(1773)
IV.iii.135 (506,4) All ready at a point] [W: at appoint] There is no
need of change.
IV.iii.136 (506,5) and the chance of goodness/Be like our warranted
quarrel!] The _chance of goodness_, as it is commonly read, conveys no
sense. If there be not some more important errour in the passage, it
should at least be pointed thus:
--_and the chance, of goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel_!--
That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [_pro justitia
divina_] answerable to the cause.
The author of the _Revisal_ conceives the sense of the passage to be
rather this: _And may the success of that goodness, which is about to
exert itself in my behalf, be such as may be equal to the justice of my
quarrel_.
But I am inclined to believe that Shakespeare wrote,
--and the chance, O goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!--
This some of his transcribers wrote with a small _o_, which another
imagined to mean _of_. If we adopt this reading, the sense will be, _and
O thou sovereign Goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune answer
to our cause_. (see 1765, VI, 462, 7)
IV.iii.170 (508,9) A modern ecstacy] I believe _modern_ is only
_foolish_ or _trifling_.
IV.iii.196 (509,2), fee-grief] A peculiar sorrow; a grief that hath a
single owner. The expression is, at least to our ears, very harsh.
IV.iii.216 (511,4) He has no children] It has been observed by an
anonymous critic, that this is not said of Macbeth, who had children,
but of Malcolm, who having none, supposes a father.
Pages:
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52