[501.] and his next joy, i.e. ‘and (thou), his next joy’—words addressed to the second brother.
[502.] trivial toy, ordinary trifle. The phrase seems redundant, but ‘trivial’ may here be used in the strict sense of common or well-known. Compare Il Pens. 4, “fill the fixed mind with all your toys”; and Burton’s Anat. of Mel., “complain of toys, and fear without a cause.”
[503.] stealth of, things stolen by.
[506.] To this my errand, etc., i.e. in comparison with this errand of mine and the anxiety it involved. ‘To’ = in comparison with; an idiom common in Elizabethan English, e.g. “There is no woe to this correction,” Two Gent. ii. 4. 138. See Abbott, § 187.
[508.] How chance. Chance is here a verb followed by a substantive clause: ‘how does it chance that,’ etc. This idiom is common in Shakespeare (Abbott, § 37), where it sometimes has the force of an adverb (= perchance): compare Par. Lost, ii. 492: “If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet,” etc.
[509.] sadly, seriously. Radically, sad = sated or full (A.S. saed); hence the two meanings, ‘serious’ and ‘sorrowful,’ the former being common in Spenser, Bacon, and Shakespeare. Comp. ‘some sad person of known judgment’ (Bacon); Romeo and Jul. i. 1. 205, “Tell me in sadness, who is that you love”; Par. Lost, vi. 541, “settled in his face I see Sad resolution.” See also Swinburne’s Miscellanies (1886), page 170.
[510.] our neglect, i.e. neglect on our part.
[511.] Ay me! Comp. Lyc. 56, “Ay me! I fondly dream”; 154. This exclamatory phrase = ah me! Its form is due to the French aymi = alas, for me! and has no connection with ay or aye = yes. In this line true rhymes with shew: comp. youth and shew’th, Sonnet on his having arrived at the age of twenty-three.
[512.] Prithee. A familiar fusion of I pray thee, sometimes written ‘pr’ythee.’ Lines [495-512] form nine rhymed couplets.