III.ii.25 (69,1) tun’d too sharp in sweetness]—and too sharp in sweetness,] So the folio and all modern editions; but the quarto more accurately,
—tun’d too sharp in sweetness.
III.ii.99 (71,4) our head shall go bare, ’till merit crown it] I cannot forbear to observe, that the quarto reads thus: Our head shall go bare, ’till merit lower part no affection, in reversion, &c. Had there been no other copy, hov could this have been corrected? The true reading is in the folio.
III.ii.102 (72,5) his addition shall be humble] We will give him no high or pompous titles.
III.ii.162 (74,6)
but
you are wise,
Or else you love not; to be wise and love,
Exceeds man’s might]
I read,
—but we’re not
wise,
Or else we love not; to be wise
and love,
Exceeds man’s might;—
Cressida, in return to the praise given by Troilus to her wisdom, replies, “That lovers are never wise; that it is beyond the power of man to bring love and wisdom to an union.”
III.ii.173 (74,8) Might be affronted with the match] I wish “my integrity might be met and matched with such equality and force of pure unmingled love.”
III.ii.184 (75,2) As true as steel, as plantage to the moon] Plantage is not, I believe, a general term, but the herb which we now call plantain, in Latin, plantago, which was, I suppose, imagined to be under the peculiar influence of the moon.
III.ii.187 (76,3)
Yet after all comparisons of truth,
As truth’s authentic author to be
cited
As true as Troilus, shall crown
up the verse]
Troilus shall crown the verse, as a man to be cited as the authentic author of truth; as one whose protestations were true to a proverb.
III.iii.1-16 (77,5) Now, princes, for the service I have done you] I am afraid, that after all the learned commentator’s [Warburton’s] efforts to clear the argument of Calchas, it will still appear liable to objection; nor do I discover more to be urged in his defence, than that though his skill in divination determined him to leave Troy, jet that he joined himself to Agamemnon and his army by unconstrained good-will; and though he came as a fugitive escaping from destruction, yet his services after his reception, being voluntary and important, deserved reward. This argument is not regularly and distinctly deduced, but this is, I think, the best explication that it will yet admit.
III.iii.4 (78,6) through the sight I bear in things, to Jove] This passage in all the modern editions is silently depraved, and printed thus:
—through the sight I bear in things to come.
The word is so printed that nothing but the sense can determine whether it be love or Jove. I believe that the editors read it as love, and therefore made the alteration to obtain some meaning.