[If such a one will smile and stroke his beard;
And, sorrow wag! cry; hem, when he should groan]
Sir Thomas Hammer, and after him Dr. Warburton, for _wag_ read
_waive_, which is, I suppose, the same as, _put aside_ or _shift off_.
None of these conjectures satisfy me, nor perhaps any other reader.
I cannot but think the true meaning nearer than it is imagined.
I point thus,
_If such an one will smile, and stroke his beard,
And, sorrow wag! cry; hem, when he should groan;_
That is, _If he will smile, and cry_ sorrow be gone, _and hem instead_
of groaning. The order in which _and_ and _cry_ are placed is harsh,
and this harshness made the sense mistaken. Range the words in
the common order, and my reading will be free from all difficulty.
_If such an one will smile, and stroke his beard,
Cry, sorrow, wag! and hem when he should groan._
V.i.32 (314,8) [My griefs cry louder than advertisement] That is,
than _admonition_, than _moral instruction_.
V.i.102 (318,4) [we will not wake your patience] [W: wrack] This
emendation is very specious, and perhaps is right; yet the present
reading may admit a congruous meaning with less difficulty than
many other of Shakespeare's expressions.
The old men have been both very angry and outrageous; the
prince tells them that he and Claudio _will not_ wake _their patience_;
will not any longer force them to _endure_ the presence of those
whom, though they look on them as enemies, they cannot resist.
V.i.138 (319,6) [to turn his girdle] We have a proverbial speech,
_If he be angry, let him turn the buckle of his girdle_. But I do
not know its original or meaning.
V.i.166 (320,7) [a wise gentleman] This jest depending on the colloquial
use of words is now obscure; perhaps we should read, _a wise
gentle man_, or _a man wise enough to be a coward_. Perhaps _wise
gentleman_ was in that age used ironically, and always stood for
_silly fellow_.
V.i.231 (322,9) [one meaning well suited] That is, _one meaning is
put into many different dresses_; the prince having asked the same
question in four modes of speech.
V.ii.9 (326,3) [To have no man come over me? why, shall I always
keep below stairs?] [T: above] I suppose every reader will find
the meaning of the old copies.
V.ii.l7 (327,4) [I give thee the bucklers] I suppose that _to give
the bucklers_ is, _to yield_, or _to lay by all thoughts of defence_,
so _clipeum abjicere_. The rest deserves no comment.
V.iii.13 (330,7) [_Those that slew thy virgin knight_] _Knight_, in its
original signification, means _follower_ or _pupil_, and in this
sense may be feminine. Helena, in All's well that Ends well,
uses _knight_ in the same signification.