I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrel's heavenly;
It strikes, where it doth love.--She wakes--]
This tenderness, with which I lament the punishment which justice
compels me to inflict, is a holy passion.
I wish these two lines could be honestly ejected. It is the fate of
Shakespeare to counteract his own pathos.
V.ii.65 (502,8) A murder, which I thought a sacrifice] This line is
difficult. _Thou hast hardened my heart, and makest me_ kill thee with
the rage of a _murderer_, when _I thought to have sacrificed_ thee to
justice with the calmness of a priest striking a victim.
It must not be omitted, that one of the elder quartos reads, _thou dost
stone_ thy _heart_; which I suspect to be genuine. The meaning then will
be, _thou forcest me_ to dismiss thee from the world in the state of the
_murdered_ without preparation for death, _when I intended_ that thy
punishment should have been a _sacrifice_ atoning for thy crime.
I am glad that I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scene. It is not
to be endured.
V.ii.134 (505,3) false as water] As water that will support no weight,
nor keep any impression.
V.ii.151 (506,4) villainy has made mocks with love] _Villainy_ has taken
advantage to _play upon_ the weakness of a violent passion.
V.ii.162 (506,5) Thou hast not half that power to do me harm, /As I have
to be hurt] [Hamner: to bear hurt] The Oxford Editor saw well the
meaning of his author, but weakened his expression. She means to say, _I
have in this cause power to endure more than thou hast power to
inflict_.
V.ii.183 (507, 6) charm your tongue] I know not whether I have read, or
whether my own thoughts hare suggested, an alteration of this passage.
It seems to me not improbable, that Shakespeare wrote _clam_ your
tongue; to _clam_ a bell, is to cover the clapper with felt, which
drowns the blow, and hinders the sound.
V.ii.211 (509,7) she with Cassio had the act of shame/A thousand times
committed] This is another passage which seems to suppose a longer space
comprised in the action of this play than the scenes include.
V.ii.253 (512,2) It was a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper] [In
the first edition it is, _Isebroke's temper_. Thence corrupted to
_Ice-brook's_.--_Ebro's temper_; the waters of that river of Spain are
particularly famous for tempering of steel. POPE.] I believe the old
reading changed to _ice-brook_ is right. Steel is hardened by being put
red hot into very cold water.