This interpretation is, therefore, too recondite: and to
imagine Helena as applying the word to Bertram as being "_incapable of
receiving_ her love," and "truly _captious_" (or deceitful and ensnaring)
"in that respect," is surely to indulge in too much refinement of
exposition.
That Shakspeare had in his mind, as MR. SINGER {66} suggests, the
punishment of the Danaides, is extremely probable; but this only makes the
explanation of _captious_ in the sense of _absorbent_ more applicable to
the passage, with which that of Seneca, quoted above, may be aptly
compared.
I am sorry that Johnson was so unfortunate as to propose _carious_ as an
emendation; but even in doing this, he had, according to my notion of the
lines, the right sense in view, viz., that of _letting through_ or
_swallowing up_, like a rotten tub or a quicksand.
I hope that MR. SINGER will take these remarks in good part, as being
offered, not from a wish to oppose his opinion, but from a conviction that
the interpretation now given is right, and from a desire that to every word
in Shakspeare should be assigned its true signification.
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