"AM, HAVE, AND WILL BE:" HENRY VIII., ACT III. SC. 2.
(Vol. vii., p.5.)
Independently of the obvious probability that Shakspeare, in these three words, intended to embody the present, the past, and the future, there is another reason why we can by no means part with have, or suffer it to be changed into any other word; and that is, because it is open to one of those parallel analogies which I have so often upheld as sure guides to the true reading. Only a few lines before, in a previous speech of Wolsey's, he makes use of a precisely similar elliptical coupling together of the verbs have and be:
"My loyalty,
Which ever has, and ever shall be, growing."
Here we have, in "has and shall be," the identical combination which, in the case of "have and will be," has given rise to so much doubt; so that we have only to understand the one phrase as we do the other, and make the slight addition of the personal pronoun I (not before, but after am), to render Wolsey's exclamation not only intelligible, but full of emphasis and meaning.
But in the first place the King's speech to Wolsey might be more intelligibly pointed if the words "your bond of duty" were made a parenthetical explanation of that. The "bond of duty" is the mere matter-of-course duty to be expected from every subject; but the King says that, over and above that, Wolsey ought, "as 'twere in loves particular," to be more! Thereupon Wolsey exclaims—
"I do profess
That for your highness' good I ever labour'd
More than mine own."
Here he pauses, and then immediately continues his protestation in the fine passage, the meaning of which has been so much disputed; suddenly reverting to what the King had just said he ought to be, he exclaims:
"That, am I, have, and will be,
Though all the world should crack their duty to you,
and throw it from their soul," &c.
Still less can it be permitted to change "crack their duty" into "lack their duty." Setting aside all consideration of the comparative force of the two words, and the circumstance that crack is frequently used by Shakspeare in the sense of sever by violence—the adoption of lack would be to attribute to Shakspeare an absolute blunder, for how could "all the world" throw from their soul that which they lacked?
With reference to another alteration ("capable" into "palpable," in As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 5.), notwithstanding that it seems so obvious, and has been declared so self-evident, "as to be lauded needs but to be seen," I, for one, enter my protest against it, being of opinion that the conservation of capable is absolutely essential to the context.
Capable may be, and has been, defended upon various grounds; but there is one consideration which, with me, is all-sufficient, viz., it is necessary for the explanation and defence of the accompanying word "cicatrice." Capable is concave, and has reference to the lipped shape of the impression, and cicatrice is a lipped scar; therefore one word supports and explains the other. And it is not a little singular that cicatrice should, in its turn, have been condemned as an improper expression by the very critic (Dr. Johnson) who, without perceiving this very cogent reason for so doing, nevertheless explains "capable impressure" as a hollow mark.
A. E. B.
Leeds.