There are among poets, as there are among prose writers, some whose peculiar power finds vent only in a broad and rushing stream of speech or song, triumphant by the general force and fulness of its volume, in which we no more think of looking for single lines or phrases that may be detached from the context and quoted for their separate effect than of selecting for peculiar admiration some special wave or individual ripple from the multitudinous magnificence of the torrent or the tide. There are others whose power is shown mainly in single strokes or flashes as of
textual difficulty. The edition now before me, Eld's of 1608, reads literally thus:
Vind. Ah ist possible, Thou onely, you powers on hie,
That women should dissemble when they die.
Lamb was content to read,
Ah, is it possible, you powers on high,
and so forth. Perhaps the two obviously corrupt words in italics may contain a clue to the right reading, and this may be it:
Ah!
Is't possible, you heavenly powers on high,
That women should dissemble when they die?
Or may not this be yet another instance of the Jew-Puritan abhorrence of the word God as an obscene or blasphemous term when uttered outside the synagogue or the conventicle? If so, we might read—and believe that the poet wrote—
Is't possible, thou only God on high,
and assume that the licenser struck out the indecent monosyllable and left the mutilated text for actors and printers to patch or pad at their discretion.
