Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The TragediesJohnson, Samuel
General
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies
Johnson, Samuel
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation
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,
--That one vowel _I_ shall poison more,
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice,
Or these eyes shot, that make thee answer, I.
I am not I, &c.
III.ii.114 (85,9) Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts] Hath put Tybalt out
of my mind, as if out of being.
III.ii.120 (85,1) Which modern lamentation might have mov'd] This line
is left out of the later editions, I suppose because the editors did not
remember that Shakespeare uses _modern_ for _common_, or _slight_: I
believe it was in his time confounded in colloquial language with
_moderate_.
III.iii.112 (89,4)
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!]
[W: seeming groth] The old reading is probable. _Thou art a beast of ill
qualities, under the appearance both of a woman and a man_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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