Chapter XV: Act I

SC. 1. "And then grace us in the disgrace of death."

The usual confusion of _then_ and _there_. We should read the latter. The contrary occurs in: "In summer _where_ the ways are fair enough."--M. of Ven. v. 1.

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"Why should I joy in any abortive birth?"

A line is certainly lost. It may have been like this:--"_Among the offspring of the teeming earth._"

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"So you, to study now it is too late ...
That were to climb o'er the house to unlock the gate."

This, except the punctuation, is the reading of the folio; that of the 4to, 1598, is:

"So you, to study now it is too late,
Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate."

To which editors have given the preference, not a little, I think, moved by what seemed to them the metric regularity of the last line. I prefer the reading of the folio, and explain it thus:--Berowne had just been showing how he liked everything in its due time and season; and youth being the proper time for instituting a course of study, it was, he thought, as absurd for them who were full-grown men to set about it, as it would be for a man who wanted to unlock the gate of his court-yard to climb over the house to get to it. A couplet, however, may have been lost; for 'So you,' &c., joins but awkwardly with what precedes; but I believe the true solution of the difficulty is that the poet wrote '_For_ you,' &c. We have instances of the confusion of these words in Com. of Err. i. 1, 1 Hen. IV. i. 3, Macb. i. 2, Son. xliv. 5. I have so given it in my Edition. There seems to be much more humour in the reading of the folio, caused by the aposiopesis, than in that of the 4to, where 'the _little_ gate' makes a difficulty; but the meaning may be, they were giving themselves a deal of labour for a very trifling result. I think the reading of the 4to may have arisen thus. In the transcript from which it was printed "That were to" may have been effaced or omitted, and then 'little' was added to complete the metre.

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"Yet confident I'll keep what I have sworn?"

As it rimes with 'more,' we must, with 2nd folio, read _swore_.

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"A dangerous law against gentility."

The reading of Collier's folio, _garrulity_, would agree better with the context; but it is not a Shakespearian term.

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"A high hope for a low heaven."

Theobald's reading _having_ has been generally, and I think rightly, adopted; but Mr. Dyce adheres to the text.

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"To hear or forbear hearing."

Capell read _laughing_ for 'hearing,' which correction the next speech shows to be right.

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"And Don Armado, _he_ shall be your keeper."

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SC. 2. "For I am sure I shall turn sonnet."

Hanmer, who is generally followed, read 'sonnet_eer_'; but it is doubtful if that term was then in use. In Hall's Satires we meet with _sonnetist_; he also has _sonnet-wright_; and in Marston's Fawne (iv.) and in the play of Lingua (ii. 2), we have _sonnet-monger_, which I have adopted, as we have 'fancy-monger' in As You Like It, iii. 2. Dr. Verplank, an American critic, proposed 'turnsonnets,' which Mr. Staunton has adopted.