* * * * * SC. 2. "Pard or boar with bristled hair." The rime demands the old form _hear_. (See on Com. of Err. iii. 2.) * * * * * "Transparent Helena, Nature shows her art." The transposition 'her shows' of the folio is merely one of those of which we have so many examples in these plays. The usual reading is that of the 2nd folio, '_here_ shows.' * * * * * "So I being young, till now ripe not to reason." It would seem better to read 'not ripe'; or 'ripe' may be a verb. ACT III. SC. 1. "If I were _so_, fair Thisby, I were only thine." * * * * * "So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape." This and the two following lines are transposed in Roberts' 4to and the folio. * * * * * SC. 2. "Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep And kill me too." Mr. Dyce, with whom I agree, adopts the excellent reading of Coleridge and Sidney Walker, '_knee_-deep.' "Once o'er shoes we are straight o'er head in sin." Woman Killed with Kindness. * * * * * "And from thy hated presence part I _so_." Pope added _so_, which is required by metre and rime, and yet is wanting in all the old editions. * * * * * "This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss." For 'princess' Hanmer read _pureness_; Collier proposes _impress_; but no change is needed. 'White' is whiteness, and 'princess of pure white' is sovereign lady of whiteness, _i.e._, white in the highest degree. I suspect that Chaucer wrote _emperes_ in "The _emprise_ and the flower of flowers alle." Leg. of Good Women. * * * * * "For parting us.--Oh! is _this_ all forgot?" The 2nd folio read 'O _and_ is'; Malone added _now_; we might also add _then_. A syllable certainly is wanting. * * * * * "But miserable most to love unlov'd... This you should pity rather than despise." * * * * * "Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers." Here 'prayers' is the correction by Theobald of _praise_ of the original editions. * * * * * "Away you Ethiop.--No, no, sir, seem To break loose; take on as you'd follow _me_, But yet come not. You are a tame man, go." This is the reading of the folio, which, with the addition of _me_--evidently rubbed out at the end--gives excellent sense and metre. For 'sir' the 4tos read _he'll_, which makes the passage abrupt. * * * * * "Out loathed medicine! [O] hated potion, hence!" The same omission was made by Pope. * * * * * "Hate me! wherefore? O me! What news, my love?"