Chapter XXIV: Act V

SC. 2. "But I am now, sir, muddied in Fortune's mood."

Warburton's conjecture of _moat_ for 'mood' is very specious, but, I fear, nothing more. 'Muddied' and 'mood' form what is termed a paronomasia.

* * * * *

"I do pity his distress in my smiles of comfort."

The Cambridge editors adopt Warburton's reading _similes_. I doubt if either was the poet's word.

* * * * *

"You beg more than _one_ word then."

It was the 3rd folio that supplied _one_.

* * * * *

SC. 3. "Natural rebellion done in the blade of youth,
When oil and fire," etc.

The context would suggest _blaze_ to any one, as it did to Theobald.

* * * * *

"The nature of his great offence is dead."

He means Helena, but I do not see how 'nature' applies to her. Perhaps we should read _motive_; or some other word.

* * * * *

"I am not a day of season."

Something seems evidently lost here; for the address to Bertram is too abrupt. I would read 'season_able weather_.' We have, 'Like an _unseasonable_ stormy day (Rich. II. iii. 2); and there was in the Liturgy, at that time, "a prayer for _seasonable weather_." The phrase 'day of season,' I believe, occurs nowhere else. Lower down--probably in the same page of the MS.--there appears to be an effacement of the same kind, and the loss of an entire line.

* * * * *

"The daughter of this lord.--
Admiringly, my liege. At first * * * _sight of her_. (?)
I stuck my choice upon her. Ere my heart
Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue,
Where the impression of mine eye infixing," etc.

Is it not amazing that no one seems ever to have perceived that a line must have been lost between the last two lines? It may have been of this kind, "_Another object met my wandering fancy_." Capell, I find, read 'At _the_ first _sight_.'

* * * * *

"The last that ere I took her leave at court."

I read 'last _time_' and _e'er_ for 'ere.' Rowe read _e'er she_; but the text is right.

"And that even here thou takest
As from my death-bed, my last living leave."--Rich. II. 5.

"He needs not our mistrust."--Macb. iii. 3.

* * * * *

"I bade her if her fortunes ever stood," etc.

The proper word would seem to be _told_, not 'bade'; but _bid_ was used in the sense of tell or say, as in "bid farewell," etc.

"And _bade_ me if I had a friend that lov'd her;
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her."--Othel. i. 3.

"Now I, to comfort him, _bid_ him 'a should not think of
God."--Hen. V. ii. 3.

* * * * *

"I stood ingaged."

As 'ingaged' is usually the same as _engaged_, a sense which would be absurd here, we might venture to read '_u_ngaged,' or '_un_ingaged. (See on Com. of Err. ii. 2.)

* * * * *

"I'll buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll _him_."

So Steevens also reads.

* * * * *

"I wonder, sir, sir wives are monsters to you."

The second 'sir' is an evident error. The 2nd folio omits it, and reads 'are _such_.' I read, as Tyrwhitt had done, _since_.

* * * * *

"Come hither, Count. Do you know these women _here_"?

* * * * *

"Than in my thought it lies _now_.--Good, my lord."

* * * * *

"He blushes, and 'tis hit."

For 'hit,' which is probably wrong, Capell read _it_; Pope, who is generally followed, _his_. It is very hard to choose; as each makes good sense, each is a natural printer's error.

* * * * *

"Her insuit coming with her modern grace."

I accept without hesitation the excellent correction of Collier's folio, and of Sidney Walker, _infinite cunning_. In Tr. and Cr. iii. 2, we read '_coming_ in dumbness,' where Pope made the proper correction _cunning_.

* * * * *

"You, that have turned off a first so noble wife,
May justly diet me."

As I can make little sense of 'diet,' I read _deny_.

* * * * *

"Do you _not_ know he promised me marriage?"

The negative is required for both sense and metre.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.