[The mightiest space in fortune, nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss, like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts, to those
That weigh their pain in sense; and do suppose,
What hath been]
All these four lines are obscure, and, I believe, corrupt. I shall
propose an emendation, which those who can explain the present
reading, are at liberty to reject.
Through _mightiest space in fortune nature brings_
Likes to join likes, _and kiss, like native things._
That is, _nature_ brings _like qualities_ and dispositions _to meet_
through any _distance_ that _fortune_ may have set between them; she
_joins_ them and makes them _kiss like things born together._
The next lines I read with Hammer.
_Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
What_ ha'n't _been, cannot be._
_New_ attempts seen impossible to those who estimate their _labour_ or
_enterprises_ by sense, and believe that nothing can be but what they
see before them.