Chapter 32

... “Nor then silenc’d with “Commend me to your master”—_and the cap_ _Plays in the right hand, thus_.”

Either, methinks, “plays” should be “play’d,” or “and” should be changed to “while.” I can certainly understand it as a parenthesis, an interadditive of scorn; but it does not sound to my ear as in Shakespeare’s manner.

_Ib._ sc. 2. Timon’s speech (Theobald):—

“And that unaptness made _you_ minister, Thus to excuse yourself.”

Read _your_;—at least I cannot otherwise understand the line. You made my chance indisposition and occasional inaptness your minister—that is, the ground on which you now excuse yourself. Or, perhaps, no correction is necessary, if we construe “made you” as “did you make;” “and that unaptness did you make help you thus to excuse yourself.” But the former seems more in Shakespeare’s manner, and is less liable to be misunderstood.