[I have done penance for contemning love;
Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans]
For _whose_ I read _those_. I have contemned love and am punished.
_Those_ high thoughts by which I exalted myself above human passions
or frailties have brought upon me fasts and groans.
II.iv.138 (136,5) [no woe to his correction] No misery that _can be
compared to_ the punishment inflicted by love. Herbert called
for the prayers of the liturgy a little before his death, saying,
_None_ to _them_, _none_ to _them_.
II.iv.152 (136,6) [a principality] The first or _principal_ of women.
So the old writers use _state_. _She is a lady, a great_ state.
Latymer. _This look is called in_ states _warlie, in others
otherwise_. Sir T. More.
II.iv.167 (137,8) [She is alone] She stands by herself. There is
none to be compared to her.
II.iv.207 (138,1) [with more advice] With more prudence, with more
discretion.
II.iv.209 (138,2) ['Tis but her picture I have yet beheld] This is
evidently a slip of attention, for he had seen her in the last
scene, and in high terms offered her his service.
II.v.28 (139,4) [My staff understands me] This equivocation, miserable
as it is, has been admitted by Milton in his great poem.
B. VI.
"----The terms we sent were terms of weight,
"Such as we may perceive, amaz'd them all,
"And stagger'd many who receives them right,
"Had need from head to foot well _understand_,
"Not _understood_, this gift they have besides,
"To shew us when our foes stand not upright."
II.vi (141,5) [Enter Protheus] It is to be observed, that in the
first folio edition, the only edition of authority, there are no
directions concerning the scenes; they have been added by the
later editors, and may therefore be changed by any reader that
can give more consistency or regularity to the drama by such
alterations. I make this remark in this place, because I know
not whether the following soliloquy of Protheus is so proper in
the street.
II.vi.7 (141,6) [O sweet-suggesting love] To _suggest_ is to _tempt_ in
our author's language. So again:
"Knowing that tender youth is soon _suggested_."
The sense is, _O_ tempting love, _if thou hast_ influenced me to
sin, _teach me to excuse it_. Dr. Warburton reads, _if I have
sinn'd_; but, I think, not only without necessity, but with less
elegance.
II.vi.35 (142,7) [Myself in counsel, his competitor] _Myself, who
am his_ competitor _or_ rival, being admitted to his counsel.
II.vi.37 (142,8) [pretended flight] We may read _intended flight_.
II.vi.43 (142,9) [Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!]
I suspect that the author concluded the act with this couplet,
and that the next scene should begin the third act; but the
change, as it will add nothing to the probability of the action,
is of no great importance.
III.i.45 (146,1) [be not aimed at] Be not _guessed_.
III.i.47 (147,2) [of this pretence] Of this _claim_ made to your
daughter.
III.i.86 (148,4) [the fashion of the time] The modes of courtship,
the acts by which men recommended themselves to ladies.
III.i.148 (150,5) [for they are sent by me] _For_ is the same
as _for that, since_.
III.i.153 (150,6) [why, Phaeton (for thou art Merops' son)] Thou
art Phaeton in thy rashness, but without his pretensions; thou
art not the son of a divinity, but a _terrae filius_, a low born
wretch; Merops is thy true father, with whom Phaeton was
falsely reproached.
III.i.185 (151,7) [I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom] _To fly
his doom_, used for _by flying_, or _in flying_, is a gallicism. The
sense is, By avoiding the execution of his sentence I shall not
escape death. If I stay here, I suffer myself to be destroyed;
if I go away, I destroy myself.
III.i.261 (153,8) [_Laun_. I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have
the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave: but that's all
one, if he be but one knave] [W: but one kind] This alteration
is acute and specious, yet I know not whether, in Shakespeare's
language, _one knave_ may not signify a _knave on only one occasion_,
a _single knave_. We still use a _double villain_ for a
villain beyond the common rate of guilt.
III.i.265 (154,9) [a team of horse shall not pluck] I see how
Valentine suffers for telling his love-secrets, therefore I will keep
mine close.
III.i.330 (156,4) [_Speed. Item, she hath a. sweet mouth_] This I take
to be the same with what is now vulgarly called a _sweet tooth_,
a luxurious desire of dainties and sweetmeats.
III.i.351 (157,5) [_Speed. Item, she will often praise her liquor_]
That is, shew how well she likes it by drinking often.
III.i.355 (157,6) [_Speed. Item, she is too liberal_] _Liberal_, is
licentious and gross in language. So in _Othello_, "Is he not a
profane and very _liberal_ counsellor."
III.ii.7 (158,8) [Trenched in ice] Cut, carved in ice. _Trencher_,
to cut, French.
III.ii.36 (159,9) [with circumstance] With the addition of such
incidental particulars as may induce belief.