and what excellent sense emerges! 'Subtle' (or, as we should now write, subtile), used also by Chapman (Odyss. x. 296) of Circe's web, is subtilis, 'fine-spun'; and the 'broken woof' is the web torn by Minerva; 'admits' is allows of, i.e. contains; for 'orifice' the originals have orifex. As Shakespeare was a great reader of Golding's Ovid, Ariachne could never have been his word. A perfect parallel to the embarrassed structure of this passage is offered by
"That have sod their infants in—and after eat them—
The brine they wept at killing 'em; then if."
Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 3.
Which should be:
"That have sod their infants in the brine they wept
At killing 'em, and after eat them; then if."
(See on Cymb. i. 7.) The meaning of this very obscure passage is, that there could not be now even the slightest doubt of Cressida's infidelity, incredible as it might seem. 'Instance' in the following lines is, proof.