of our preceding editors, to say nothing worse. One should expect, when they were poets, they would at least have taken care of the rhimes, and not foisted in what has nothing to answer it. Now, where is the rhime to, the rest shall bear this burden? Or, to ask another question, where is the sense of it? Does the poet mean, that He, that kill'd the deer, shall be sung home, and the rest shall bear the deer on their backs? This is laying a burden on the poet, that we mist help him to throw off. In short, the mystery of the whole is, that a marginal note is wisely thrust into the text: the song being design'd to be sung by a single voice, and the stanzas to close with a burden to be sung by the whole company.] This note I have given as a specimen of Mr. Theobald's jocularity, and the eloquence with which he recommends his emendations.

IV.iii (316,4) [Enter Rosalind and Celia] The foregoing noisy scene was introduced only to fill up an interval, which is to represent two hours. This contraction of the time we might impute to poor Rosalind's impatience, but that a few minutes after we find Orlando sending his excuse. I do not see that by any probable division of the acts this absurdity can be obviated.

IV.iii.48 (318,3) [That could do no vengeance to me] Vengeance is used for mischief.

IV.iii.59 (318,4) [youth and kind] Kind is the old word for nature.

IV.iii.101 (319,5) [Within an hour] We must read, within two hours.

IV.iii.160 (321,6) [cousin—Ganymed!] Celia in her first fright forgets Rosalind's character and disguise, and calls out cousin, then recollects herself, and says Ganymed.

V.ii.21 (325,9) [And you, fair sister] I know not why Oliver should call Rosalind sister. He takes her yet to be a man. I suppose we should read, and you, and your fair sister.

V.ii.45 (326,1) [Clubs cannot part them] Alluding to the way of parting dogs in wrath.

V.ii.74 (327,2) [human as she is] That is, not a phantom, but the real Rosalind, without any of the danger generally conceived to attend the rites

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