l. 22. _So shall I, live, thy stage not triumph bee._ I have placed a comma after I to make quite clear that 'live' is the adjective, not the verb. The 'stay' of _1633_ is defensible, but the _1633_ editor was somewhat at sea about this poem, witness the variations introduced while the edition was printing in ll. 20 and 24 and the misprinting of l. 5. All the MSS. I have consulted support 'stage'; and this gives the best meaning: 'Alive, I shall continue to be the stage on which your victories are daily set forth; dead, I shall be but your triumph, a thing achieved once, never to be repeated.' Compare:
And cause her leave to triumph in this wise Upon the prostrate spoil of that poor heart! That serves a Trophy to her conquering eyes, And must their glory to the world impart. Daniel, _Delia_, X.
ll. 23, 24. There are obviously two versions of these lines which the later editions have confounded. The first is that of the text, from _1633_. The second is that of the MSS. and runs, properly pointed:
Then lest thy love, hate, and mee thou undoe, O let me live, O love and hate me too.
The punctuation of the MSS. is very careless, but the lines as printed are quite intelligible. As given in the editions _1635-69_ they are nonsensical.
l. 5. _We ask'd._ The past tense of the MSS. makes the antithesis and sense more pointed. 'It was with no one's leave we lov'd to begin with, and we will owe to no one the death that comes with parting.'
ll. 7 f. _Goe: and if that word have not quite kil'd thee, Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too_.
_Val._ No more: unless the next word that thou speak'st Have some malignant power upon my life: If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear, As ending anthem of my endless dolour. _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, III. i. 236 f.
l. 14. _lights life._ The MSS. correct the obvious mistake of the editions, 'lifes light.' The 'lights life' is, of course, the sun. In the same way at 21 'lye' is surely better suited than 'dye' to an epitaph. This poem is not in _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, and _1633_ has printed it from _A18_, _N_, _TC_.
In the latter group of MSS. this poem is followed immediately by another of the same kind, which is found also in _H40_, _RP31_, and _O'F_, as well as several more miscellaneous MSS. I print from _TCC_: