“All's Well That Ends Well.”
Act i. sc. 1.—
“Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes
it soon mortal.
Bert. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?”
Bertram and Lafeu, I imagine, both speak together,—Lafeu referring to the Countess's rather obscure remark.
Act ii. sc. 1. (Warburton's note.)
“King. ... let higher Italy
(Those 'bated, that inherit but the fall
Of the last monarchy) see, that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it.”
It would be, I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest “bastards,” for “'bated.” As it stands, in spite of Warburton's note, I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?—With my conjecture, the sense would be;—“let higher, or the more northern part of Italy—(unless ‘higher’ be a corruption for ‘hir'd,’—the metre seeming to demand a monosyllable) (those bastards that inherit the infamy only of their fathers) see,” &c. The following “woo” and “wed” are so far confirmative as they indicate Shakespeare's manner of connection by unmarked influences of association from some preceding metaphor. [pg 112] This it is which makes his style so peculiarly vital and organic. Likewise “those girls of Italy” strengthen the guess. The absurdity of Warburton's gloss, which represents the king calling Italy superior, and then excepting the only part the lords were going to visit, must strike every one.
Ib. sc. 3.—
“Laf. They say, miracles are past; and we have our philosophical
persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural
and causeless.”
Shakespeare, inspired, as it might seem, with all knowledge, here uses the word “causeless” in its strict philosophical sense;—cause being truly predicable only of phenomena, that is, things natural, and not of noumena, or things supernatural.
Act iii. sc. 5.—
“Dia. The Count Rousillon:—know you such a one?
Hel. But by the ear that hears most nobly of him;
His face I know not.”
Shall we say here, that Shakespeare has unnecessarily made his loveliest character utter a lie?—Or shall we dare think that, where to deceive was necessary, he thought a pretended verbal verity a double crime, equally with the other a lie to the hearer, and at the same time an attempt to lie to one's own conscience?