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NOTES ON ANTONY AND

CLEOPATRA.

p. 7.

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ACT FIRST.

SCENE I.

reneags all temper": - - i. e., declines, sets aside, renounces. The original has "reneges," which orthography has been yery generally retained, both here and in King Lear, Act II. Sc. 2, "Reneag, affirm," &c. Coleridge's suggestion that the word should be spelled reneague is supported by the following passage quoted in Richardson's Dictionary from Udal's New Testament: “Those that vaunted themselves by the glorious name of Israel, those he hath rencagued and put away from the inheritance of the promises made unto Israel." Luke, chap. i. At least this passage and the rhythm of the one under consideration seem to make it sure that the g was hard, and the second person singular, pres. indic., a dissyllable.

"Where's Fulvia's process": i. e., Fulvia's summons; 'process' being here used in its legal sense.

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the world to wit i. e., of course, to know. The folio has "the world to weet," which has been retained in all editions hitherto, I believe. But weet is merely a phonographic spelling of wit,' having had the sound of e in Shakespeare's time. So in Act II. Sc. 7, the folio has "Spleets what it speaks," for "Splits," &c. whose every passion":- The folio, "who every passion," by an obvious misprint corrected in the folio of 1632.

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"To-night we'll wander through the streets one of the passages which shows how very closely

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Shakespeare followed the life of Marcus Antonius in North's Plutarch. "And sometime also, when he would goe up and downe the citie disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into poore mens windowes and their shops, and scold and brawle with them within the house; Cleopatra would be also in a chamber maide's array, and amble up and down the streets with him, so that often times Antonius bare away both markes and blowes." Ed. 1579, p. 983.

SCENE II.

"Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer": The folio has, "Enter Enobarbus, Lamprius, a Soothsayer, Rannius, Lucilius, Charmian, Iras, Martian the Eunuch, and Alexas." If Lamprius, Rannius, and Lucilius were ever among the dramatis personæ of this play, their parts were struck out before it went to press. This stage direction contains the only vestige of them. There is a similar case in Much Ado about Nothing, Act I. Sc. 1. See the Notes upon that Scene.

must charge his horns with garlands":— - The folio, "must change," &c., which seems meaningless. The correction was made by Southerne in his copy of the fourth folio, and by Warburton.

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- Steevens says,

I love long life better than figs "this is a proverbial expression," which seems likely; but I do not remember having met with it elsewhere.

Then, belike, my children shall have no names Charmian's previous acquaintance with men had not been in the way of marriage; and as her former fortune was fairer than that which was in store for her, her children would of course be illegitimate and nameless.

"And fertile every wish": - The folio, The folio, "and foretell euery wish," which obvious misprint was left to be corrected by Warburton.

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“ Alexas, come, his fortune," &c.:

p. 12.

p. 13.

In the folio this

passage is printed as a speech by Alexas, the compositor or the transcriber having mistaken the name for a prefix. "Saw you my lord?" The folio, "Save you," &c., which was corrected in the next edition.

2.

"Extended Asia," &c. :- - i. e., seized. So, "make an extent upon his house," &c., As You Like It, Act II. Sc. See the Note upon that passage. "When our quick minds lie still":

With some hes

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itation I adopt Warburton's reading, instead of the
"quicke windes of the folio. Winds,' however, can-
not be the reading; and that it is a misspelling of
'wints' ==
"two furrows ploughed by the horses going
to one end of the field and back again," (See Col-
lier's Shakespeare, Ed. 1843.) I cannot believe.

"From Sicyon, ho, the news?
often elsewhere, prints 'ho' how.

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- The folio here, as

The folio, "How now Eno

barbus." But I agree with Capell and Mr. Dyce in believing 'now' to be an accidental interpolation. As to how,' see the preceding Note.

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It is almost super

"Under a compelling occasion fluous to notice the misprint of the folio, "Vnder a compelling an occasion.”

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"And get her leave to part : The folio, "her loue" — a manifest misprint, which Pope corrected.

Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life": An allusion to the fact that a horse hair if soaked for a long time in water will move with a serpentine action. Say, our pleasure," &c.: - This is a mere inversion of, Say to such whose place is under us, Our pleasure requires our quick remove," &c. Recent Notes justify an explanation of so clear a passage.

SCENE III.

"The garboils she awak'd": -i. e., the turmoils,

the tantrums.'

"And give true credence to his love": The folio, "true evidence," &c. a misprint, the obvious correction of which was made in Mr. Collier's folio of 1632.

"The carriage of his chafe": Mr. Staunton plausibly proposes to read, "of his chief: " in allusion to Hercules, the chief of Antony's race, according to tradition.

SCENE IV.

"Our great competitor": The folio, "One great competitor." But Heath's correction seems manifestly to be required. Antony was the competitor, or, as we should now say, the colleague, of Octavius and Lepidus ; and the former assigns reasons to show that his distrust of him is not the result of mere antipathy.

"No way excuse his soils":-The folio has "his

p. 21.

p. 22.

p. 23.

foils," the difference being merely between f and f. The
obviously needed change was left for Malone to make.
"As we rate boys; who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience," &c. : Hanmer most plausibly
read,
“who immature in knowledge." For boys are not
mature in any thing, and least in knowledge; and were
they mature they would not pawn their experience to
their present pleasure; or at least their so doing would
not be chosen as an illustration here. Without an
equivalent to Hanmer's too great change, the passage
appears to be inexplicable.

Comes dear'd by being lack’d": The folio has, "Comes fear'd," &c. The change, about which there can be no doubt, was made by Theobald. The same editor made the similarly manifest correction of "lackeying the varying tide," for "lacking the varying tide,” in the next line but one below.

"Leave thy lascivious wassails": The folio, lascivious vassailes; " but the remainder of the speech leaves no doubt as to the slight misprint.

"The stale of horses":— i. e., the urine.

"Assemble we immediate council": -The folio, "Assemble me," &c. - a slight and manifest misprint, corrected in the second folio.

SCENE V.

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"Give me to drink mandragora" * Mandragora was a strong opiate. See Othello, Act III. Sc. 3, Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups," &c.

that great medicine":— i. e., that great physician, perhaps, as Sydney Walker has suggested.

an arm-girt steed": The folio, "an Armegaunt steede ; " for which, being able to discover no meaning in it, I hardly hesitate to substitute Hanmer's reading. The war horses of chivalric days were arm-girt as well as their riders. Mason proposed, "a termagant steed; "but far preferable to this would be "a rampant steed."

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"Was beastly dumb'd by him: The folio, with a slight misprint, "Was beastly dumbe by him.

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p. 28.

ACT SECOND.

SCENE I.

*

soften thy wan'd lip!" Bishop Percy sug gested, with some plausibility, that we should read wan for wand' of the folio, as we read 'vile' for 'vild,' and lawn' for laund.'

SCENE II.

p. 33.

p. 36.

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Speaks to atone you":- i. e., to reconcile you. See the Note on "Atone together," As You Like It, Act V. Sc. 4.

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Say not so, Agrippa”:— The folio has the obvious misprint," Say not say," &c., and in the following line, "your proof; your proof; " for which Theobald rea read "approof,' Hanmer "reproof," as in the text.

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she purs'd up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus A slip of memory, the reader will see by Enobarbus' second speech below.

"To glow the delicate cheeks": — It is almost needless to notice the misprint, To gloue," &c., of the folio.

tended her "th' eyes,

And made their bends adornings" :-'In the eye' was a universally recognized idiom for in the presence, before the face, and was particularly used to express service before a superior. For instance,

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Go, Captain: from me greet the Danish king.

If that his Majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye."

Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 4.

and in Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. 5, "first kill him, and in
her eyes: there shall she see my valour;" and again in
that line of Milton's sonnet on his twenty-third birth-
day, which so aptly expresses the light in which persons
of certain religious views regard their Creator :

"All is, if ever I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great task-master's eye.'

For the reading, "And made their bends, adoring,” i. e.,
and adoring Cleopatra, bowed before her, the folio has,
"And made their bends adornings," which has been re-
tained by many editors, with the explanation, that the
mermaid-like attendants made either the curves of their

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