IV. x. 35 ll. 5, 6.
Else would the waters ouerflow the lands,
And fire deuoure the ayre, and hell them quight.
In this difficult passage two lines of interpretation are offered:—(1) taking ‘hell’ as sb. and ‘quight’ as vb., ‘And hell requite them,’ i.e. punish the elements by reducing all to chaos: (2) taking ‘hell’ as vb. and ‘quight’ as advb., ‘And cover them (i.e. the lands) quite.’ The second explanation involves a difficult parenthesis of ‘And fire deuoure the ayre’: ‘hell’ does not occur elsewhere in F. Q. as a verb, even in the form ‘hele’, though ‘vnhele’ = uncover is found in II. xii. 64 l. 8; hence it has been proposed to read ‘mell’ = confuse. But the first line of interpretation seems the more satisfactory.
IV. xi. 4 l. 6. seuen] three Malone 616 and G. 11557 in B. M. All other copies of 1596 ‘seuen’. This is another instance of correction at press. See above on IV. x. 23. 1609 reads ‘three’. I cannot say which reading represents the poet’s second thought.
IV. xi. 17 l. 6. times] age Todd. But see Introduction, p. viii.
IV. xi. 34 l. 5. Grant] Guant 1596, 1609: corr. Child. ‘Grant’ is for Granta, i.e. the Cam, as Upton noted.
IV. xi. 52 l. 7. but] both conj. edd. The text is sound. Floods and fountains, though originally all derived from ocean, are yet akin to sky and sun.
IV. xii. 13 ll. 1, 2. For the significance of these variants see Introduction, p. xix.
IV. xii. 23 l. 9. That no old sore it was 16(11)-12-13.