Chapter LXII: Act I

SC. 1. "Their encounters, though not personal, have been _so_
royally attornied."

Both sense and metre require _so_, given in Collier's folio.

* * * * *

SC. 2. "When in Bohemia
You take my lord, I'll give him my commission
To let him there a month behind the gest
Prefix'd for his parting."

The third line has apparently no sense. The critics say 'let' is detain; but no instance of its use in that sense is to be found. We might read _sit_, which occurs in the sense of stay, dwell, live, as "I sit at ten pounds a week" (Mer. Wives, i. 3); and we have "and _sit him_ down and die" (2 Hen. IV. iii. 1). We might also, and still better, read _set_, which has nearly the same sense, settled, seated: "Being unarm'd and _set_ in secret shade" (F. Q. vi. 3, 8). "Whoever shoots at him, _I set him there_" (All's Well, iii. 2). In Fletcher's Nice Valour (iv. 1) Heath, followed by Dyce, reads _sets_ for 'lets' in "That lets it out, only for show or profit." 'Gest' (from _giste_, _gîte_, Fr.?) is used of the halting-places on a royal progress. Singer quotes from Strype a request from Cranmer to Cecil, "to let him have the new-resolved upon _gests_ from that time to the end, that he might know from time to time where the king was." Hence it would appear that there was a program of the gests, stating the time of arrival at and departure from each of them. I have therefore read 'gest-day,' supposing the last word, as usual, to have been effaced. See Introd. p. 58.

* * * * *

"What lady she her lord."

I read _soe'er_ for 'she.' "What bloody work _soe'er_" (Othel. iii. 3).

* * * * *

"The doctrine of ill-doing nor dream'd _we even_."

The usual reading is '_no_ nor,' that of the 2nd folio.

* * * * *

"Of my young play-fellow.--_Good_ grace to boot!"

* * * * *

"You may ride us
With a soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
With spur we heat an acre."

The phraseology here is evidently that of the race-course, where a _heat_ is a race. I read 'we heat _us_.' The phrase is elliptic, the full phrase being 'We heat us by running over an acre of ground.'

* * * * *

"May it be?--
Affection! thy intention stabs the centre."

So I would point, with Steevens; in the folio it is "May it be affection?" The whole passage is rather obscure. 'Affection' is imagination, fancy (see Index _s. v._); and the meaning seems to be that it stretches to (expressed by intention), and stabs, or pierces, even the centre of the earth.

* * * * *

"Looking on the lines
Of my boy's face methought I did recoil
Twenty-three years."

The folio reads 'methoughts,' and a MS. correction, followed by Mr. Collier, _my thoughts_; but 'recoil' is always a neuter verb in Shakespeare.

* * * * *

"He makes a July's day short as December'_s_."

* * * * *

"With all the nearest things to my heart as well _as_."

* * * * *

"Resides not in that man that does not think _it_."

This is the reading of the 2nd folio also.

* * * * *

"Why he that wears her like her medal hanging
About his neck."

"That like a jewel has hung twenty years
About his neck."
Hen. VIII. ii. 2.

With Collier's folio, I read _a_ for 'her.' The error, suggested by the preceding 'her,' is an ordinary one with printers.

* * * * *

"With the pin and _the_ web, but theirs, theirs only."

In Florio a cataract in the eye is termed "a pin and _a_ web."

* * * * *

"Is goads, _is_ thorns, _is_ nettles, tails of wasps."

* * * * *

"I am appointed _by_ him to murder you."

The 'appointed him' of the folio is a strange expression.

* * * * *

"That e'er was heard or read _of_. Swear his thought over
By each particular star."

This, if correct, would seem to mean exorcise his thought, try to banish it.

* * * * *

"Profess'd _love_ to him, why his revenges must
In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me.
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen."

How could his expedition or haste to depart comfort the queen? It would seem to have the contrary effect, as tending to prove her guilt. For 'and' in the third line we might, with Singer, read _God_, or, as I have done, with Hanmer, _Heaven_. The insertion of _love_ in the first line seems necessary.