Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it
On my free-will. My lord, Mark Antony,
Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted
My grieved ear withal; whereon, I begg'd
His pardon for return.

CES.
Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him2.
OCT. Do not say so, my lord.

Which soon he granted,

CES.

And his affairs come to me on the wind.

Where is he now?

Ост.

I have eyes upon him,

My lord, in Athens 3.

CES. No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire

2

Which soon he granted,

Being an OBSTRUCT 'tween his lust and him.] [Old copyabstract.] Antony very soon complied to let Octavia go at her request, says Cæsar; and why? Because she was an abstract between his inordinate passion and him. This is absurd. We must read:

66

Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him." i. e. his wife being an obstruction, a bar to the prosecution of his wanton pleasures with Cleopatra. WARBURTON.

I am by no means certain that this change was necessary. Mr. Henley pronounces it to be "needless, and that it ought to be rejected, as perverting the sense." One of the meanings of abstracted is-separated, disjoined; and therefore our poet, with his usual licence, might have used it for a disjunctive. I believe there is no such substantive as obstruct: besides, we say, an obstruction to a thing, but not between one thing and another.

As Mr. Malone, however, is contented with Dr. Warburton's STEEVENS. reading, I have left it in our text.

3 My lord, in Athens.] Some words, necessary to the metre, being here omitted, Sir Thomas Hanmer reads:

"My lord, he is in Athens."

But I rather conceive the omission to have been in the former hemistich, which might originally have stood thus:

"Where is he, 'pray you, now?

"Oct.

My lord, in Athens."

STEEVENS.

4

Up to a whore; who now are levying +

The kings o' the earth for war: He hath assembled

Bocchus, the king of Lybia; Archelaus,
Of Cappadocia ; Philadelphos, king

Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas:
King Malchus of Arabia; king of Pont;
Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king

Of Comagene; Polemon and Amintas,
The kings of Mede, and Lycaonia, with a
More larger list of scepters.

Ост.
Ah me, most wretched,
That have my heart parted betwixt two friends,
That do afflict each other!

CES.

Welcome hither: Your letters did withhold our breaking forth; Till we perceiv'd, both how you were wrong led, And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart: Be you not troubled with the time, which drives O'er your content these strong necessities; But let determin'd things to destiny

Hold unbewail'd their way.

Nothing more dear to me.

Welcome to Rome; You are abus'd

Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods, To do you justice, make them ministers"

4- WHO NOW ARE levying-] That is, which two persons now are levying, &c. MALONE.

s The kings o' the earth for war:] Mr. Upton remarks, that there are some errors in this enumeration of the auxiliary kings: but it is probable that the author did not much wish to be accuJOHNSON.

rate.

6

Mr. Upton proposes to read:

66

Polemon and Amintas

"Of Lycaonia: and the king of Mede."

And this obviates all impropriety. STEEVENS.

- THEM ministers -] Old copy-his ministers. Corrected by Mr. Capell. MALONE.

Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort'; And ever welcome to us.

AGR.

Welcome, lady.

MEC. Welcome, dear madam.

Each heart in Rome does love and pity you:
Only the adulterous Antony, most large
In his abominations, turns you off;

8

And gives his potent regiment to a trull,
That noises it against us".

7- BEST of comfort;] Thus the original copy. The connecting particle, and, seems to favour the old reading. According to the modern innovation, Be of comfort, (which was introduced by Mr. Rowe,) it stands very aukwardly. "Best of comfort" may mean- "Thou best of comforters!" a phrase which we meet with again in The Tempest:

"A solemn air, and the best comforter

"To an unsettled fancy's cure!

Cæsar, however, may mean, that what he had just mentioned is the best kind of comfort that Octavia can receive.

MALONE.

This elliptical phrase, I believe, only signifies-" May the best of comfort be yours!

STEEVENS.

8 -potent REGIMENT] Regiment, is government, authority; he puts his power and his empire into the hands of a false

woman.

It may be observed, that trull was not, in our author's time, a term of mere infamy, but a word of slight contempt, as wench is now. JOHNSON.

Trull is used in The First Part of King Henry VI. as synonymous to harlot, and is rendered by the Latin word Scortum, in Cole's Dictionary, 1679. There can therefore be no doubt of the sense in which it is used here. MALONE.

Regiment is used for regimen or government by most of our ancient writers. The old translation of The Schola Salernitana, is called The Regiment of Helth.

Again, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597:

Or Hecate in Pluto's regiment."

Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. ii. c. x. :

66

So when he had resign'd his regiment.”

Trull is not employed in an unfavourable sense by George Peele, in the Song of Coridon and Melampus, published in England's Helicon, 1600:

"When swaines sweete pipes are puft, and trulls are warme."

Ост.

Is it so, sir?

CES. Most certain. Sister, welcome: Pray you, Be ever known to patience: My dearest sister!

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

ANTONY'S Camp, near the Promontory of Actium.

Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS.

CLEO. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.
ENO. But why, why, why?

CLEO. Thou hast forspoke my being in these

wars;

And say'st, it is not fit.

Again, in Damætas's Jigge in Praise of his Love, by John Wootton; printed in the same collection :

[merged small][ocr errors]

be thy mirth seene;

"Heard to each swaine, seene to each trull."

Again, in the eleventh book of Virgil, Twyne's translation of the virgins attendant on Camilla, is

"Italian trulles."

Mecenas, however, by this appellation, most certainly means no compliment to Cleopatra. STEEVENS.

9 That NOISES it against us.] Milton has adopted this uncommon verb in his Paradise Regained, book iv. 488:

"though noising loud,

"And threatening nigh-." STEEVENS. FORSPOKE my being-] To forspeak, is to contradict, to speak against, as forbid is to order negatively. JOHNSON. Thus, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584:

[ocr errors]

thy life forspoke by love." To forspeak likewise signified to curse.

So, in Drayton's

Epistle from Elinor Cobham to Duke Humphrey : "Or to forspeak whole flocks as they did feed." To forspeak, in the last instance, has the same power as to forbid, in Macbeth:

66

He shall live a man forbid."

So, to forthink, meant anciently to unthink, and consequently to repent:

ENO.

Well, is it, is it?

CLEO. If not denounc'd against us, why should

not we

Be there in person?

ENO. [Aside.] Well, I could reply:

If we should serve with horse and mares together,

"Therefore of it be not to boolde,

"Lest thou forthink it when thou art too olde."

Interlude of Youth, bl. 1. no date. And in Gower, De Confessione Amantis, b. i. to forshape is to mis-shape:

"Out of a man into a stone
Forshape," &c.

66

66

-a

To forspeak has generally reference to the mischiefs effected by enchantment. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News: witch, gossip, to forspeak the matter thus.'" In Shakspeare it is the opposite of bespeak. STEEVENS.

2 Is't not? DENOUNCE against us, &c.] The old copy reads: 'If not, denounc'd against us," &c.

66

Corrected by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS.

I would read [following Mr. Rowe]:

"Is't not? Denounce against us, why should not we
"Be there in person?"

TYRWHITT.

Cleopatra means to say, "Is not the war denounced against us? Why should we not then attend in person?" She says, a little lower,

66

A charge we bear i' the war,

"And, as the president of my kingdom, will

66

Appear there for a man."

She speaks of herself in the plural number, according to the usual style of sovereigns. M. MASON.

Mr. Malone reads with the old copy; I have followed Mr. Tyrwhitt.

So, in Turberville's translation of Ovid's Epistle from Phyllis to Demophoon :

"Denounce to me what I have doone

"But loud thee all to well?" STEEVENS.

Mr. Tyrwhitt proposed to read-denounce, but I am of opinion that the old reading is right." If not denounc'd," if there be no particular denunciation against me, why should we not be there in person.' MALONE.

« ElőzőTovább »