47. these vile. The reading of Jennens. The quartos have this vilde,' the vilde,' or 'the vild.'

50. monsters of the deep. See i. 4. 252.

Ib. Milk-liver'd. See ii. 2. 15, and The Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 86. 53-59. that... so? Omitted in the folios.

53. not know'st. See above, line 2.

56. noiseless, with no sound of preparation for war.

57. thy state begins to threat. This reading is the conjecture of Eccles first adopted by Staunton. The quartos have, thy slayer begin threats,' 'thy slaier begins threats,' and 'thy, state begins thereat,' the last being the reading of the corrected copies of the earliest impression.

58. moral, moralizing.

Ib. sit'st . . . criest.

§ 340.

The quartos have 'sits... cries.'

60. Proper deformity. Compare 2 Henry IV, iv. 1. 37:

If damn'd commotion so appear'd

In his true native and most proper shape.'

See Abbott,

Delius understands it of a deformity which conceals itself under a fair exterior, and quotes in support of this explanation Twelfth Night, ii. 2.30:

How easy is it for the proper-false

In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!'

But while falsehood may put on the appearance of truth, it seems a contradiction in terms to make ugliness disguise itself under the mask of beauty. Besides this interpretation would require some such word as specious' instead of 'horrid' in the next line.

Ib. shews. The reading of the corrected copies of the quarto mentioned above is shewes.' The others have seems.'

62-68. Thou . . . mew. Omitted in the folios.

62. self-cover'd, who hast disguised thyself in this unnatural and fiendlike shape.

63. thy feature, thy natural form of woman. the whole outward shape, as in Richard III, i. 1. 19:

Feature' is applied to

'Cheated of feature by dissembling nature.'

And Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 5. 112:

'Bid him

Report the feature of Octavia.'

63. Were't my fitness, were it becoming in me.

64. blood, see iii. 5. 20.

66. howe'er, although, notwithstanding. Compare Julius Cæsar, i. 2. 303:

'So is he now in execution

Of any bold or noble enterprise,

However he puts on this tardy form.'

68. your manhood mew, that is, keep it in, restrain it.

Mew' followed

by a dash is the reading of the corrected copies of the earliest quarto. The others have now.'

73. remorse, compassion; not necessarily compunction. Compare Macbeth. i. 5. 45:

'Stop up the access and passage to remorse.'

And The Tempest, v. 1. 76.

74. bending, directing.

Compare Richard III, i. 2. 95:

'Queen Margaret saw

Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;

The which thou once didst bend against her breast.'

76. fell'd him. For the omission of the nominative compare ii. 4. 41, and see Abbott, § 399.

79. justicers. See iii. 6. 21. 'Iustisers' is the reading of the corrected copies of the quarto. The others and the folios have 'justices.'

83. One way. One bar to her ambition was removed by the death of Cornwall; her plot being to marry Edmund and seize the whole kingdom.

85. the building of my fancy. Steevens quotes Coriolanus, ii. 1. 216: 'My very wishes

And the buildings of my fancy.'

86. another way, in contrast with what she has just been saying. She really takes the same view of the position as in the first line of her speech.

90. back again, on his way back.

Scene III.

The whole scene is omitted in the folios.

4. imports, implies. See Hamlet, iv. 7. 82.

II. Ay, sir. Theobald's correction of the 'I say' of the quartos.

12. trill'd, trickled. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) has Transcouler, To glide, slide, slip, runne, trill, or trickle, (also, to straine) through.'

14. who, passion being personified. So also in line 17.

19. a better way. This is the reading of the quartos, but it is not clear what sense can be made of it. Singer, following Boaden, takes the phrase adverbially; her smiles and tears were like sunshine and rain at once, but in a better way as being more beautiful. The emendations which have been proposed, such as Warburton's wetter May,' Theobald's 'better day' adopted by Steevens, Malone's better May,' are none of them perfectly satisfactory. The substitution of 'May' for 'way' would be well enough but for the adjective 'better' which accompanies it.

6

moistened her.' Sidney

Compare the

The objection

Ib. smilets, a purely Shakespearian diminutive. 31. clamour moisten'd. The quartos read Walker combined the two words as an epithet of 'eyes.' full-fraught man and best indued,' Henry V. ii. 2. 139. to this is that 'clamour' is the outcry and not the tears by which it was accompanied, but perhaps the clamour is the indirect cause of the tears Malone regarded clamour' as the object of moisten'd.' Delius takes 'moisten'd' as an intransitive verb. There is probably some corruption.

34. one self mate and mate, one and the same pair. For 'self' see Twelfth Night, i. I. 39.

35. spoke not. We should say have not spoken.' Compare 2 Henry VI, ii. 1. 2: 'I saw not better sport these seven years' day.'

42. elbows, stands at his elbow and reminds him of the past. Compare 2 Henry IV, i. 2. 81.

44. foreign casualties, the chances of life in another country. 51. dear. See iii. 1. 19.

Scene IV.

3. fumiter, fumitory, which Hanmer reads. The quartos have femiter '; the folios Fenitar.' In Gerarde's Herball (1597), p. 930, among the names of this plant is given 'In French and English Fumiterre.' See Henry V, v. 2. 45, where the first three folios have 'femetary.'

4. hor-docks, the reading of the quartos is retained, though it is not known what plant is intended. The folios have 'Hardokes' and ' Hardocks,' and to these words the same remark applies. The other readings which have been proposed are mere conjectures, and it is impossible to decide between them. Hanmer has 'bur-docks,' Steevens 'harlocks'; another proposes charlocks,' which is another name for the same plant; and Dr. Nicholson suggests 'hediokes.' I find 'hardhake' is given as the equivalent of Jacea nigra (or knapweed) in a MS. herbal in the library of Trinity College Cambridge (R. 14. 32); and in John Russell's Boke of Nurture (Early English Text Society, 1868), p. 183, is mentioned yardehok,' which is apparently a kind of hock or mallow. If the botanists could identify the plants mentioned under these names, either of them could easily be corrupted into 'Hardokes,' or 'hor-docks.'

6

Ib. cuckoo-flowers, called also, according to Gerarde, ladies' smocks, and wild watercress (Cardamine pratensis), 'flower for the most part in Aprill and Maie, when the Cuckowe doth begin to sing her pleasant notes without stammering.' (Herball, p. 203.)

6. A century, a troop of a hundred men. So in Coriolanus, i. 7. 3: 'If I do send, dispatch

Those centuries to our aid.'

8. What can man's wisdom, &c. Some of the quartos supply 'do'; but see Troilus and Cressida, ii. 2. 135:

'For what, alas, can these my single arms?'

10. helps, cures. See note on The Tempest, ii. 2. 85.

15. anguish, generally used in Shakespeare of physical pain. See iv. 6. 6.

17. aidant, helping. Compare conspirant,' v. 3. 136.

Ib. remediate, healing; a word of Shakespeare's coinage, which he seems to have formed on the model of immediate.'

26. important, importunate, which is Capell's reading. The folios have 'importun'd.' Compare Much Ado about Nothing, ii. I. 74: 'If the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every thing.'

27. No blown ambition, not like

'Cæsar's ambition,

Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch
The sides o' the world.' (Cymbeline, iii. 1. 49.)

Scene V.

4. your lord.

The quartos read your lady,' which of course is wrong. The error probably arose, as Malone suggests, from the single letter 'L.' being used to denote either word.

13. nighted, darkened.

Ib. descry, reconnoitre. So in Richard III, v. 3. 9:

'Who hath descried the number of the foe?'

20. by word, by word of mouth, verbally.

Ib. Belike, perhaps. See Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1. 130: 'Belike, for want of rain.'

25. œillades, glances of the eye. See Cotgrave (Fr. Dict): 'Oeillade: An amorous looke, affectionate winke, wanton aspect, lustfull iert, or passionate cast, of the eye; a Sheepes eye.' The quartos read aliads,' the first folio'Eliads'; the rest' Iliads.'

26. of her bosom, in her confidence. Compare Julius Cæsar, v. 1. 7: Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know Wherefore they do it.'

And Beaumont and Fletcher, A King and No King, i. I: 'Were you no king, and free from these wild moods, should I chuse a companion for wit and pleasure, it should be you; or for honesty to interchange my bosom with, it should be you.' See also Othello, iii. 1. 58.

28. I speak in understanding. Compare I Henry IV, i. 3. 272:

'I speak not this in estimation

As what I think might be, but what I know

Is ruminated, plotted, and set down.'

I. we. The folios read 'I.'

Ib. that same hill, mentioned at the end of Scene I.

2. climb up it. The quartos read climb it up.' For this transposition of the preposition see North's Plutarch, Pelopidas, p. 324 (ed. 1631): 'Notwithstanding, when they came to the hills, they sought forcibly to clime them vp.' And Isaiah, xv. 5, with weeping shall they go it up.'

3. Horrible. See Abbott § 1.

6. anguish. See iv. 4. 15.

14. gross, large, and hence distinct. Compare Henry V, ii. 2. 103:

Though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white.'

15. samphire. The spelling of the folios and early quartos was sampire,' and Gerarde gives as one of its Italian names, Herba di San Pietro.' He says (Herball, p. 428) Rocke Sampier groweth on the rocky cliffes at Douer.' Cotgrave has (Fr. Dict.), 'Herbe de S. Pierre. Sampire, Crestmarin.'

18. yond. In the earlier quartos 'yon.' The spelling in Shakespeare's time was indifferently one or the other. See note on The Tempest, ii.

2. 20.

19. cock, cockboat. See the description of the shipwreck of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's fleet in Hakluyt's Voyages (ed. 1810), iii. 198: In this distresse, wee had vigilant eye vnto the Admirall, whom wee sawe cast away, without power to giue the men succour, neither could we espie any of the men that leaped ouerboord to saue themselves, either in the same Pinnesse or Cocke, or vpon rafters, and such like meanes, presenting themselues to men in those extremities.' Welsh cŵch, a boat.

21. unnumber'd, innumerable. See note on 'untented,' i. 4. 291. 33, 34. Why I do... cure it. Dr. Abbott, § 411, gives this as an instance of the confusion of two constructions, 'Why I trifle is to cure,' and My trifling is done to cure.'

38. opposeless, irresistible. Formed on the analogy of resistless.' Other adjectives terminating in '-less' are generally from nouns, as 'noiseless,' 'careless,' 'pusposeless,' &c.

42. conceit, imagination. Compare Lucrece, 1298:

Conceit and grief an eager combat fight.'

See also Hamlet, iii. 4. 114, and note on Richard II, ii. 2. 33.

47. pass, pass away.