[NOTES.]
[ Note I.]
[Dramatis Personæ.] We have followed Steevens and the later editors in reading ‘Proteus’ for ‘Protheus’; for though the latter form is invariably used in the Folios, and was, in all probability, what Shakespeare wrote, yet in choosing the name he doubtless meant to compare the fickle mind of the lover with the changeable form of the god. We have written ‘Panthino,’ not ‘Panthion,’ because the authority of the first Folio preponderates in favour of the former, in itself the more probable form of an Italian proper name. ‘Panthion’ occurs in F1, among ‘the names of all the actors,’ and in a stage direction at the beginning of Act II Sc. 2, but never in the text. ‘Panthino’ is found twice in the text, and once in a stage direction at the beginning of Act I. Sc. 3. The blunder ‘Panthmo,’ I. 3. 76, which is the reading of F1, shows that the original MS. had ‘Panthino,’ not ‘Panthion.’
[ Note II.]
[I. 1. 28 sqq.] Mr Sidney Walker (Criticisms on Shakespeare, III. p. 9) says we ought ‘perhaps’ to read
‘No,
I will not, for it boots not.’
Doubtless he meant also to re-arrange the following lines, and so get rid of the Alexandrine at 30; thus: