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  • Spiders’ Strings and Ponderous Things: Solving a Crux in Measure for Measure
  • Carl D. Atkins

George T. Wright notes that “The fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the witches in Macbeth, the caskets in The Merchant of Venice, and several speakers of Epilogues and Prologues signal their peculiar status (at least part of the time) through tetrameter couplets.”1 Missing from this catalog is the Duke’s final speech in act 3 of Measure for Measure. Whether one considers it a “sententious” speech as Edward Capell would have it, a “chorus summarising the drama’s import” as Alfred Thiselton writes, or a “finale to an act full of surprises” according to J. W. Lever,2 it is in keeping with the marking of the Duke’s special status in the play. In addition to the rhyming tetrameters, Brindsley Nicholson notes “the close connection of each thought with that which precedes it”; he also notes “the shortness of each clause—each, with one exception, ending with the couplet.”3 This adds to the sententiousness of verse, as if we are being treated to a stream of adages by the Duke. The exception that Nicholson refers to occurs at the same point as a celebrated crux. Nicholson believes this is no accident and posits a missing couplet, which ushers in two clauses of three lines each in contrast to the preceding two-line clauses. I agree with Nicholson that the change in clause length and the crux are related, but I believe there is an easier explanation.

Let us examine the speech as it reads in the First Folio (3.2.243–64, TLN 1746–67): [End Page 360]

He who the sword of Heaven will beare, Should be as holy, as seveare: Patterne in himselfe to knowe, Grace to stand, and Vertue go: More, not lesse to others paying, Then by selfe-offences weighing. Shame to him, whose cruell striking, Kils for faults of his owne liking: Twice trebble shame on Angelo, To weede my vice, and let his grow. Oh, what may Man within him hide, Though Angel on the outward side? How may likenesse made in crimes, Making practise on the Times, To draw with ydle Spiders strings Most ponderous and substantiall things? Craft against vice, I must applie. With Angelo to night shall lye His old betroathed (but despised:) So disguise shall by th’disguised Pay with falsehood, false exacting, And performe an olde contracting.4

The crux occurs at the fifteenth line (TLN 1760) where there is an obvious grammatical difficulty if we interpret “To draw” as the infinitive, as there is no predicate to complete the clause beginning “How may likenesse.” The most common emendation, first conjectured by William Warburton and accepted by Lewis Theobald, is “Draw” for “To draw” in TLN 1760.5 On bibliographic principles, we must be suspicious of this emendation since the accidental addition of a word by a compositor is not a common error.6 Warburton compounds the problem by proposing that the compositor additionally dropped the word “that” from before “likenesse” (TLN 1758). This leads him to read the passage as follows: “How may that likeness, made in crimes, i.e. by hypocrisy; by imposing on the world, draw with its false and empty pretences the most ponderous [End Page 361] and substantial things of the world, as riches, honour, power, reputation, &c.” Aside from having to accept the gloss of “hypocrisy” for “likenesse made in crimes” and “Spiders strings” as a reasonable metaphor for “false and empty pretenses,” the image of “likenesse” drawing “substantial things of the world” with “Spiders strings” is hardly an acceptable one. Nor does the paraphrase fit with the remainder of the speech, which blames Angelo for his hypocrisy rather than blaming hypocrisy for the evil that it does. The Reverend Smith of Harleston offers a more reasonable basis for the imagery, resorting to an old adage. Accepting Theobald’s emendation, Smith explains TLN 1758–61 as follows: “How may the making it a practice of lettting great rogues break through the laws with impunity, and hanging up little ones for the same crimes; draw away in time with idle spider strings (For no...

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