"Quenching the gasping furrowes thirst with rayne."
The present reading was ingeniously suggested by Mr. Mason, and has been adopted by Mr. Steevens, who, vigorously maintaining its propriety, throws the gauntlet of defiance to all adversaries: but let us not be appalled!
To the assertion that a just and striking personification is all that is wanted on this emergency, the answer is, that we have it already. Soil is personified; they are her lips, and her children that are alluded to. With respect to Erinnys, notwithstanding the examples of typographical errors that are adduced, it is highly improbable that it should have been mistaken for entrance, a word which has three letters that are wanting in the other. Again, are the instances common, or rather do they exist at all, where the capital letter of a proper name has been lost in a corruption? And, lastly, to turn in part Mr. Steevens's own words against himself, it is not probable that Shakspeare would have "opened his play with a speech, the fifth line of which is obscure enough to demand a series of comments thrice as long as the dialogue to which it is appended;" or, it may be added, which contained a name of such unfrequent occurrence, and certainly unintelligible to the greatest part of the audience.
It is often expected, though perhaps rather unreasonably, that where an opinion is controverted, a better should be substituted; yet it does seem just that something at least, in value equal or nearly so, should be produced, and on this ground the following new reading is very diffidently offered:
"No more the thirsty entrails of this soil."
In Titus Andronicus we have the expression, "the ragged entrails of this pit." And in the Third part of King Henry VI.,
"What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails?"
Nothing that has been here advanced is calculated to maintain that the name of Erinnys must have been obscure to Shakspeare. One or two quotations have been already given from authorities that might have supplied him, to which the following shall now be added:
"Erinnis rage is growen so fel and fearce."
Last part of the mirour for magistrates, 1578, fo. 153.
"On me, ye swarth Erinnyes, fling the flames."
Turbervile's Ovid's epistles, sign. K. ij.