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
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.
III.iii.28 (79,7)
he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
In most accepted pain]
Sir T. HANMER, and Dr. WARBURTON after him, read,
In most accepted _pay_.
They do not seem to understand the construction of the passage. _Her
presence_, says Calchas, shall strike off, or recompence _the service I
have done_, even in these _labours_ which were _most accepted_.
III.iii.44 (80,8) derision med'cinable] All the modern editions have
_decision_. The old copies are apparently right. The folio in this place
agrees with the quarto, so that the corruption was at first merely
accidental.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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