I will try again, and read thus,

  —­others you permit
  To second ills with ills, each other worse,
  And make them trade it, to the doers’ thrift.

Trade and thrift correspond.  Our author plays with trade, as it signifies a lucrative vocation, or a frequent practice.  So Isabella says,

  “Thy sins, not accidental, but a trade.”

V.i.16 (273,9) Do your best wills,/And make me blest to obey!] So the copies.  It was more in the manner of our author to have written,

  —­Do your blest wills,
  And make me blest t’ obey.—­

V.iii.41 (276,3) A rout, confusion thick] [W:  confusion-thick] I do not see what great addition is made to fine diction by this compound.  Is it not as natural to enforce the principal event in a story by repetition, as to enlarge the principal figure in a figure?

V.iii.51 (276,4) bugs] Terrors.

V.iii.53 (277,5) Nay, do not wonder at it] [T:  do but] There is no need of alteration.  Posthumus first bids him not wonder, then tells him in another mode of reproach, that wonder is all that he was made for.

V.iii.79 (278,8) great the answer be] Answer, as once in this play before, is retaliation.

V.iii.87 (278,9) That gave the affront with them] That is, that turned their faces to the enemy.

V.iv.1 (279,1) You shall not now be stolen, you have locks upon you;/So, graze, as you find pasture] This wit of the gaoler alludes to the custom of putting a lock on a horse’s leg, when he is turned to pasture.

V.iv.27 (280,3) If you will take this audit, take this life,/And cancel those cold bonds] This equivocal use of bonds is another instance of our author’s infelicity in pathetic speeches.

V.iv.45 (281,5) That from me my Posthumus ript] The old copy reads,

  That from me was Posthumus ript.

Perhaps we should read,

  That from my womb Posthumus ript,
      Came crying ’mongst his foes.

V.iv.146 (284,7)

  ’Tis still a dream; or else such stuff, as madmen
  Tongue, and brain not:  either both or nothing: 
  Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such
  As sense cannot untie.  Be what it is,
  The action of my life is like it]

The meaning, which is too thin to be easily caught, I take to be this:  This is a dream or madness, or both—­or nothing—­but whether it be a speech without consciousness, as in a dream, or a speech unintelligible, as in madness, be it as it is, it is like my course of life.  We might perhaps read,

  Whether both, or nothing—­

V.iv,164 (285,8) sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much] Tavern bills, says the gaoler, are the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth—­you depart reeling with too much drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and—­what? sorry that you are paid too much.  Where is the opposition?  I read, And merry that you are paid so much.  I take the second paid to be paid, for appaid, filled, satiated.