Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.
Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
When great things labouring perish in the birth."
The whole difficulty seems to lie in the word dies in the fourth line, and that I think may be removed by merely changing i into y, and reading dyes. The meaning then will be: That sport will yield most pleasure in which, though the actors are devoid of skill, they are zealous and anxious to give pleasure for their zeal in the endeavour,
dyes, or tinges (i. e. communicates its own hue to) the contents or satisfaction of the spectators (i. e. makes them sympathise with the actors). While on the other hand: My good lord, when, as in your late attempt, great things labouring perish in the birth, their confusion causes laughter and derision instead of pleasure, like the former simple effort.
I take, as will be seen, contents, in the third line, as the substantive of the preceding verb content, and not, with Mr. Knight and A. E. B., as "things contained." The poet put it in the plural evidently for the sake of the rhyme. In the next line, zeal may not be the word actually written by the poet, but it makes a very fair sense; and I know no word that could be substituted for it with certainty—we still use the phrase, to dye in. In understanding the last two lines of the mask of the king and his lords, I think I am justified by the remark of Byron:
"A right description of our sport, my Lord."
Perhaps it is needless to add, that labouring is i.q. travailing; and that most form in mirth means the highest form in (i. e. the greatest degree of) mirth.
In these, and any other remarks on Shakspeare with which I may happen to trouble you at any time, I beg to be regarded as a mere guerilla as compared with regularly trained and disciplined Shakspearians like Mr. Singer, Mr. Collier, and others. I have never read the folios of 1623 or 1632. I do not even possess a variorum edition of the poet; my only copy being Mr. Collier's excellent edition. Finally, my studies have lain most about the sunny shores of the Mediterranean; and I am most at home in the literature of its three peninsulas, and the coasts of Asia.