I was compell'd to her; but I love thee
By Love's own sweet constraint:"
clearly indicating that this must be the true sense of the passage. By printing when for whom, and Love with a capital letter, to indicate the personification, all is made clear.
After further argument from Bertram, Diana answers:
"I see that men make ropes in such a scarre
That we'll forsake ourselves."
This Rowe altered to "make hopes in such affairs," and Malone to "make hopes in such a scene." Others, and among them Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier, retain the old reading, and vainly endeavour to give it a meaning, understanding the word scarre to signify a rock or cliff, with which it has nothing to do in this passage. There can be no doubt that "make ropes" is a misprint for "make hopes," which is evidently required by the context, "that we'll forsake ourselves." It then only remains to show what is meant by a scarre, which signifies here anything that causes surprise or alarm; what we should now write a scare. Shakspeare has used the same orthography, scarr'd, i.e. scared, in Coriolanus and in Winter's Tale. There is also abundant evidence that this was its old orthography, indicative of the broad sound the word then had, and which it still retains in the north. Palsgrave has both the noun and the verb in this form: "Scarre, to scar crowes, espouventail." And again, "I scarre away or feare away, as a man doth crowes or such like; je escarmouche." The French word might lead to the conclusion that a scarre might be used for a skirmish. (See Cotgrave in v. Escarmouche.) I once thought we should read "in such a warre," i.e. conflict.
In Minshen's Guide to the Tongues, we have:
"To Scarre, videtur confictum ex sono oves vel aliud quid abigentium et terrorem illis incutientium. Gall. Ahurir ratione eadem:" vi. to feare, to fright.