--others you permit
To second ills with ills, each other worse,
And make them _trade it_, to the doers' thrift.
_Trade_ and _thrift_ correspond. Our author plays with _trade_, as it
signifies a lucrative vocation, or a frequent practice. So Isabella
says,
"Thy sins, not accidental, but a _trade_."
V.i.16 (273,9) Do your best wills,/And make me blest to obey!] So the
copies. It was more in the manner of our author to have written,
--Do your blest wills,
And make me blest t' obey.--
V.iii.41 (276,3) A rout, confusion thick] [W: confusion-thick] I do not
see what great addition is made to _fine diction_ by this compound. Is
it not as natural to enforce the principal event in a story by
repetition, as to enlarge the principal figure in a figure?
V.iii.51 (276,4) bugs] Terrors.
V.iii.53 (277,5) Nay, do not wonder at it] [T: do but] There is no need
of alteration. Posthumus first bids him not wonder, then tells him in
another mode of reproach, that wonder is all that he was made for.
V.iii.79 (278,8) great the answer be] _Answer_, as once in this play
before, is _retaliation_.
V.iii.87 (278,9) That gave the affront with them] That is, that turned
their faces to the enemy.
V.iv.1 (279,1) You shall not now be stolen, you have locks upon you;/So,
graze, as you find pasture] This wit of the gaoler alludes to the custom
of putting a lock on a horse's leg, when he is turned to pasture.
V.iv.27 (280,3) If you will take this audit, take this life,/And cancel
those cold bonds] This equivocal use of _bonds_ is another instance of
our author's infelicity in pathetic speeches.
V.iv.45 (281,5) That from me my Posthumus ript] The old copy reads,
That from me _was_ Posthumus ript.
Perhaps we should read,
That from _my womb_ Posthumus ript,
Came crying 'mongst his foes.