ACT I.
Scene 1. Page 8.
Duke. How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
That live in her.
This golden shaft was supplied either from a description of Cupid in Sidney's Arcadia, book ii., or from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Golding, 4to, fo. 8, where, speaking of Cupid's arrows, he says,
"That causeth love is all of golde with point full sharp and bright.
That chaseth love, is blunt, whose steele with leaden head is dight."
Milton seems to have forgotten that Love had only one shaft of gold. See Parad. Lost, iv. 1. 763.
Scene 2. Page 11.
Cap. ... she hath abjur'd the company
And sight of men.
This necessary and justifiable change in the ordo verborum from the reading in the old copy, and to which Mr. Steevens lays claim, had been already made by Sir Thomas Hanmer.
Scene 3. Page 21.
Sir To. ... Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like mistress Mall's picture?
Mr. Malone's conjecture that curtains were at this time frequently hung before pictures of value, is further supported in Scene 5 of this Act, where Olivia, in unveiling her face, mentions the practice. In Deloney's Pleasant history of Jack of Newbery, printed before 1597, it is recorded that "in a faire large parlour, which was wainscotted round about, Jacke of Newbery had fifteene faire pictures hanging, which were covered with curtaines of greene silke, frienged with gold, which he would often shew to his friends and servants."
Scene 3. Page 23.
Sir And. Taurus? that's sides and heart.
Sir To. No, sir, it is legs and thighs.
Both the knights are wrong in their astrology, according to the almanacs of the time, which make Taurus govern the neck and throat. Their ignorance is perhaps intentional.
Scene 5. Page 31.
Sir To. ... How now, sot?
There is great humour in this ambiguous word, which applies equally to the fool and the knight himself, in his drunken condition.