Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

III.vi.106 (342,2) time-flies] Flies of a season.

III.vi. 107 (342,5) minute-jacks!] Hanmer thinks it means Jack-a-lantern, which shines and disappears in an instant. What it was I know not; but it was something of quick motion, mentioned in Richard III.

III.vi.108 (342,4) the infinite malady] Every kind of disease incident to man and beast.

IV.i.19 (344,6)

Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confusion live!]

Hanmer reads, let confusion; but the meaning may be, though by such confusion all things seem to hasten to dissolution, yet let not dissolution come, but the miseries of confusion continue.

IV.ii (345,1) Enter Flavius] Nothing contributes more to the exaltation of Timon's character than the zeal and fidelity of his servants. Nothing but real virtue can be honoured by domesticks; nothing but impartial kindness can gain affection from dependants.

IV.ii.10 (345,2) So his familiars from his buried fortunes/Slink all away] The old copies have to instead of from. The correction is Hanmer's; but the old reading might stand (see 1765, VI, 231, 2)

IV.ii.38 (346,4) strange unusual blood] Of this passage, I suppose, every reader would wish for a correction; but the word, harsh as it is, stands fortified by the rhyme, to which, perhaps, it owes its introduction. I know not what to propose. Perhaps,

—strange unusual mood,

may, by some, be thought better, and by others worse.

IV.iii.1 (347,5) O blessed, breeding sun] [W: blessing breeding] I do not see that this emendation much strengthens the sense.

IV.iii.2 (347,6) thy sister's orb] That is, the moon's, this sublunary world.

IV.iii.6 (348,7) Not nature,/To whom all sores lay siege] I have preserved this note rather for the sake of the commentator [Warburton] than of the author. How nature, to whom all sores lay siege, can so emphatically express nature in its greatest perfection, I shall not endeavour to explain. The meaning I take to be this: Brother, when his fortune is inlarged, will scorn brother; for this is the general depravity of human nature, which, besieged as it is by misery, admonished as it is of want and imperfection, when elevated by fortune, will despise beings of nature like its own.

IV.iii.12 (349,9) It is the pastor lards the brother's sides,/The want that makes him leave] [W: weather's sides] This passage is very obscure, nor do I discover any clear sense, even though we should admit the emendation. Let us inspect the text as I have given it from the original edition,

It is the pastour lards the brother's sides,
The want that makes him leave.

Dr. Warburton found the passage already changed thus,

It is the pasture lards the beggar's sides,
The want that makes him lean.

And upon this reading of no authority, raised another equally uncertain.

Alterations are never to be made without necessity. Let us see what sense the genuine reading will afford. Poverty, says the poet, bears contempt hereditary, and wealth native honour. To illustrate this position, having already mentioned the case of a poor and rich brother, he remarks, that this preference is given to wealth by those whom it least becomes; it is the pastour that greases or flatters the rich brother, and will grease him on till want makes him leave. The poet then goes on to ask, Who dares to say this man, this pastour, is a flatterer; the crime is universal; through all the world the learned pate, with allusion to the pastour, ducks to the golden fool. If it be objected, as it may justly be, that the mention of pastour is unsuitable, we must remember the mention of grace and cherubims in this play, and many such anachronisms in many others. I would therefore read thus:

It is the pastour lards the brother's sides,
'Tis want that makes him leave.

The obscurity is still great. Perhaps a line is lost. I have at least given the original reading.

IV.iii.27 (350,2) no idle votarist] No insincere or inconstant supplicant. Gold will not serve me instead of roots.

IV.iii.38 (351,5) That makes the wappen'd widow wed again] Of wappened I have found no example, nor know any meaning. To awhape is used by Spenser in his Hubberd's Tale, but I think not in either of the senses mentioned. I would read wained, for decayed by time. So our author in Richard the Third, A beauty-waining and distressed widow.

IV.iii.41 (352,6) To the April day again] That is, to the wedding day, called by the poet, satirically, April day, or fool's day.

IV.iii.44 (352,7) Do thy right nature] Lie in the earth where nature laid thee.

IV.iii.44 (352,8) Thou'rt quick] Thou hast life and motion in thee.

IV.iii.64 (353,9) I will not kiss thee] This alludes to an opinion in former times, generally prevalent, that the venereal infection transmitted to another, left the infecter free. I will not, says Timon, take the rot from thy lips by kissing thee.

IV.iii.72 (353,1)

Tim. Promise me friendship, but perform none. If
Thou wilt not promise, the Gods plague thee, for
Thou art a man; if thou dost perform, confound thee,
For thou art a man!]

That is, however thou may'st act, since thou art man, hated man, I wish thee evil.

IV.iii.82 (354,2)

Be a whore still! They love thee not that use thee;
Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust:
Make use of thy salt hours]

There is here a slight transposition. I would read,

—They love thee not that use thee,
Leaving with thee their lust; give them diseases;
Make use of thy salt hours; season the slaves
For tubs and baths;—

IV.iii.115 (356,6) milk-paps,/That through the window-bars bore at mens' eyes] [W: window-lawn] The reading is more probably,

—window-bar,—

The virgin that shews her bosom through the lattice of her chamber.

IV.iii.119 (356,8) exhaust their mercy] For exhaust, sir T. Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read extort; but exhaust here signifies literally to draw forth.

IV.iii.120 (356,7)

Think it a bastard, whom the oracle
Hath doubtfully prunounc'd thy throat shall cut]

An allusion to the tale of OEdipus.

IV.iii.134 (357,8) And to make whores a bawd] [W: make whole] The old edition reads,