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.ii.147 (249,1) Marry, this is miching maliche; it means mischief]
[W: malhechor] I think Hanmer's exposition most likely to be right. Dr.
Warburton, to justify his interpretation, must write, _miching_ for
_malechor_, and even then it will be harsh.
III.ii.167 (250,3) sheen] Splendor, lustre.
III.ii.177 (250,4) For women fear too much, even as they love] Here
seems to be a line lost, which should have rhymed to _love_.
III.ii.192 (251,6) The instances, that second marriage move] The
_motives_.
III.ii.202 (252,7)
Most necessary 'tis, that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt]
The performance of a resolution, in which only the _resolver_ is
interested, is a debt only to himself, which he may therefore remit at
pleasure.
III.ii.206 (252,8)
The violence of either grief or joy,
Their own enactures with themselves destroy]
What grief or joy _enact_ or determine in their violence, is revealed in
their abatement. _Enactures_ is the word in the quarto; all the modern
editions have _enactors_.
III.ii.229 (252,9) An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope] May my whole
liberty and enjoyment be to live on hermit's fare in a prison. _Anchor_
is for _anchoret_.
III.ii.250 (253,1) Baptista] _Baptista_ is, I think, in Italian, the
name always of a man.
III.ii.262 (254,4) So you must take your husbands] Read, _So you_ must
take _your husbands_ [in place of "mistake"]; that is, _for better, for
worse_.
III.ii.288 (255,5) with two provencial roses on my rayed shoes] When
shoe-strings were worn, they were covered, where they met in the middle,
by a ribband, gathered into the form of a rose. So in an old song,
Gil-de-Roy _was a bonny boy_,
_Had_ roses _tull his_ shoen.
_Rayed_ shoes, are shoes _braided_ in lines.
III.ii.304 (256,1) For if the king like not the comedy/Why, then,
belike] Hamlet was going on to draw the consequence when the courtiers
entered.
III.ii.314 (256,2) With drink, Sir?] Hamlet takes particular care that
his uncle's love of drink shall not be forgotten.
III.ii.346 (257,3) further trade] Further business; further dealing.
III.ii.348 (257,4) by these pickers] By these hands.
III.ii.373 (258,6) ventages] The holes of a flute.
III.ii.401 (259,9) they fool me to the top of my bent] They compel me to
play the fool, till I can endure to do it no longer.
III.iii.7 (261,4) Out of his lunes] [The old quartos read,
_Out of his_ brows.
This was from the ignorance of the first editors; as is this unnecessary
Alexandrine, which we owe to the players. The poet, I am persuaded,
wrote,
--_us doth hourly grow_
_out of his_ lunes.
i.e. his _madness, frenzy_. THEOBALD.]
_Lunacies_ is the reading of the folio.
I take _brows_ to be, properly read, _frows_, which, I think, is a
provincial word for _perverse humours_; which being, I suppose, not
understood, was changed to _lunacies_. But of this I an not confident.
[Steevens adopted Theobald's emendation]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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