Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 | Page 2

see of Ossory from 1318 to 1360, and was rendered famous by his
proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteller for heresy and witchcraft.
(See a contemporary account of the "proceedings" published by the
Camden Society in 1843; a most valuable contribution to Irish history,
and well deserving of still more editorial labour than has been
bestowed on it.) I have copied the old English and Norman-French
word for word, preserving the contractions wherever they occurred.
I shall conclude this "note" by proposing two "Queries:" to such of your
contributors as are learned in old English and French song-lore, viz.,
1. Are the entire songs, of which the above lines form the
commencements, known or recoverable?
2. If so, is the music to which they were sung handed down?
I shall feel much obliged by answers to both or either of the above
Queries, and
"Bis dat, qui cito dat."
JAMES GRAVES.
Kilkenny, Nov. 1. 1850.
* * * * *

MISPLACED WORDS IN SHAKSPEARE'S TROILUS AND
CRESSIDA.
In that immaculate volume, the first folio edition of Shakspeare, of
which Mr. Knight says: "Perhaps, all things considered, there never
was a book so correctly printed"! a passage in Troilus and Cressida,
Act. v. Sc. 3., where Cassandra and Andromache are attempting to
dissuade Hector from going to battle, is thus given:
"And. O be perswaded: doe not count it holy, To hurt by being iust; it is
lawful: For we would count giue much to as violent thefts, And rob in
the behalfe of charitie."
Deviating from his usual practice, Mr. Knight makes an omission and a
transposition, and reads thus:
"Do not count it holy To hurt by being just: it is as lawful, For we
would give much, to count violent thefts, And rob in the behalf of
charity."
with the following note; the ordinary reading is
"'For we would give much to use violent thefts.'"
To use thefts is clearly not Shakspearian. Perhaps count or give might
be omitted, supposing that one word had been substituted for another in
the manuscript, without the erasure of the first written; but this
omission will not give us a meaning. We have ventured to transpose
count and omit as:
"For we would give much, to count violent thefts."
We have now a clear meaning: it is as lawful because we desire to give
much, to count violent thefts as holy, "and rob in the behalf of charity."
Mr. Collier also lays aside his aversion to vary from the old copy, and
makes a bold innovation: he reads,--
"Do not count it holy To hurt by being just: it is as lawful, For us to

give much count to violent thefts, And rob in the behalf of charity."
Thus giving his reasons: "This line [the third] is so corrupt in the folio
1623, as to afford no sense. The words and their arrangement are the
same in the second and third folio, while the fourth only alters would to
will." Tyrwhitt read:
"For we would give much to use violent thefts,"
which is objectionable, not merely because it wanders from the text,
but because it inserts a phrase, "to use violent thefts," which is
awkward and unlike Shakspeare. The reading I have adopted is that
suggested by Mr. Amyot, who observes upon it: "Here, I think, with
little more than transposition (us being, substituted for we, and would
omitted), the meaning, as far as we can collect it, is not departed from
nor perverted, as in Rowe's strange interpolation:
"For us to count we give what's gain'd by thefts."
The original is one of the few passages which, as it seems to me, must
be left to the reader's sagacity, and of the difficulties attending which
we cannot arrive at any satisfactory solution."
Mr. Collier's better judgment has here given way to his deference for
the opinion of his worthy friend; the deviation from the old copy being
quite as violent as any that he has ever quarrelled with in others.
Bearing in mind MR. HICKSON'S valuable canon (which should be
the guide of future editors), let us see what is the state of the case. The
line is a nonsensical jumble, and has probably been printed from an
interlineation in the manuscript copy, two words being evidently
transposed, and one of them, at the same time, glaringly mistaken. The
poet would never have repeated the word count, which occurs in the
first line, in the sense given to it either by Mr. Collier or by Mr. Knight.
Preserving every word in the old copy, I read the passage thus:--
"O! be persuaded. Do not count it holy To hurt by being just: it is as

lawful as (For we would give much) to commit violent thefts And rob
in the behalf of charity."
"To count