Note IV.
III. 1. 277, 278. Perhaps the original MS. had as follows:
'And thou, Lavinia, shalt be imployd,
Beare thou my hand sweet wench betweene thy teeth.'
The Author, or some other corrector, to soften what must have been ludicrous in representation, wrote 'Armes' above 'teeth' as a substitute for the latter. The printer of the first Quarto took 'Armes' to belong to the first line, and conjecturally filled up the lacuna with 'in these,' making, also, an accidental alteration in the position of 'thou.' Then a corrector of the second Quarto, from which the first folio was printed, made sense of the passage by substituting 'things' for 'Armes.'
Note V.
III. 2. 81. The first Folio has: 'An. Come, take away:'
The second: 'And: Come take away:'
The third and fourth: 'And, Come, take away;'
thus continuing the speech to Marcus. Rowe omitted 'And,' and the true reading was not restored before Capell.
Mr Collier, in his second edition, says: 'In the Folio of the Earl of Ellesmere, this speech has no prefix; but the conjunction 'And' for And. was mistakenly put before 'Come.'' Mr Staunton however tells us that there is a full stop after 'And,' and that though not in italics the word is clearly meant for Andronicus.