Alas! Alas! and stands it so? What friend! and do we let him go away In this delusion--let him go away? Not call him back immediately, not open His eyes upon the spot?
(_Recovering himself out of a deep study_)
He has now opened mine, And I see more than pleases me.
Come, come along, friend! I must follow up The ominous track immediately. Mine eyes Are opened now, and I must use them. Come!
(_Interrupting him and correcting himself._)
Octavio meant to say, "To him, to the lord," but his tongue slips and through his words "_to her_" he betrays to us, at least, the fact that he had quite clearly recognized the influence which makes the young war hero dream of peace.
A still more impressive example was found by O. Rank in Shakespeare. It occurs in the _Merchant of Venice_, in the famous scene in which the fortunate suitor makes his choice among the three caskets; and perhaps I can do no better than to read to you here Rank's short account of the incident:
"A slip of the tongue which occurs in Shakespeare's _Merchant of Venice_, Act III, Scene II, is exceedingly delicate in its poetic motivation and technically brilliant in its handling. Like the slip in _Wallenstein_ quoted by Freud (_Psychopathology of Everyday Life_, 2d ed., p. 48), it shows that the poets well know the meaning of these errors and assume their comprehensibility to the audience. Portia, who by her father's wish has been bound to the choice of a husband by lot, has so far escaped all her unfavored suitors through the fortunes of chance. Since she has finally found in Bassanio the suitor to whom she is attached, she fears that he, too, will choose the wrong casket. She would like to tell him that even in that event he may rest assured of her love, but is prevented from so doing by her oath. In this inner conflict the poet makes her say to the welcome suitor:
I pray you tarry; pause a day or two, Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong I lose your company; therefore, forbear a while: There's something tells me, (but it is not love) I would not lose you: * * * * * * I could teach you How to choose right, but then I am forsworn, So will I never be: so may you miss me; But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes. They have o'erlook'd me, and divided me; One half of me is yours, the other half _yours_, _Mine own_, I would say: but if mine, then yours, And so all yours.