Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/70



Armado o' the one side,—O a most dainty man!

To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!

To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear!

And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!

Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Sola, sola!

(Love's Labour's Lost, iv, 1, 146)

passage, in its entirety, has been very embarrassing to editors because it seems to have no connection with the scene in which it stands and of which it forms the conclusion. As it appears to be so irrelevant and foreign to the context, some editors, as Staunton, Halliwell and Rolfe, lift it from its present position and find a place for it in the preceding scene at line 136. But others, not finding that it fits here with any convincing aptness, prefer to let it remain where it is according to the original sources of the play. Armado and the Page, whom the clown seems to be characterizing, do not appear in the scene at all; hence there has been difficulty in determining upon what grounds the mind should take such a sudden jump.

The trouble lies in the interpretation—not merely of words and phrases but of the working of the clown's mind. Costard is not talking