'Come hither Gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword,
Neuer to speake of this that you have heard:
Sweare by my Sword.'
The following Folios put a full stop after 'sword' in the second line.
Capell, taking the order of words from the Quartos, arranged as three lines, thus:
'Come hither, gentlemen, and lay your hands
Again upon my sword; Swear by my sword,
Never to speak of this that you have heard.'
The first Quarto supports the order of the words as found in the Folio. Perhaps we might follow it and arrange the words of the Folio in three lines ending 'hands' ... 'speak' ... 'sword.'
Note XI.
II. 1. 79. Theobald, who is followed by Hanmer, Warburton, and Johnson, reads 'loose' for 'foul'd,' on the authority as he says of 'the elder Quartos.' It is not the reading of any of the first six, but of those of 1676, 1683, 1695 and 1703. Had Capell been aware of this, he would scarcely have designated Theobald's mistake as 'a downright falsehood.' Theobald, at the time of writing his 'Shakespeare Restored,' knew of no Quarto earlier than that of 1637 (Shakespeare Restored, p. 70), and it is just possible that some copy of this edition (Q6), from which that of 1676 was printed, may have had the reading 'loose.' We have given in the note to III. 4. 59 an instance of different readings in two copies of Q6.
Note XII.
II. 2. 111, 112. In the Quartos Polonius's comment, 'that's an ill phrase ...,' is printed in italics like the letter, and there is some confusion in the next line. The second, third, fourth and fifth have 'but you shall heare: thus in her excellent white bosom, these &c.' The sixth puts a comma after 'heare.' In the Folios these last words are printed in Roman type as if they were part of Polonius's comment, thus: 'but you shall heare these in her excellent white bosome, these.'
Rowe printed: 'but you shall hear—These to her excellent white bosom, these—'