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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: APPENDIX I II. i. 109 sqq.: I see thejeivel best enamelled, etc. The exact meaning of this vexed and difficult passage?difficult owing to the concise expression of the simile intended, and the necessities of the verse?may perhaps be most clearly arrived at by a formal tabular analysis of its several terms; those in italics showing the terms which Shakespeare does not express and leaves to the comprehension of his hearers. His thoughts are, I think, running on one of the enamelled rings common in Elizabethan times. I see the best enamelled jewel / find the, man (husband) best en- (e.g. a ring) dowed with moral qualities Will lose its beauty (by the wear- Will lose these qualities (by tempta- ing of the enamel); tion); Yet the gold (setting), Vet the real man (husband], That others touch, That other women tempt, (And, in fact, often touching will (And frequent temptation will cor- cause the gold to wear) rupt him in the end) Still remains gold; Still remains one's husband; [And just as no gold (setting) well So no man of assured reputation enamelled is spoilt by the wear of is shamed by his falsehood and the enamel] corruption. Since, therefore, my husband's reputation is unassailable, and my beauty has faded and ceased to please him, I have no resource but to weep and die, etc. This view seems to be supported by II. ii. 171, Be it my wrong you are from me exempt With regard to the text, the chief difficultyis in line 112; but the less change the better, I think. A syllable is clearly wanting in the Folio line; and the introduction before no man of so (which may have been accidentally omitted from the text owing to its likeness in sound to no) affords the simplest and clearest solution. THEOBALD'S Wear for the where of the Folio, a sel...

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