Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 303 pages of information about Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III.

Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 303 pages of information about Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III.

I.ii.25 (331,2) Confin’d to exhibition!] Is allowance.  The term is yet used in the universities.

I.ii.25 (331,3) All this done/Upon the gad!] So the old copies; the later editions read,

  —­All is gone
  Upon the gad!—­

which, besides that it is unauthorized, is less proper. To do upon the gad, is, to act by the sudden stimulation of caprice, as cattle run madding when they are stung by the gad fly.

I.ii.47 (332,4) taste of my virtue] Though taste may stand in this place, yet I believe we should read, assay or test of my virtue:  they are both metallurgical terms, and properly joined.  So in Hamlet,

  Bring me to the test.

I.ii.51 (323,6) idle and fond] Weak and foolish.

I.ii.95 (333,7) pretence] Pretence is design, purpose.  So afterwards in this play,

  Pretence and purpose of unkindness.

I.ii.106 (333,8) wind me into him] I once thought it should be read, you into him; but, perhaps, it is a familiar phrase, like do me this.

I.ii.107 (333,9) I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution] [i.e.  I will throw aside all consideration of my relation to him, that I may act as justice requires.  WARBURTON.] Such is this learned man’s explanation.  I take the meaning to be rather this, Do you frame the business, who can act with less emotion; I would unstate myself; it would in me be a departure from the paternal character, to be in a due resolution, to be settled and composed on such an occasion.  The words would and should are in old language often confounded.

I.ii.l09 (334,1) convey the business] [Convey, for introduce.  WARB.] To convey is rather to carry through than to introduce; in this place it is to manage artfully:  we say of a juggler, that he has a clean conveyance.

I.ii.112 (334,2) These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us:  tho’ the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg’d by the frequent effects] That is, though natural philosophy can give account of eclipses, yet we feel their consequences.

I.ii.156 (338,8) I promise you, the effects he writes of, succeed unhappily] The folio edition commonly differs from the first quarto, by augmentations or insertions, but in this place it varies by omission, and by the omission of something which naturally introduces the following dialogue.  It is easy to remark, that in this speech, which ought, I think, to be inserted as it now is in the text, Edmund, with the common craft of fortune-tellers, mingles the past and future, and tells of the future only what he already foreknows by confederacy, or can attain by probable conjecture. (see 1765, VI, 27, 6)

I.ii.178 (339,1) that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay] This reading is in both copies; yet I believe the author gave it, that but with the mischief of your person it would scarce allay.

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Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.