But two in company--
Each man apart, all single and alone,
Yet an arch villain keeps him company]
This passage is obscure. I think the meaning is this: _but two in
company_, that is, stand apart, _let only two be together_; for even
when each stands single there are two, he himself and a villain.
V.i.151 (388,3) Of its own fall] [The Oxford editor alters _fall_ to
_fault_, not knowing that Shakespeare uses _fall_ to signify dishonour,
not destruction. So in _Hamlet_,
_What a_ falling_ off was there_! WARBURTON.]
The truth is, that neither _fall_ means _disgrace_, nor is _fault_ a
necessary emendation. _Falling off_ in the quotation is not _disgrace_
but _defection_. The Athenians _had sense_, that is, felt the danger _of
their own fall_, by the arms of Alcibiades.
V.i.151 (388,4) restraining aid to Timon] I think it should be
_refraining aid_, that is, with-holding aid that should have been given
_to_ Timon.
V.i.154 (389,5) Than their offence can weigh down by the dram] This
which was in the former editions can scarcely be right, and yet I know
not whether my reading will be thought to rectify it. I take the meaning
to be, We will give thee a recompence that our offences cannot outweigh,
_heaps of wealth down by the dram_, or delivered according to the
exactest measure. A little disorder may perhaps have happened in
transcribing, which may be reformed by reading,
--_Ay, ev'n such heaps
And sums of love and wealth, down by the dram,
As shall to thee_--
V.i.165 (389,6) Allow'd with absolute power] _Allowed_ is _licensed_,
_privileged_, _uncontrolled_. So of a buffoon, in _Love's Labour lost_,
it is said, that he is _allowed_, that is, at liberty to say what he
will, a privileged scoffer.
V.i.139 (390,7) My long sickness/Of health and living now begins to
mend] The disease of life begins to promise me a period.
V.i.211 (391,8) in the sequence of degree] Methodically, from highest to
lowest.
V.iii.4 (393,2) Some beast read this; here does not live a man] [W:
rear'd] Notwithstanding this remark, I believe the old reading to be the
right. _The soldier had only seen the rude heap of earth._ He had
evidently seen something that told him _Timon was dead_; and what could
tell that but his tomb? The tomb he sees, and the inscription upon it,
which not being able to read, and finding none to read it for him, he
exclaims peevishly, _some beast read this_, for it must be read, and in
this place it cannot be read by man.
There is something elaborately unskilful in the contrivance of sending a
soldier, who cannot read, to take the epitaph in wax, only that it may
close the play by being read with more solemnity in the last scene.
V.iv.7 (394, 3) traverst arms] Arms across.
V.iv.8 (394,4) the time is flush] A bird is _flush_ when his feathers
are grown, and he can leave the nest. _Flush_ is _mature_.