Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confusion live!]
Hanmer reads, _let_ confusion; but the meaning may be, _though by such
confusion all things seem to hasten to dissolution_, yet _let not
dissolution come, but the miseries of_ confusion _continue._
IV.ii (345,1) Enter Flavius] Nothing contributes more to the exaltation
of Timon's character than the zeal and fidelity of his servants. Nothing
but real virtue can be honoured by domesticks; nothing but impartial
kindness can gain affection from dependants.
IV.ii.10 (345,2) So his familiars from his buried fortunes/Slink all
away] The old copies have _to_ instead of _from_. The correction is
Hanmer's; but the old reading might stand (see 1765, VI, 231, 2)
IV.ii.38 (346,4) strange unusual blood] Of this passage, I suppose,
every reader would wish for a correction; but the word, harsh as it is,
stands fortified by the rhyme, to which, perhaps, it owes its
introduction. I know not what to propose. Perhaps,
--_strange unusual_ mood,
may, by some, be thought better, and by others worse.
IV.iii.1 (347,5) O blessed, breeding sun] [W: blessing breeding] I do
not see that this emendation much strengthens the sense.
IV.iii.2 (347,6) thy sister's orb] That is, the moon's, this _sublunary_
world.
IV.iii.6 (348,7) Not nature,/To whom all sores lay siege] I have
preserved this note rather for the sake of the commentator [Warburton]
than of the author. How _nature, to whom all sores lay siege_, can so
emphatically express _nature in its greatest perfection_, I shall not
endeavour to explain. The meaning I take to be this: _Brother, when his
fortune is inlarged, will scorn brother_; for this is the general
depravity of human nature, which, _besieged as it is by misery_,
admonished as it is of want and imperfection, when _elevated by fortune,
will despise_ beings of _nature like its own_.
IV.iii.12 (349,9) It is the pastor lards the brother's sides,/The want
that makes him leave] [W: weather's sides] This passage is very obscure,
nor do I discover any clear sense, even though we should admit the
emendation. Let us inspect the text as I have given it from the original
edition,
_It is the_ pastour _lards the_ brother's _sides,
The want that makes him_ leave.
Dr. Warburton found the passage already changed thus,
_It is the_ pasture _lards the_ beggar's _sides,
The want that makes him_ lean.
And upon this reading of no authority, raised another equally uncertain.
Alterations are never to be made without necessity. Let us see what
sense the genuine reading will afford. Poverty, says the poet, _bears
contempt hereditary_, and _wealth native honour_. To illustrate this
position, having already mentioned the case of a poor and rich brother,
he remarks, that this preference is given to wealth by those whom it
least becomes; _it is the_ pastour _that greases or_ flatters _the rich_
brother, and will grease him on till _want makes him leave_. The poet
then goes on to ask, _Who dares to say this man_, this pastour, _is a
flatterer_; the crime is universal; through all the world _the learned
pate_, with allusion to the pastour, _ducks to the golden fool_. If it
be objected, as it may justly be, that the mention of pastour is
unsuitable, we must remember the mention of _grace_ and _cherubims_ in
this play, and many such anachronisms in many others. I would therefore
read thus:
_It is the pastour lards the brother's sides_,
'Tis _want that makes him leave_.
The obscurity is still great. Perhaps a line is lost. I have at least
given the original reading.
IV.iii.27 (350,2) no idle votarist] No insincere or inconstant
supplicant. _Gold_ will not serve me instead of _roots_.
IV.iii.38 (351,5) That makes the wappen'd widow wed again] Of _wappened_
I have found no example, nor know any meaning. To _awhape_ is used by
Spenser in his _Hubberd's Tale_, but I think not in either of the senses
mentioned. I would read _wained_, for _decayed by time_. So our author
in _Richard the Third_, _A beauty_-waining _and distressed widow_.
IV.iii.41 (352,6) To the April day again] That is, _to the wedding day_,
called by the poet, satirically, _April day_, or _fool's day_.
IV.iii.44 (352,7) Do thy right nature] Lie in the earth where nature
laid thee.
IV.iii.44 (352,8) Thou'rt quick] Thou hast life and motion in thee.
IV.iii.64 (353,9) I will not kiss thee] This alludes to an opinion in
former times, generally prevalent, that the venereal infection
transmitted to another, left the infecter free. I will not, says Timon,
take the rot from thy lips by kissing thee.