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The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [2526]

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which is undoubtedly better than the old reading which Dr. Warburton has followed; but the sense yet seems to be weak, and perhaps a more licentious correction is necessary. I read therefore,

I had no interest in your heat's preceding.

This, says the prince, is no quarrel of mine, I had no interest in your former discord; I suffer merely by your private animosity.

III.ii.5 (79,3) Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,/That run-away's eyes may wink] [Warburton explained the "run-away" as the "sun"] I am not satisfied with this explanation, yet have nothing better to propose.

III.ii.10 (80,4) Come, civil night] Civil is grave, decently solemn.

III.ii.14 (80,5) unmann'd blood] Blood yet unacquainted with man.

III.ii.25 (81,6) the garish sun] Milton had this speech in his thoughts when he wrote Il Penseroso.

"—Civil night,

"Thou sober-suited matron."—Shakespeare.

"Till civil-suited morn appear."—Milton.

"Pay no worship to the gairish sun."—Shakespeare.

"Hide me from day's gairish eye."—Milton.

III.ii.46 (82,7) the death-darting eye of cockatrice] [The strange lines that follow here in the common books are not in the old edition. POPE.] The strange lines are these:

I am not I, if there be such an I,

Or these eyes shot, that makes thee answer I;

If he be slain, say I; or if not, no;

Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

These lines hardly deserve emendatien; yet it may be proper to observe, that their meanness has not placed them below the malice of fortune, the two first of them being evidently transposed; we should read,

—That one vowel I shall poison more,

Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice,

Or these eyes shot, that make thee answer, I.

I am not I, &c.

III.ii.114 (85,9) Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts] Hath put Tybalt out of my mind, as if out of being.

III.ii.120 (85,1) Which modern lamentation might have mov'd] This line is left out of the later editions, I suppose because the editors did not remember that Shakespeare uses modern for common, or slight: I believe it was in his time confounded in colloquial language with moderate.

III.iii.112 (89,4)

Unseemly woman in a seeming man!

And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!]

[W: seeming groth] The old reading is probable. Thou art a beast of ill qualities, under the appearance both of a woman and a man.

III.iii.135 (90,5) And thou dismember'd with thine own defence] And thou torn to pieces with thy own weapons.

III.iii.166-168 (91,6) Go hence. Good night] These three lines are omitted in all the modern editions.

III.iii.166 (91,7) here stands all your state] The whole of your fortune depends on this.

III.iv.12 (92,9) Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender/Of my child's love] Desperate means only bold, advent'rous, as if he had said in the vulgar phrase, I will speak a bold word, and venture to promise you my daughter.

III.v.20 (94,1) 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow] The appearance of a cloud opposed to the moon.

III.v.23 (94,2) I have more care to stay, than will to go] Would it be better thus, I have more will to stay, than care to go?

III.v.31 (94,3) Some say, the lark and loathed toad chang'd eyes] This tradition of the toad and lark I hare heard expressed in a rustick rhyme,

—to heav'n I'd fly,

But the toad beguil'd me of my eye.

III.v.33 (95,4)

Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,

Hunting thee hence with huntaup to the day]

These two lines are omitted in the modern editions, and do not deserve to be replaced, but as they may shew the danger of critical temerity. Dr. Warburton's change of I would to I wot was specious enough, yet it it is evidently erroneous. The sense is this, The lark, they say, has lost her eyes to the toad, and now I would the toad had her voice too, since she uses it to the disturbance of lovers.

III.v.86 (97,3)

Jul. Ay, Madam, from the reach of these my hands:

'Would, none but I might venge my cousin's death.!]

Juliet's equivocations are rather too artful for a mind disturbed by the loss of a new lover.

III.v.91 (98,4) That shall bestow on hin so sure a draught]

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