[So disguise shall, by the disguis'd
Pay with falshood false exacting]
So _disguise_ shall by means of a person _disguised_, return an
_injurious demand_ with a _counterfeit person_.
IY.i.13 (93,4) [My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe]
Though the musick soothed my sorrows, it had no tendency to produce
light merriment.
IV.i.21 (93,5) [constantly] Certainly; without fluctuation of mind.
IV.i.28 (93,6) [circummur'd with brick] _Circummured_, walled round.
_He caused the doors to be_ mured _and cased up_.
Painter's Palace of Pleasure.
IV.i.40 (94,7) [In action all of precept] I rather think we should
read,
_In precept all of action_,--
that is, _in direction given not by words, but by mute signs_.
IV.i.44 (94,8) [I have possess'd him] I have made him clearly and
strongly comprehend.
IV.i.60 (95,9) [O place and greatness] [It plainly appears, that
_this_ fine speech belongs to _that_ which concludes the preceding
scene, between the Duke and Lucio.... But that some time might be
given to the two women to confer together, the players, I suppose,
took part of the speech, beginning at _No might nor greatness_,
&c. and put it here, without troubling themselves about
its pertinency. Warburton.] I cannot agree that these lines are
placed here by the players. The sentiments are common, and such
as a prince, given to reflection, must have often present.
There was a necessity to fill up the time in which the ladies
converse apart, and they must have quick tongues and ready
apprehensions, if they understood each other while this speech was
uttered.
IV.i.60 (95,1) [false eyes] That is, Eyes insidious and traiterous.
IV.i.62 (95,2) [contrarious quests] Different reports, _running
counter_ to each other.
IV.i.76 (96,4) [for yet our tithe's to sow] [W: tilth] The reader
is here attacked with a pretty sophism. We should read _tilth_,
i.e. our _tillage is to make_. But in the text it is _to sow_; and
who has ever said that his _tillage_ was to _sow_? I believe _tythe_
is right, and that the expression is proverbial, in which _tithe_
is taken, by an easy metonymy, for _harvest_.
IV.ii.69 (100,7) [ As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones ]
Stiffly. These two lines afford a very pleasing image.
IV.ii.83 (101,1) [Even with the stroke] _Stroke_ is here put for the
_stroke_ of a pen or a line.
IV.ii.86 (101,2) [To qualify] To temper, to moderate, as we say
wine is _qualified_ with water.
IV.ii.86 (101,3) [Were he meal'd] Were he sprinkled; were he defiled,
A figure of the same kind our authour uses in _Macbeth_,
_The_ blood-bolter'd _Banquo._
IV.ii.91 (101,4) [that spirit's possess'd with haste, That wounds
the unresisting postern with these strokes] The line is irregular,
and the _unresisting postern_ so strange an expression, that
want of measure, and want of sense, might justly raise suspicion
of an errour, yet none of the later editors seem to have supposed
the place faulty, except sir Tho. Hammer, who reads,
_the_ unresting _postern_.
The three folio's have it,
_unsisting postern_,
out of which Mr. Rowe made _unresisting_, and the rest followed
him. Sir Thomas Hammer seems to have supposed _unresisting_ the
word in the copies, from which he plausibly enough extracted
_unresting_, but be grounded his emendation on the very syllable that
wants authority. What can be made of _unsisting_ I know not; the
best that occurs to me is _unfeeling_.
IV.ii.103 (103,6) [_Duke_. This is his lordship's man.
_Prov_. And here comes Claudio's pardon]
[Tyrwhitt suggested that the names of the speakers were misplaced]
When, immediately after the Duke had hinted his expectation of a
pardon, the Provost sees the Messenger, he supposes the Duke to
to have _known something_, and changes his mind. Either reading
may serve equally well. (1773)
IV.ii.153 (104,7) [desperately mortal] This expression is obscure.
Sir Thomas Hammer reads, _mortally desperate_. _Mortally_ is in low
conversation used in this sense, but I know not whether it was
ever written. I am inclined to believe, that _desperately mortal_
means _desperately mischievous_. Or _desperately mortal_ may mean a
man likely to die in a _desperate_ state, without reflection or
repentance. (see 1765, I,348,7)
IV.ii.187 (106,8) [and tie the beard] A beard tied would give a very
new air to that face, which had never been seen but with the
beard loose, long, and squalid. (1773)
IV.iii.4 (107,2) [First, here's young master Rash] This enumeration
of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of
the practices predominant in Shakespeare's age. Besides those
whose follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men
and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals of the
pictures were then known.
IV.iii.17 (108,4) [master Forthlight] Should not _Forthlight_ be
_Forthright_, alluding to the line in which the thrust is made? (1773)
IV.iii.21 (108,6) [in for the Lord's sake] [i.e. to beg for the rest
of their lives. Warburton.] I rather think this expression intended
to ridicule the puritans, whose turbulence and indecency often
brought them to prison, and who considered themselves as suffering
for religion.
It is not unlikely that men imprisoned for other crimes, might
represent themselves to casual enquirers, as suffering for
puritanism, and that this might be the common cant of the prisons.
In Donne's time, every prisoner was brought to jail by suretiship.
IV.iii.68 (110,7) [After him, fellows] Here was a line given to the
Duke, which belongs to the Provost. The Provost, while the Duke
is lamenting the obduracy of the prisoner, cries out,
_After him, fellows_, &c.
and, when they are gone out, turns again to the Duke.
IV.iii.72 (110,8) [to transport him] To remove him from one world
to another. The French _trepas_ affords a kindred sense.
IV.iii.115 (112,1)
[I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair,
When least it is expected.]
A better reason might have been given. It was necessary to keep
Isabella in ignorance, that she might with more keenness accuse
the deputy.
IV.iii.139 (113,2) [your bosom] Your wish; your heart's desire.
IV.iii.149 (113,3) [I am combined by a sacred vow] I once thought
this should be _confined_, but Shakespeare uses _combine_ for to
_bind by a pact or agreement_, so he calls Angelo the _combinate_
husband of Mariana.
IV.iii.163 (113,4) [if the old fantastical duke] Sir Thomas Hammer
reads, _the_ odd _fantastical duke_, but _old_ is a common word of
aggravation in ludicrous language, as, _there was_ old _revelling_.
IV.iii.170 (114,5) [woodman] That is, _huntsman_, here taken for a
_hunter of girls_.
IV.iv.19 (115,6) [sort and suit] Figure and rank.
IV.iv.27 (115,7) [Yet reason dares her No] Mr. Theobald reads,
--_Yet reason dares her_ note.
Sir Thomas Hammer,
--_Yet reason dares her: No._
Mr. Upton,
--_Yet reason dares her--No_,
which he explains thus: _Yet_, says Angelo, _reason will give her
courage_--_No_, that is, _it will not_. I am afraid _dare_ has no such
signification. I have nothing to offer worth insertion.