"Soul-tainted flesh," &c.
substituted for "_foul_ tainted flesh;" and we are told that the critics
have been all wrong, who supposed that Shakspeare intended any "metaphor
from the kitchen!" If so, what meaning can be attached to the line--
"And salt too little which may season give?"
If that is not a metaphor from the kitchen, I know not what could be? I
still believe that "foul tainted flesh" is the correct reading. The
expression "_soul_-tainted flesh" is not intelligible. It should rather be
"_soul-tainting_ flesh." The _soul_ may be tainted by the _flesh_: but how
the _flesh_ can be _soul-tainted_, I cannot understand.
Turning further back, to p. 69., we find it asserted, quite dogmatically,
that the word "truths" of the folios ought to be "proofs;" but no reason
whatever is offered for the change. I cannot help thinking that "seeming
_truths_" is much the most poetical expression, while in "seeming _proofs_"
there is something like redundancy,--to say nothing of the phrase being
infinitely more common-place!