There is division,
Although as yet the face of it is cover'd
with mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Cornwall;
_Who have (as who have not, whom their great stars
Throne and set high?) servants, who seem no less;
Which are to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings of the dukes;
Or the hard rein, which both of them have borne
Against the old kind king; or something deeper,
Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings._
[But, true it is, from France there comes a power
Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already,
Wise in our negligence, have secret fee
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To shew their open banner.--Now to you:]]
The true state of this speech cannot from all these notes be discovered.
As it now stands it is collected from two editions: the lines which I
have distinguished by Italics are found in the folio, not in the quarto;
the following lines inclosed in crotchets are in the quarto, not in the
folio. So that if the speech be read with omissions of the Italics, it
will stand according to the first edition; and if the Italics are read,
and the lines that follow them omitted, it will then stand according to
the second. The speech is now tedious, because it is formed by a
coalition of both. The second edition is generally best, and was
probably nearest to Shakespeare's last copy, but in this passage the
first is preferable; for in the folio, the messenger is sent, he knows
not why, he knows not whither. I suppose Shakespeare thought his plot
opened rather too early, and made the alteration to veil the event from
the audience; but trusting too much to himself, and full of a single
purpose, he did not accommodate his new lines to the rest of the
scene.--The learned critic's [Warburton] emendations are now to be
examined. _Scattered_ he has changed to _scathed_; for _scattered_, he
says, gives _the idea of an anarchy, which was not the case_. It may be
replied that _scathed_ gives the idea of ruin, waste, and desolation,
_which was not the case_. It is unworthy a lover of truth, in questions
of great or little moment, to exaggerate or extenuate for mere
convenience, or for vanity yet less than convenience. _Scattered_
naturally means _divided, unsettled, disunited_.--Next is offered with
great pomp a change of _sea_ to _seize_; but in the first edition the
word is _fee_, for _hire_, in the sense of having any one in _fee_, that
is, at _devotion for money_. _Fee_ is in the second quarto changed to
_see_, from which one made _sea_ and another _seize_.
III.ii.4 (398,1) thought-executing] Doing execution with rapidity equal
to thought.
III.ii.19 (399,4) Here I stand, your slave] [W: brave] The meaning is
plain enough, he was not their _slave_ by right or compact, but by
necessity and compulsion. Why should a passage be darkened for the sake
of changing it? Besides, of _brave_ in that sense I remember no example.
III.ii.24 (399,5) 'tis foul] Shameful; dishonourable.
III.ii.30 (399,6) So beggars marry many] i.e. A beggar marries a wife
and lice.
III.ii.46 (400,1) Man's nature cannot carry/The affliction, nor the
fear] So the folio: the later editions read, with the quarto, _force_
for _fear_, less elegantly.
III.ii.56 (401,3) That under covert and convenient seeming] _Convenient_
needs not be understood in any other than its usual and proper sense;
_accommodate_ to the present purpose; _suitable_ to a design.
_Convenient seeming_ is _appearance_ such as may promote his purpose to
destroy.
III.ii.53 (401,4) concealing continents] _Continent_ stands for that
which _contains_ or _incloses_.
III.ii.72 (401,(5) Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart,/
That's sorry yet for thee] Some editions read,
--_thing_ in my heart;
from which Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, have made _string_, very
unnecessarily; both the copies have _part_.