sc.it. CYMBELINE. 103
(Who long'st, like me, to see thy lord; who
long'st,—
O, let me 'bate,—but not like me :—yet longest,— But in a fainter kind :—Os not like me ; For mine's beyond beyond5,) say, and speak thick6, (Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing, To the smothering of the sense,) how far it is To this same blessed Milford: And, by the way, Tell me how Wales was made so happy, as To inherit such a haven : But, first of all, How we may steal from hence; and, for the gap That we shall make in time, from our hence-going, And our return \ to excuse:—but first, how get
hence : Why should excuse be born or e'er begot8 ?
5 For mine's beyond beyond,)] The comma, hitherto placed after the first beyond, is improper. The second is used as a sub* stantive ; and the plain sense is, that her longing is further than beyond ; beyond any thing that desire can be said to be beyond.
RITSON. So, in King Lear:
" Beyond all manner of so much I love you." STEEVENS.
6 — speak thick,] i. e. croud one word on another, as fast as possible. So, in King Henry IV. Part II. Act II. Sc. III. :
" And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, " Became the accents of the valiant." Again, in Macbeth:
«------as thick as tale
" Came post with post—." See vol. xi. p. 43, n. 3. STEEVENS.
7 — from oar hence-going,
And our return,] i. e. in consequence of our going hence and returning back. All the modern editors, adopting an alteration made by Mr. Pope,—Till our return.
In support of the reading of the old copy, which has been here restored, see Coriolanus, Act II. Sc. I. :
" He cannot temperately support his honours, " From where he should begin and end." See note on that passage. MAXONE.
8 Why should excuse be born or e'er begot ?] Why should I contrive an excuse, before the act is done, for which excuse will be necessary? MALONE.