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
I.iv.148 (172,4) You are a friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy
ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting.
But, I see, you have some religion in you, that you fear] _You are a
friend_ to the lady, _and therein the wiser_, as you will not expose her
to hazard; and that you _fear_, is a proof of your _religious_ fidelity.
(see 1765, VII, 276, 1)
I.iv.l60 (173,5) _Iach._ If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I
have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand
ducats are yours, so is my diamond too: if I come off, and leave her in
such honour as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and
my gold are yours--
_Post._ I embrace these conditions]
[W: bring you sufficient] I once thought this emendation right, but am
now of opinion, that Shakespeare intended that Iachimo, having gained
his purpose, should designedly drop the invidious and offensive part of
the wager, and to flatter Posthumus, dwell long upon the more pleasing
part of the representation. One condition of a wager implies the other,
and there is no need to mention both.
I.v.18 (176,1) Other conclusions] Other _experiments_. _I commend_, says
WALTON, _an angler that tries_ conclusions, and improves his art.
I.v.23 (175,2) Your highness/Shall from this practice but make hard your
heart] Thare is in this passage nothing that much requires a note, yet I
cannot forbear to push it forward into observation. The thought would
probably have been more amplified, had our author lived to be shocked
with such experiments as have been published in later times, by a race
of men that have practised tortures without pity, and related then
without shame, and are yet suffered to erect their heads among human
beings.
"Cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor."
I.v.33-44 (175,3) I do not like her] This soliloquy is very
inartificial. The speaker is under no strong pressure of thought; he is
neither resolving, repenting, suspecting, nor deliberating, and yet
makes a long speech to tell himself what himself knows.
I.v.54 (176,4) to shift his being] To change his abode.
I.v.58 (118,5) What shalt thou expect,/To be depender on a thing that
leans?] That _inclines_ towards its fall.
I.v.80 (177,7) Of leigers for her sweet] A _leiger_ ambassador, is one
that resides at a foreign court to promote his master's interest.
I.vi.7 (178,9)
Bless'd be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
Which seasons comfort]
I am willing to comply with any meaning that can be extorted from the
present text, rather than change it, yet will propose, but with great
diffidence, a slight alteration:
--Bless'd be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
_With reason's_comfort.--
Who gratify their innocent wishes with reasonable enjoyments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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