It does not clearly appear whether the king and these lords thought the ship lost. This passage seems to imply, that they were themselves confident of returning, but imagined part of the fleet destroyed. Why, indeed, should Sebastian plot against his brother in the following scene, unless he knew how to find the kingdom which be was to inherit?
II.i.232 (43,1) [this lord of weak remembrance] This lord, who, being now in his dotage, has outlived his faculty of remembering; and who, once laid in the ground, shall be as little remembered himself, as he can now remember other things.
II.i.235 (43,2)
[For he's a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade the king his son's alive]
Of this entangled sentence I can draw no sense from the present reading, and therefore imagine that the author gave it thus:
For he, a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade.
Of which the meaning may be either, that he alone, who is a spirit of persuasion, professes to persuade the king; or that, He only professes to persuade, that is, without being so persuaded himself, he makes a show of persuading the king.
II.i.242 (44,3) [Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond] That this is the utmost extent of the prospect of ambition, the point where the eye can pass no further, and where objects lose their distinctness, so that what is there discovered, is faint, obscure, and doubtful. (rev. 1778, I,50,4)
II.i.251 (44,5)
[though some cast again;
And, by that destiny, to perform an act,
Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come,
In yours, and my discharge.]