... “Nor then silenc’d with
“Commend me to your master”—_and the cap_
_Plays in the right hand, thus_.”
Either, methinks, “plays” should be “play’d,” or “and” should be changed
to “while.” I can certainly understand it as a parenthesis, an
interadditive of scorn; but it does not sound to my ear as in
Shakespeare’s manner.
_Ib._ sc. 2. Timon’s speech (Theobald):—
“And that unaptness made _you_ minister,
Thus to excuse yourself.”
Read _your_;—at least I cannot otherwise understand the line. You made my
chance indisposition and occasional inaptness your minister—that is, the
ground on which you now excuse yourself. Or, perhaps, no correction is
necessary, if we construe “made you” as “did you make;” “and that
unaptness did you make help you thus to excuse yourself.” But the former
seems more in Shakespeare’s manner, and is less liable to be
misunderstood.