The Shakespeare-Expositor: An Aid to the Perfect Understanding of Shakespeare's PlaysKeightley, Thomas
General
The Shakespeare-Expositor: An Aid to the Perfect Understanding of Shakespeare's Plays
Keightley, Thomas
Drama -- Outlines, syllabi, etc.; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Outlines, syllabi, etc.
"My lord, for aught I know....--What dost thou think?
Think, my lord?--Think, my lord! By Heaven he echoes me."
* * * * *
"It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on."
This is the reading of the old copies. Southern and Hanmer read _make_
for 'mock,' which appears to me to be indubitable; for this is the very
thing which jealousy does--witness Ford and Leontes--while I cannot see
how jealousy, which is given to anything rather than mockery, should
mock its food. Singer and Dyce, however, retain 'mock,' but without
giving any explanation.
* * * * *
"I slept the next night well, was free and merry."
So the 4tos and the editors read; the folio inserts _fed well_ after
'well,' which may be right, as six-foot lines abound in this play. With
Singer I have therefore retained it.
* * * * *
"If it be that or any that was hers."
Both 4to and folio read 'it was hers'; the 2nd folio '_if_ it was
hers.' It has been justly observed that the printer took _y^{t}_ (the
abbreviation of _that_) for _it_.
* * * * *
"Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er keeps retiring ebb, but keeps due on."
The first 'keeps' was plainly produced, in the usual way, by the
second. Pope read _feels_, which was afterwards found in 4to 1630,
and is now generally received. Southern had read _knows_, which seems
equally good; and the same is the reading of Collier's folio. I doubt
much, however, if the original word was not _makes_, which I have
given, corresponding with 'keeps' in not personifying. _Feels_ is
evidently a conjecture in 4to 1630, as well as by Pope, as having
some resemblance to 'keeps'; but in these cases no resemblance need
be sought. (See Introd. p. 65.) For 'icy' Singer reads _yesty_, most
needlessly.
* * * * *
SC. 4. "A frank one.--You may, indeed, say so."
I have given it in my Edition 'A frank one _too_'; but no addition
was necessary. I made an error for the sake of metre, and, I think,
weakened the passage.
* * * * *
"Fetch me that handkerchief; my mind misgiving _me_...."
* * * * *
"For let our finger ache, and it indues
Our other healthful members even to that sense
Of pain."
Perhaps the word the poet wrote was _induces_.
ACT IV.
SC. 1. "Who having, by their own importunate suit
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
Convinced or supplied them cannot choose
But they must blab."
In the third line I think that for 'convinced or' we should read
'convinc'd _her and_'; the confusion of 'or' and _her_ was easy: _and_
must of course be added to get sense. See Introd. p. 6
* * * * *
"I never knew _a_ woman love a man so."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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