I.iii.23 (376,2) facile question] Question is for the act of seeking.  With more easy endeavour.

I.iii.24 (376,4) warlike brace] State of defence.  To arm was called to brace on the armour.

I.iii.42 (376,5) And prays you to believe him] The late learned and ingenious Mr. Thomas Clark, of Lincoln’s Inn, read the passage thus: 

  And prays you to relieve him.

But the present reading may stand. He intreats you not to doubt the truth of this intelligence.

I.iii.54 (377,6) Hath rais’d me from my bed; nor doth the general care] The word care, which encumbers the verse, was probably added by the players.  Shakespeare uses the general as a substantive, though, I think, not in this sense.

I.iii.69 (373,8) though our proper son/Stood in your action] Were the man exposed to your charge or accusation.

I.iii.80 (378,9) The very head and front of my offending] The main, the whole, unextenuated.

I.iii.85 (379,2) Their dearest action] That is dear, for which much is paid, whether money or labour; dear action, is action performed at great expence, either of ease or safety.

I.iii.107 (380,4) overt test] Open proofs, external evidence.

I.iii.108 (380,5) thin habits and poor likelihoods/Of modern seeming] Weak shew of slight appearance.

I.iii.139 (381,6) And portance in my travel’s history] [I have restored,

  And with it all my travel’s history: 

From the old edition.  It is in the rest,

  And portance in my travel’s history.

Rymer, in his criticism on this play, has changed it to portents, instead of portance.  POPE.] Mr. Pope has restored a line, to which there is little objection, but which has no force.  I believe portance was the author’s word in some revised copy.  I read thus,

Of being——­sold To slavery, of my redemption, thence, And portance in’t; my travel’s history. My redemption from slavery, and behaviour in it.

I.iii.140-170 (381,7) Wherein of antres vast, and desarts idle] Whoever ridicules this account of the progress of love, shows his ignorance, not only of history, but of nature and manners.  It is no wonder that, in any age, or in any nation, a lady, recluse, timorous, and delicate, should desire to hear of events and scenes which she could never see, and should admire the man who had endured dangers and performed actions, which, however great, were yet magnified by her timidity. [Pope:  deserts wild] Every mind is liable to absence and inadvertency, else Pope could never have rejected a word so poetically beautiful.  Idle is an epithet used to express the infertility of the chaotic state, in the Saxon translation of the Pentateuch. (1773)

I.iii.140 (382,8) antres] [French grottos.  POPE.] Rather caves and dens.