Note 1009 — WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN.
Reading edition
Bianca] Old ed., both in the list of characters and throughout the play, “Brancha.” The violation of metre which the latter name occasions would alone be sufficient to prove it a misprint: e. g.:
“Sure you’re not well, Brancha; how dost, prithee?”
“What shall I think of first? Come forth, Brancha.”
“Thou hast been seen, Brancha, by some stranger.”
“Brancha.
Would you keep me closer yet?”
“I should fall forward rather.
Come, Brancha.”
“Come sit, Brancha.
This is some good yet.”
“Here’s to thyself, Brancha.
Nothing comes.”
“Of bright Brancha; we sat all in darkness.”
Her family name, as we learn from act iii. sc. 1, was Capello.—Most readers will recollect the celebrated Bianca Capello, second wife of Francis de Medici, grand duke of Tuscany: the earlier events in her history, and in that of the Bianca of the tragedy, have a sort of resemblance; both fled from Venice to Florence, &c.