“That thou betray’dst Polixenes, ’twas nothing;
That did but show thee, of a _fool_, inconstant,
And damnable ingrateful.”
Theobald reads “soul.”
I think the original word is Shakespeare’s. 1. My ear feels it to be
Shakespearian; 2. The involved grammar is Shakespearian—“show thee, being
a fool naturally, to have improved thy folly by inconstancy;” 3. The
alteration is most flat, and un-Shakespearian. As to the grossness of the
abuse—she calls him “gross and foolish” a few lines below.