What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed?]
If his highest good, and _that for which he sells his time_, be to sleep
and feed.
IV.iv.36 (286,5) large discourse] Such latitude of comprehension, such
power of reviewing the past, and anticipating the future.
IV.iv.53 (286,6) Rightly to be great,/Is not to stir without great
argument] This passage I have printed according to the copy. Mr.
THEOBALD had regulated it thus:
--_'Tis not to be great,
Never to stir without great argument;
But greatly_, &c.
The sentiment of Shakespeare is partly just, and partly romantic.
--_Rightly to be great,
Is not to stir without great argument_;
is exactly philosophical.
_But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour is at stake_,
is the idea of a modern hero. _But then_, says he _honour is an
argument, or subject of debate_, sufficiently great, _and_ when honour
is at stake, we must _find cause of quarrel in a straw_.
IV.iv.56 (287,7) Excitements of my reason and my blood] Provocations
which excite both my reason and my passions to vengeance.
IV.v.37 (289,4) _Larded all with sweet flowers_] The expression is taken
from cookery. (1773)
IV.v.53 (290,6) _And dupt the chamber-door_] To _dup_, is to _do up_; to
lift the latch. It were easy to write,
_And_ op'd--
IV.v.58 (290,7) _By Gis_] I rather imagine it should be read,
_By_ Cis,--
That is, by St. Cecily.
IV.v.83 (291,8) but greenly] But _unskilfully_; with _greenness_; that
is, without_ maturity_ of judgment.
IV.v.84 (291,9) In hugger-mugger to inter him] All the modern editions
that I have consulted give it,
_In_ private _to inter him_;--
That the words now replaced are better, I do not undertake to prove; it
is sufficient that they are Shakespeare's: if phraseology is to be
changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or gross by vulgarity, the
history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer have the
words of any author; and, as these alterations will be often unskilfully
made, we shall in time have very little of his meaning.
IV.v.89 (292,1) Feeds on his wonder] The folio reads,