Chapter XXXVII: Act III

SC. 1. "And hindered me _of_ half a million."

So also Warburton.

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"Where? in Genoa?"

'Where' is Rowe's correction; the original editions read _Here_, which may be right.

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SC. 2. "I speak too long, but 'tis to piece the time,
To eke it, and to draw it out."

'Piece' is Rowe's correction for _peize_, and is, I think, right.

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"There is no vice so simple but assumes."

The originals all have _voice_; 'vice' is a correction, and a true one, of the 2nd folio.

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"Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea, the beautious scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty."

Unless we take it ironically--which is unworthy of the poet--'beauty' here is nonsense. It plainly owes its origin to the preceding 'beautious.' Hanmer read _dowdy_; Sidney Walker _gipsy_--both bad. I read, with the utmost confidence, _feature_ as the only word suited to the place. (See Index _s. v._) Mr. Spedding, I find, conjectured _visage_ or _feature_, apparently taking them to be synonymous.

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"Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge."

For 'pale' Farmer read _stale_, perhaps needlessly.

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"Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence."

Warburton read _plainness_, of which Mr. Dyce approves, and perhaps with reason. I have, however, made no change. Lead in fact never is pale; for its surface is always oxydized. Shakespeare, moreover, would hardly use the same term of two distinct substances. (See, however, on Rom. and Jul. ii. 5.)

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SC. 3. "The Duke cannot deny the course of law,
For the commodity that strangers have
With us in Venice. If it be denied
'_T_will much impeach the justice of the state."

I thus point and amend the passage, as Capell had done, followed only, I believe, by Knight. I am rather dubious of 'justice,' and should prefer _interest_ or _traffic_.

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SC. 4. "From out the state of hellish misery."

I prefer 'misery,' the reading of the first 4to, to _cruelty_, that of the others and the folio.

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"As I have ever found thee honest-true."

These compounds of two adjectives--the first being used adverbially--are not by any means uncommon. They are frequent in Shakespeare; in Fletcher's Hum. Lieut. (iii. 2) we have "serious-true," and in his Chances (ii. 1) "glorious-foolish." (See on 1 Hen. IV. iii. 1.)

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"In speed to Padua; see thou render this."

All the old editions read _Mantua_, but it is so certain that it must have been a mere slip of the poet or the printer that Theobald's correction has been universally and properly adopted. (See on Hen. V. iii. Chor.)

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"Unto the Tranect, to the common ferry."

Rowe, I think properly, read _Traject_ (_tragetto_ It.).

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SC. 5. "And if on earth he do not mean it, then."

Here 'it' seems to mean 'to live an upright life'; rather a harsh construction. It is not likely that the poet used 'mean' in the sense of _mener_ Fr., yet it seems to be used so sometimes in Piers Ploughman.