III.i.2 (71,1) The day is hot] It is observed, that in Italy almost all assassinations are committed during the heat of summer.

III.i.124 (75,6) This day’s black fate on more days does depend] This day’s unhappy destiny hangs over the days yet to come.  There will yet be more mischief.

III.i.141 (78,7) Oh!  I am fortune’s fool] I am always running in the way of evil fortune, like the fool in the play. Thou art death’s fool, in Measure for Measure.  See Dr. Warburton’s note.

III.i.153 (77,8) as thou art true] As thou art just and upright.

III.i.159 (77,9) How nice the quarrel] How slight, how unimportant, how petty.  So in the last act,

  The letter was not nice, but full of charge
  Of dear import.

III.i.182 (78,2) Affection makes him false] The charge of falshood on Bonvolio, though produced at hazard, is very just.  The author, who seems to intend the character of Bonvolio as good, meant perhaps to shew, how the best minds, in a state of faction and discord, are detorted to criminal partiality.

III.i.193 (78,3) I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding:  Sir Thomas Hanmer saw that this line gave no sense, and therefore put, by a very easy change,

  I have an interest in your heat’s proceeding!

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,