Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay;
True love we know, precipitates delay.
Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove;
No man at one time can be wise and love.
Herrick, To Silvia to Wed.
Page 135. I have inserted the title Epithalamion after the Ecclogue from D, H49, Lec, O'F, S96, as otherwise the latter title is extended to the whole poem. This poem is headed in two different ways in the MSS. In A18, N, TC, the title at the beginning is: Eclogue Inducing an Epithalamion at the marriage of the E. of S. The proper titles of the two parts are thus given at once, and no second title is needed later. In the other MSS. the title at the beginning is Eclogue. 1613. Decemb. 26. Later follows the title Epithalamion. As 1633 follows this fashion at the beginning, it should have done so throughout.
Page 136, l. 126. Since both have both th'enflaming eyes. This is the reading of all the MSS. and it explains the fact that 'th'enflaming' is so printed in 1633. Without the 'both' this destroys the metre and, accordingly, the later editions read 'the enflaming'. It was natural to bring 'eye' into the singular and make 'th'enflaming eye' balance 'the loving heart'. Moreover 'both th'enflaming eyes' may have puzzled a printer. It is a Donnean device for emphasis. He has spoken of her flaming eyes, and now that he identifies the lovers, that identity must be complete. Both the eyes of both are lit with the same flame, both their hearts kindled at the same fire. Compare later: 225. 'One fire of foure inflaming eyes,' &c.
l. 129. Yet let A23, O'F. The first of these MSS. is an early copy of the poem. 'Yet' improves both the sense and the metre. It would be easily dropped from its likeness to 'let' suggesting a duplication of that word.
Page 137, l. 150. Who can the Sun in water see. The Grolier Club edition alters the full stop here to a semicolon; and Chambers quotes the reading of A18, N, TC, 'winter' for 'water', as worth noting. Both the change and the suggestion imply some misapprehension of the reference of these lines, which is to the preceding verse:
For our ease, give thine eyes th'unusual part