202
NOTES ON THE TEXT OF SHELLEY.
word "is" has dropped off. So in the "Cenci" (II. 1) the Livornese edition of 1819 reads:—
"Then it was I whose inarticulate words
Fell from my lips, and who with tottering steps
Fled from your presence," &c.
The later copies drop the word and, thus breaking down the metre. But this genuine edition reads (IV. 4) with the later text—
"Guilty! who dares talk of guilt? My lord," &c.,
giving no authority for the insertion of "to" before "talk," which indeed rather weakens the force of emphasis in this sudden outbreak of passionate protest. But in the speech of Marzio (V. 2) it again brings us right:—
"Oh, dart
The terrible resentment of those eyes
On the dead earth!"
In the " Works" we find dread printed in place of dead, which Mr. Rossetti knew by instinct for the right reading. Again, at the end of the third act, Shelley's Italian edition runs thus:—
"Orsino.
When next we meet—
Giacomo.
May all be done—and all
Forgotten; Oh, that I had never been!"
Surely a better than the current version—
"Orsino.
When next we meet may all be done!
Giacomo.
And all
Forgotten," &c.