ROPES IN SUCH A SCAR
Diana. I see that men make ropes in such a scar.
That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.
(All's Well, iv, 2, 38, Globe ed.)
This is one of the four passages in all the plays which Neilson especially signalizes as "hopelessly corrupt."
An appalling list of proposed emendations, beginning with Rowe in 1709, shows the efforts of successive editors and critics to wring a consistent meaning out of the passage. At present the attempts seem to be exhausted, and hope of solving the meaning has been finally given up. The Globe editors mark the passage with the obolus to signify its hopelessness.
I have already explained, in my elucidation of "runaway's eyes," that a girl who is about to give up that condition of maidenhood which has been her very state of existence might naturally feel that she was a deserter. Diana's way of expressing it is that she is about to forsake herself. For as she is a maid, and this maidenhood is her very self, to voluntarily cease to be one is to forsake the Diana that she is. The Italian Diana's deeper feelings as she decides to do so may be seen through the eyes of any woman. Woman is her own keeper; it is herself that she has been trusted with.
