Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

You shall feel from the sight and conversation of these ladies, such hopes of happiness and such pleasure, as the farmer receives from the spring, when the plenty of the year be...

IV.i.59-64 (431,8) [Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as _Obidicut_; _Hobbididance_, prince of dumbness; _Mahu_, of stealing; _Modo_, of murder; and _Flibberti...

[i.e. that appetite, which is not allured to feed on such excellence, can have no stomach at all; but, though empty, must nauseate every thing. WARB.] I explain this passage in...

V.ii.60 (427,2) Back, I say, go; lest I let forth your half pint of blood;--back, that's the utmost of your having:--Back] [Warburton emended the punctuation] I believe the mean...

IV.iv.90 (472,4) With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,/ Than baits to fish, or honey-stalks to sheep] _Honey-stalks_ are clover-flowers, which contain a sweet juice. It...

IV.xii.13 (226,1) Triple turn'd whore!] She was first for Antony, then was supposed by him to have _turned_ to Caesar, when he found his messenger kissing her hand, then she _tu...

V.i.16 (273,9) Do your best wills,/And make me blest to obey!] So the copies. It was more in the manner of our author to have written,

[W: found, dispatch'd.] I do not see how this change mends the sense: I think it may be better regulated as in the page above. The sense is interrupted. He shall be caught--and...

I.iii.90 (126,7) Oh, ny oblivion is a very Antony,/And I am all forgotten] [The plain meaning is, _My forgetfulness makes me forget myself_. WARBURTON.] [Hanmer explained "all f...

III.i.70 (235,2) the whips and scorns of time] [W: of th' time] I doubt whether the corruption of this passage is not more than the editor has suspected. _Whips_ and _scorns_ ha...

I.ii.99 (293,7) O joy, e'en made away, ere it can be born!] For this Hanmer writes, _O joy, e'en made a joy ere't can be born_; and is followed by Dr. Warburton. I am always inc...

III.vi.36 (482,3) and receive free honours] [_Free_ for grateful. WARBURTON.] How can _free_ be _grateful_? It may be either honours _freely bestowed_, not purchased by crimes;...

V.i.149 (316,5) by the card] The _card_ is the paper on which the different points of the compass were described. _To do any thing by the card_, is, _to do it with nice observat...

I.ix.72 (325,9) To the fairness of any power] [_Fairness_, for _utmost_. WARE.] I know not how _fairness_ can mean _utmost_. When two engage on _equal_ terms, we say it is _fair...

IV.i.78 (94,7) We'll not commend what we intend to sell] I believe the meaning is only this: though you practise the buyer's art, we will not practise the seller's. We intend to...

IV.iii.140 (358,1) Yet may your pains, six months,/Be quite contrary] The explanation [Warburton's] is ingenious, but I think it very remote, and would willingly bring the autho...

I.iii.144 (382,1) men whose heads/Do grow beneath their shoulders] Of these men there is an account in the interpolated travels of Mondeville, a book of that time.

"If that which I am about to do, when it is once _done_ and executed, were _done_ and ended without any following effects, it would then be best _to do it quickly_; if the murde...

I.ii.167 (164,2) good Even, Sir] So the copies. Sir Th. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton put it, _good morning_. The alteration is of no importance, but all licence is dangerous. There...

Dr. Johnson's reaction to Shakespeare's tragedies is a curious one, compounded as it is of deep emotional involvement in a few scenes in some plays and a strange dispassionatene...

III.iv.103 (461,2) 'Tis not a year, or two, shews us a man] From this line it may be conjectured, that the author intended the action of the play to be considered as longer than...