lock more emotional in his scene
(I, 3) than any of the characters in the casket scene immediately
following (II, 1)? According to Collin, then, I, 3 should be in verse
and II, 1 in prose! Equally absurd is the theory that Shakespeare's
characters speak in verse because their natures demand it. Does Shylock
go contrary to nature in III, 1? There is no psychological reason for
Verse in Shakespeare. He wrote as he did because convention prescribed
it. The same is true of Goethe and Schiller, of Bjornson and Ibsen in
their earlier plays. Shakespeare's lapses into prose are, moreover, easy
to explain. There must always be something to amuse the gallery. Act
III, 1 must be so understood, for though Shakespeare was undoubtedly
moved, the effect of the scene was comic. The same is true of the
dialogue between Portia and Nerissa in Act I, and of all the scenes
in which Launcelot Gobbo appears.

Western admits, however, that much of the prose in Shakespeare cannot
be so explained; for example, the opening scenes in _Lear_ and _The
Tempest_. And this brings up another point, i.e., Collin's supposition
that Shakespeare's texts as we have them are exactly as he wrote them.
When the line halts, Collin simply finds proof of the poet's fine ear!
The truth probably is that Shakespeare had a good ear and that he always
wrote good lines, but that he took no pains to see that these lines were
correctly printed. Take, for example, such a line as:

As far as Belmont.
In such a night

This would, if written by anyone else, always be considered bad, and Dr.
Western does not believe that Collin's theory of the pauses will hold.
The pause plays no part in verse. A line consists of a fixed number
of _heard_ syllables. Collin would say that a line like I, 1-73:

I will not fail you,

is filled out with a bow and a swinging of the hat. Then why are the
lines just before it, in which Salarino and Salario take leave of each
other, not defective? Indeed, how can we be sure that much of what
passes for "Shakespeare's versification" is not based on printers'
errors? In the folio of 1623 there are long passages printed in prose
which, after closer study, we must believe were written in verse--the
opening of _Lear_ and _The Tempest_. Often, too, it is plain that
the beginnings and endings of lines have been run together. Take the
passage:

_Sal_:
Why, then you are in love.

_Ant_:
Fie, fie!

_Sal_:
Not in love neit