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6. Strangely, in a distant, mistrustful way. I have regarded your truth with mistrustful side-glances.

7. Blenches, starts aside, aberrations, inconstancies. Measure for Measure, Act iv. sc. 5, 1. 5:

And hold you ever to our special drift,

Though sometimes you do blench from this to that,
As cause doth minister.

Troilus and Cressida, Act II. sc. 2, 1. 68 :—

There can be no evasion

To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour.

9. Now all is done, have what shall have no end. Malone accepted Tyrwhitt's conjecture, "Now all is done save," etc.; but the meaning is, "Now all my wanderings and errors are over, take love which has no end."

10. Grind, i.e., whet.

11. Newer proof, newer trial or experiment.

12. This line seems to be a reminiscence of the thoughts expressed in Sonnet CV., and to refer to the First Commandment.

CXI. Continues the apology for his wanderings of heart, ascribing them to his ill fortune-that, as commonly understood, which compels him to a player's way of life.

1. With Fortune. The Quarto has "wish fortune."

3. "The author seems here to lament his being reduced to the necessity of appearing on the stage, or writing for the theatre."-MALONE.

10. Eisel, 'gainst my strong infection. Eisel or eysell is vinegar. O. Fr. aissel, Gr. ¿ğaλís. Skelton (quoted in Nares's Glossary) says of Jesus :

66

He drank eisel and gall

To redeeme us withal.

Vinegar is esteemed very efficacious in preventing the communication of the plague and other contagious distempers.”—MALONE.

CXII. Takes up the word "pity" from CXI. 14, and declares that his friend's love and pity compensate the dishonours of his life, spoken of in the last sonnet.

4. Allow, approve, as in King Lear, Act II. sc. 4, 1. 194:

O heavens,

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway

Allow obedience.

7, 8. No one living for me except you, nor I alive to any, who can change my feelings fixed as steel either for good or ill (either to pleasure or pain). Malone proposed "e'er changes." Knight, "so changes." "Sense may be the plural.

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11. Critic, censurer, as in Troilus and Cressida, Act v. sc. 2, 1. 131 :—

Do not give advantage

To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme
For depravation, to square the general sense
By Cressid's rule.

T

12. Dispense with, excuse, pardon. So Lucrece, 1. 1070:

I am mistress of my fate,

And with my trespass never will dispense;

and 1. 1279:

Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense.

13. So strongly in my purpose bred. Schmidt gives as an explanation : "So kept and harboured in my thoughts."

14. They're dead. The Quarto has "y'are;" Malone (1780) reads “are," (1790) " they are;" Dyce," they're.” The Quarto y' th' = they.

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CXIII. In connection with CXII.; the writer's mind and senses are filled with his friend; in CXII. he tells how his ear is stopped to all other voices but one beloved voice; here he tells how his eye sees things only as related to his friend.

1. Mine eye is in my mind.

"In

my

Hamlet, Act 1. sc. 2, 1. 185, mind's eye, Horatio." So too Lucrece, 1. 1426.

3. Part his function, divide its function.

6. Latch, catch, seize. Macbeth, Act IV. sc. 3, l. 195 :—

I have words

That would be howl'd out in the desert air

Where hearing should not latch them.

The Quarto has "lack."

10. Favour, aspect, appearance, countenance, as in Measure for Measure, Act IV. sc. 2, 1. 185.

14. Mine untrue. If we accept this, the text of the Quarto, we must hold "untrue" to be a substantive; explaining, with Malone: "The sincerity of my affection is the cause of my untruth, i.e., my not seeing objects truly, such as they appear to the rest of mankind." So in Measure for Measure, Act II. sc. 4, 1. 170:

As for you,

Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.

Malone proposed and withdrew "makes mine eye untrue." Collier, "maketh my eyne untrue; " Lettsom, "mak'th mine eye untrue;" Cartwright, "maketh m'eye" or "m'eyne;" Tschischwitz, "maketh my mine,” i.e., mien.

CXIV. Continues the subject treated in CXIII., and inquires why and how it is that his eye gives a false report of objects.

5. Indigest, chaotic, formless. As in 2 King Henry IV., Act v. sc. 1, 1. 157 :

Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,
As crooked in thy manners as thy shape.

So 3 King Henry VI., Act v. sc. 6, 1. 51.
9, Compare Twelfth Night, Act 1. sc. 5, 1. 328:-

I do I know not what, and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.

11. What with his gust is 'greeing, what is pleasing to his (the eye's) taste; 'gree; to agree.

13, 14. “The allusion here is to the tasters to princes. So in King John :

who did taste to him?

HUB. A monk whose bowels suddenly burst out."

STEEVENS.

CXV. Shakspere now desires to show that love has grown through error and seeming estrangement. Before trial and error love was but a babe.

4. My flame. So in CIX. 1. 2, "absence seemed my flame to qualify."

11, 12. Certain o'er incertainty, crowning the present. So Sonnet CVII. 7 :—

Incertainties now crown themselves assured.

CXVI. Admits his wanderings, but love is fixed above all the errors and trials of man and man's life.

2. Impediments (to the marriage of true minds). So Form of Solemnization of Matrimony in Book of Common Prayer: "If any of you know cause or just impediment,"

etc.

2, 3. Love is not love, etc. So King Lear, Act I. sc. 1, 1. 241 :

Love's not love

When it is mingled with regards that stand

Aloof from the entire point.

4. With the remover to remove. So Sonnet xxv. 13, 14:

Then happy I, that love and am beloved
Where I cannot remove nor be removed.

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