Prov. I would do more than that, if more were needful. Enter JULIET. Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine, Than die for this. Duke. When must he die? Prov. As I do think, to-morrow. 2 Who falling in the flames of her own youth, Steevens. Who doth not see that the integrity of the metaphor requires we should read: flames of her own youth? Warburton. Who does not see that, upon such principles, there is no end of correction? Johnson. Dr. Johnson did not know, nor perhaps Dr. Warburton either, that Sir William D'Avenant reads flames instead of flaws in his Law against Lovers, a play almost literally taken from Measure for Measure, and Much Ado About Nothing. Farmer. Shakspeare has flaming youth in Hamlet; and Greene, in his Never too Late, 1616, says "he measured the flames of youth by his own dead cinders." Blister'd her report, is disfigur'd her fame. Blister seems to have reference to the flames mentioned in the preceding line. A similar use of this word occurs in Hamlet: takes the rose "From the fair forehead of an innocent lore, "And sets a blister there." Steevens. In support of this emendation, it should be remembered, that flawes (for so it was anciently spelled) and flames differ only by a letter that is very frequently mistaken at the press. The same mistake is found in Macbeth, Act II, se. i, edit. 1623: 66 my steps, which may they walk,”instead of-which way. Again, in this play of Measure for Measure, Act V, sc. i, edit. 1623:-"give we your hand;" instead of me.-In a former scene of the play before us we meet with—“ burning youth." Again, in All's Well that ends Well: 66- Yet, in his idle fire, "To buy his will, it would not seem too dear." To fall IN, (not into) was the language of the time. So, in Cymbeline: I have provided for you; stay a while, [To JULIET Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry? Juliet. I do; and bear the shame most patiently. Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience, And try your penitence, if it be sound, Or hollowly put on. Juliet. I'll gladly learn. Duke. Love you the man that wrong'd you? Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed? Juliet. Mutually. Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his. Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father. Duke. 'Tis meet so daughter: But lest you dò repent,3 As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,- Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil; And take the shame with joy. Duke, There rest. 3- But lest you do repent,] Thus the old copy. The modern editors, led by Mr. Pope, read: 66- But repent you not." But lest you do repent is only a kind of negative imperative Ne te paniteat, and means, repent not on this account. Steevens. I think that a line at least is wanting after the first of the Duke's speech. It would be presumptuous to attempt to replace the words; but the sense, I am persuaded, is easily recoverable out of Juliet's answer. I suppose his advice, in 'substance, to have been nearly this: "Take care, lest you repent [not so much of your fault, as it is an evil] as that the sin bath brought you to this shame." Accordingly, Juliet's answer is ex plicit to this point: I do repent me, as it is an evil, And take the shame with joy. Tyrwhitt. 4 Showing, we'd not spare heaven,] The modern editors had changed this word into seek. Steevens. Showing, we'd not spare heaven,] i. e. spare to offend heaven. Malone. There rest.] Keep yourself in this temper. Johnson. Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow, [Exit. Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love,7 That respites me a life, whose very comfort Is still a dying horror! Prov. 'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in ANGELO'S House. Enter ANGELO.8 Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and praž 6 Grace go with you! Benedicite!] The former part of this line evidently belongs to Juliet. Benedicite is the Duke's reply. Ritson. This regulation is undoubtedly proper: but I suppose Shakspeare to have written, Juliet. May grace go with you! Duke. Benedicite! Steevens. O, injurious love,] Her execution was respited on account of her pregnancy, the effects of her love; therefore she calls it injurious; not that it brought her to shame, but that it hindered her freeing herself from it. Is not this all very natural? yet the Oxford editor changes it to injurious law. Johnson. I know not what circumstance in this play can authorize a supposition that Juliet was respited on account of her pregnancy; as her life was in no danger from the law, the severity of which was exerted only on the seducer. I suppose she means that a parent's love for the child she bears, is injurious, because it makes her careful of her life in her present shameful condition. Mr. Tollet explains the passage thus: "O, love, that is injurious in expediting Claudio's death, and that respites me a life, which is a burthen to me worse than death!" Steevens. Both Jolinson's explanation of this passage, and Steevens's refutation of it, prove the necessity of Hanmer's amendment, which removes every difficulty, and can scarcely be considered as an alteration, the trace of the letters in the words law and love being so nearly alike.-The law affected the life of the man only, not that of the woman; and this is the injury that Juliet complains of, as she wished to die with him. M. Mason. 8 Enter Angelo.] Promos, in the play already quoted, has like. wise a soliloquy previous to the second appearance of Cassandra. It begins thus To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words; And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil "Do what I can, no reason cooles desire: "Within my breast, vaine thoughts to forge and frame," &c. Steevens. • Whilst my invention,] Nothing can be either plainer or exacter than this expression. [Dr. Warburton means-intention, a word substituted by himself.] But the old blundering folio having it, invention, this was enough for Mr. Theobald to prefer authority to sense. Warburton. Intention (if it be the true reading) has, in this instance, more than its common meaning, and signifies eagerness of desire. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: 66 -course o'er my exteriors, with such greediness of intention." By invention, however, I believe the poet means imagination. So, in our author's 103d Sonnet: 66 a face, "That overgoes my blunt invention quite." Again, in King Henry V: "O for a muse of fire, that would ascend Steevens. "The brightest heaven of invention!" Malone. Steevens says that intention, in this place, means eagerness of desire; but I believe it means attention only, a sense in which the word is frequently used by Shakspeare and the other writers of his time.-Angelo says, he thinks and prays to several subjects; that Heaven has his prayers, but his thoughts are fixed on Isabel.-So, in Hamlet, the King says: 66 My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; M. Mason. 1 Anchors on Isabel:] We have the same singular expression in Antony and Cleopatra: "There would be anchor his aspect, and die The same phrase occurs again in Cymbeline: "Posthumus anchors upon Imogen." Steevens. 2 Grown fear'd and tedious;] We should read seared i. e. olds Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride, So, Shakspeare uses in the sear, to signify old age. Warburton. I think fear'd may stand. What we go to with reluctance may he said to be fear'd. Johnson. 3 • with boot,] Boot is profit, advantage, gain. So, in M. Kyffin's translation of The Andria of Terence, 1588: "You obtained this at my hands, and I went about it while there was any boot." 66 Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599: 4 "Then list to me: Saint Andrew be my boot, "But I'll raze thy castle to the very ground." Steevens. change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! &c.] There is, I believe, no instance in Shakspeare, or any other author, of for vain" being used for "in vain." Besides; has the air or wind less effect on a feather than on twenty other things? or rather, is not the reverse of this the truth? An idle plume assuredly is not that "ever-fixed mark," of which our author speaks elsewhere," that looks on tempests, and is never shaken." The old copy has vaine, in which way a vane or weather-cock was formerly spelt. [See Minshieu's DICT. 1617, in verb.-So also, in Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV, sc. i, edit. 1623: "What vaine? what weathercock?"] I would therefore read—vane.—I would exchange my gravity, says Argelo, for an idle feather, which being driven along by the wind, serves, to the spectator, for a vane or weathercock, So, in The Winter's Tale: "I am a feather for each wind that blows." And in The Merchant of Venice we meet with a kindred thought: I should be still "Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind.” The omission of the article is certainly awkward, but not without example. Thus, in King Lear: "Hot questrists after him met him at gate." Again, in Coriolanus: "Go, see him out at gates." Again, in Titus Andronicus: "Ascend, fair queen, Pantheon: Again, in Cymbeline; "Nor tent, to bottom, that." The author, however, might have written: -an idle plume, Which the air beats for vane o' the place.-O form, How often dost thou &c. The pronoun thou, referring to only one antecedent, appears to me strongly to support such a regulation. Malone. |