'Strange' is a very feeble word here. If, as I have ventured to do, we read '_sable_ snow,' we have a parallel to 'hot ice.' Upton read _black_; Staunton _swarthy_; Hanmer _scorching_. * * * * * "And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect Takes it in might not merit." As there are no short lines in this play, I think a word has been lost in the first line. I read _faltering_, Theobald read '_willing_ duty.' * * * * * "His speech was like _unto_ a tangled chain." * * * * * "This grisly beast, which lion hight by name, The trusty Thisby, coming first by night. * * * * * Did scare away, or rather did affright." A line riming with the first appears to be lost. Some read 'by name hight,' making a triplet; but I cannot agree with them. * * * * * "Here come two noble beasts in, A lion and a man." Theobald reads _moon_ for 'man.' The correction is ingenious, but not certain. I have, however, adopted it. * * * * * "A lion-fell, but else no lion's dam." So Singer reads; others 'A lion'_s_ fell.' * * * * * "For by thy gracious, golden, glittering streams." This is the reading of the 2nd folio; for the old editions repeat 'beams' from the preceding line. "Phebus of _gold his stremès_ down hath sent" (Chauc. Merch. Tale), was probably in the poet's mind; or "Which erst so glistened with the _golden streams_, That cheerful Phoebus spred down from his sphere." (Induct. to Mir. for Magistrates.) * * * * * "Would go _well_ near to make a man look sad.-- Beshrew my heart, but I _do_ pity the man." * * * * * "These lily lips This cherry nose." Rime demands Theobald's 'lily _brows_.' * * * * * SC. 2. "Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon." 'Behowls' is Warburton's correction of _beholds_ of the originals. It is proved to be right by the following passage of Marston's Antonio's Revenge:-- "Now barks the wolf against the full-cheek'd moon, Now lions' half-clamm'd entrails roar for food" (iii. 3). As this play was not printed till 1602, this may be an imitation of the passage of our text. * * * * * "Ever shall in safety rest, And the owner of it blest."