> > "dilated spirit/ To bathe in fiery floods"
> this is a misquote the word is 'delighted'.
Wells and Taylor, who I believe now are considered standard, print
"dilated." I have no qualifications as a Shakespearian textual critic
but it's hard to see (pace the OED) how "delighted" can be right: it
seems to have meant nothing but "pleased" at all periods of English,
whereas "dilated" in the sense of "scattered" (from "dilatus", the past
participle of the Latin "differo", which can mean "to disperse",)
appears in this sense in English from the mid-15th century. Thus
"dilated" fits in exactly with the rest of the imagery, while
"delighted" is intolerably at odds with it.
====
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his
limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry
reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power
corrupts, poetry cleanses.
-- John F. Kennedy
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