II.iii.122 (432,5) Unmannerly breech'd with gore] An _unmannerly
dagger_, and a _dagger breech'd_, or as in some editions _breech'd
with_, gore, are expressions not easily to be understood. There are
undoubtedly two faults in this passage, which I have endeavored to take
away by reading,
--_daggers_
Unmanly drench'd _with gore_:--
_I saw_ drench'd _with the King's blood the fatal daggers, not only
instruments of murder but evidence of cowardice_.
Each of these words might easily be confounded with that which I have
substituted for it, by a hand not exact, a casual blot, or a negligent
inspection, [W: Unmanly reech'd] Dr. Warburton has, perhaps, rightly put
_reach'd_ for _breech'd_.
II.iii.138 (454,8)
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence,
Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice]
_Pretence_ is not act, but _simulation_, a _pretence_ of the traitor,
whoever he might be, to suspect some other of the murder. I here fly to
the protector of innocence from any charge which, yet _undivulg'd_, the
traitor may pretend to fix upon me.
II.iii.147 (454,7) This murtherous shaft that's shot,/Hath not yet
lighted] The design to fix the murder opon some innocent person, has not
yet taken effect.
II.iv.15 (456,9) minions of their race] Theobald reads,
--_minions of_ the _race_,
very probably, and very poetically.
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