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.

proves you a traitor; for virtue must wear its proper form, though that form be often counterfeited by villany.

IV.iii.26 (502,6) Why in that rawness left you wife and children] Without previous provision, without due preparation, without maturity of counsel.

IV.iii.33 (502,7) Wear thou thy wrongs] That is, Poor country, wear thou thy wrongs.

IV.iii.69 (503,1) Sudden, malicious] [Sudden, for capricious.  WARBUR.] Rather violent, passionate, hasty.

IV.iii.85 (504,2) Than summer seeming lust] When I was younger and bolder I corrected it thus,

  Than fume, or seething lust.

that is, Than angry passion, or boiling lust. (1773)

IV.iii.135 (506,4) All ready at a point] [W:  at appoint] There is no need of change.

IV.iii.136 (506,5) and the chance of goodness/Be like our warranted quarrel!] The chance of goodness, as it is commonly read, conveys no sense.  If there be not some more important errour in the passage, it should at least be pointed thus: 

  —­and the chance, of goodness,
  Be like our warranted quarrel
!—­

That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [pro justitia divina] answerable to the cause.

The author of the Revisal conceives the sense of the passage to be rather this:  And may the success of that goodness, which is about to exert itself in my behalf, be such as may be equal to the justice of my quarrel.

But I am inclined to believe that Shakespeare wrote,

  —­and the chance, O goodness,
  Be like our warranted quarrel!—­

This some of his transcribers wrote with a small o, which another imagined to mean of.  If we adopt this reading, the sense will be, and O thou sovereign Goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune answer to our cause. (see 1765, VI, 462, 7)

IV.iii.170 (508,9) A modern ecstacy] I believe modern is only foolish or trifling.

IV.iii.196 (509,2), fee-grief] A peculiar sorrow; a grief that hath a single owner.  The expression is, at least to our ears, very harsh.

IV.iii.216 (511,4) He has no children] It has been observed by an anonymous critic, that this is not said of Macbeth, who had children, but of Malcolm, who having none, supposes a father.

V.i.86 (515,8) My mind she has mated] [Conquer’d or subdued.  POPE.] Rather astonished, confounded.

V.ii.24 (516,1) When all that is within him does condemn/Itself, for being there?] That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnation.

V.iii.1 (516,2) Bring me no more reports] Tell me not any more of desertions—­Let all ny subjects leave me—­I am safe till, &c.

V.iii.8 (517,3) English Epicures] The reproach of Epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against, those who have more opportunities of luxury.

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