I. 2. 171, 172. We have printed this passage as prose, as it is difficult to say from the arrangement of the lines in the first and second Folios, whether or not it was intended to be read as two lines of verse, the first ending 'thee,' as it certainly is in the third and fourth Folios. Pope printed it as prose. Capell eked out the metre thus:
'Me near? why, then another time I'll hear thee:
I pr'ythee, let us be provided now
To shew them entertainment.'
Steevens suggested 'provided straight' in the second line.
In many parts of this play it is difficult to say whether the lines are intended to be read as irregular verse, or as rhythmical prose, and we have therefore left them as they stand in the Folios.
Note VIII.
II. 2. 89-96. This and many other passages are printed in the Folio as if they were intended to be irregular verse, where it is evident that they can only be read as prose. In such cases it is not always worth while to record how the lines were divided by the caprice or negligence of the printer. Seymour has endeavoured throughout the play to complete imperfect lines by the insertion of words, and imperfect hemistichs by the addition of entire clauses, but he has in this so far exceeded the license of conjecture that, except in the first scene of the play, we have not recorded all his proposed alterations.
Note IX.
III. 2. 60-64. Pope altered these lines as follows:
'Why, this is the world's soul;
Of the same piece, is every flatterer's sport:
Who can call him his friend
That dips in the same dish? for in my knowing,
Timon has been to this lord as a father,
And kept his credit with his bounteous purse.'
Theobald follows Pope's arrangement, but reads 'spirit' for 'sport' in the second line, an emendation which he first suggested in a letter to Warburton, still unpublished, in the British Museum. Warburton's conjecture 'coat,' which he made no allusion to in his own edition, is mentioned by Theobald in the same letter. Hanmer gives the whole passage thus: