or possibly: 

  Love neither?  Then let’s say that you are sad.

Another possible printer’s error is found in I, 3-116: 

  With bated breath and whispering humbleness
  Say this;
  Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last.

Are we here to imagine a pause of four feet?  And what are we to do with the first folio which has

  Say this; Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last.

all in one line?  Perhaps some printer chose between the two.  At any rate, Collin’s theory will not hold.  In the schools, of course, one cannot be a text critic but, on the other hand, one must not praise in Shakespeare what may be the tricks of the printer’s devil.  The text is not always faultless.

Finally, Dr. Western objects to the statement that the difficulty in translating Shakespeare lies in the great number of monosyllables and gives

  In sooth, I know not why I am so sad

as proof.  Ten monosyllables in one line!  But this is not impossible in Norwegian: 

  For sand, jeg ved ei, hvi jeg er saa trist—­

It is not easy to translate Shakespeare, but the difficulty goes deeper than his richness in words of one syllable.

With the greater part of Dr. Western’s article everyone will agree.  It is doubtful if any case could be made out for the division of prose and verse based on psychology.  Shakespeare probably wrote his plays in verse for the same reason that Goethe and Schiller and Oehlenschlaeger did.  It was the fashion.  And how difficult it is to break with fashion or with old tradition, the history of Ibsen’s transition from poetry to prose shows.  It is equally certain that in Collin’s Introduction it is difficult to distinguish ascertained facts from brilliant speculation.  But it is not easy to agree with Dr. Western that Collin’s explanation of the “pause” is a tissue of fancy.

In the first place, no one denies that the printers have at times played havoc with Shakespeare’s text.  Van Dam and Stoffel, to whose book Western refers and whose suggestions are directly responsible for this article, have shown this clearly enough.  But when Dr. Western argues that because printers have corrupted the text in some places, they must be held accountable for every defective short line, we answer, it does not follow.  In the second place, why should not a pause play a part in prosody as well as in music?  Recall Tennyson’s verse: 

      Break, break, break,
  On thy cold, grey stones, o sea!

where no one feels that the first line is defective.  Of course the answer is that in Tennyson no accented syllable is lacking.  But it is difficult to understand what difference this makes.  When the reader has finished pronouncing Belmont there must be a moment’s hesitation before Lorenzo breaks in with: 

  In such a night

and this pause may have metrical value.  The only judge of verse, after all, is the hearer, and, in my opinion, Collin is right when he points out the value of the slight metrical pause between the bits of repartee.  Whether Shakespeare counted the syllables beforehand or not, is another matter.  In the third place, Collin did not quote in support of his theory the preposterous lines which Dr. Western uses against him.  Collin does quote I, 1-5: