Act II.
Sc. 1.
"And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess! Alas!"
Sc. 2.
"Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
May bear the raven's eye."
This is the reading of the folio; but Theobald read bare, and he is generally followed. Collier's folio has blear which I have adopted; for nothing was more common than an omission, by the printer, of a letter or even a syllable in a word. By 'raven,' the poet probably meant the night-raven, of which he had already spoken in Much Ado, ii. 3, and for his knowledge of which he was probably indebted to Spenser, in "Here no night-ravens lodge, more black than pitch" (Shep. Cal. June, v. 23).
"The ill-fac'd owl, death's dreadful messenger,