p. 36.

tails ornaments, or their obeisances ornamental. Warburton read, "And made their bends adorings." But is it not clear that we have here an instance of the superfluous s final so often alluded to in these Notes, and that adoring is not a substantive, but a participle?

the silken tackle Swell with the touches": - - Here tackle' is used in a plural sense.

p. 37.

forth.

and she cropp'd : i. e., was fruitful, brought

Becomes a fear " :- Upton plausibly suggested, "Becomes afeard."

"But, he away

and his quails ever : - The ancients fought quails as well as cocks.

p. 41.

p. 42.

p. 44.

thousand years and more.

An anachronism of a

Tawny-finn'd fishes": The folio, "Tawny fine," &c., which obvious misprint was left for Theobald's correction.

"Not like a formal man : - i. e., a decorous, sanely behaved man. See the Note on "a formal man again," Comedy of Errors, Act V. Sc. 1.

"That art but what thou'rt sure of": i. e., being merely a messenger, you are to be regarded only according to the tenor of your message. The folio has the very common misprint, "That art not," &c., which has remained hitherto undetected, to the loss of a peculiarly Shakespearian thought. So in this play, "The nature of the news infects the teller," Act I. Sc. 2. The universal previous punctuation of the passage makes it also not superfluous to say, that it is not an optative exclamation, but a declaration; and that "that" in the previous line is not the conjunction, but the definitive adjective. Cleopatra, in reply to the messenger's plea, that he only performs his office, says, "O that, [i. e., Antony's marriage,] which is

his fault, should make a knave of thee, that art but what thy tidings are."

"Report the feature of Octavia" : — - i. e., her figure and mien. See the Note on "He is complete of feature," Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II. Sc. 4.

"The other way's a Mars": - A contraction of, The other way he is, &c. The folio prints' wayes.'

SCENE VI.

"Made the all-honour'd": The first folio omitted the,' accidentally beyond a doubt. It was supplied in the second.

"Thou canst not fear us, Pompey," &c. :- i. e.,

alarm us.

"There is a change upon you

The folio, "There's

a change," &c. one of its comparatively rare errors of

this kind.

SCENE VII.

The folio, "The

"The third part, then, is drunk": third part, then, he is drunk," which manifest misprint was retained until Malone corrected it. That it might go on wheels" is an allusion to a common saying in Shakespeare's time, "The world goes on wheels."

Strike the vessels ": i. e., broach them. "Possess it; I'll make answer : -I think it more than probable that the obscurity of this passage is due to an easy misprint of possess' for "profess ; " and that Cæsar should say, Profess it,' i. e., I profess it, child of the time, and so I'll make answer. [Just as I am sending this play to the press I find that Mr. Collier's folio of 1632 has, "Profess it."]

:

to be a

"The holding every man shall bear The holding was the burthen. The folio has, "shall beat," the misprint of t for r being of the commonest in old books.

I 2

Ι

ACT THIRD.

SCENE II.

O thou Arabian bird!"— i. e., thou phoenix.

hoo!

“Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number, Mr. Dyce thinks that "something has dropped out" of this line; which I doubt. Its monosyllabic construction and interrupted flow make it seem rather superfluous than deficient. The misprint in the folio of "figure" for 'figures,' is almost unworthy of notice.

were he a horse":- An allusion to the dislike which horse fanciers have to white marks or other discolorations in the face of that animal.

"Believe 't, till I wept too : The folio has, "till I weepe too;" but I have no hesitation in adopting Theobald's reading.

SCENE III.

and her forehead

As low as she would wish it ": - - An ironical form of expression common in Shakespeare's day. As to the perverted fancy of our Elizabethan ancestors for high, i. e., bald forehead, see the Note on "Ay, but her forehead's low," Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV. Sc. 4.

"This creature's no such thing”: remarkable- - a colloquial phrase.

SCENE IV.

- i. e., nothing very

"He vented them" :- The folio has the insignificant misprint, "He vented then."

"When the best hint was given him, he not took 't,

Or did it from his teeth": -The folio has, "he not look't," which Theobald corrected on Thirlby's suggestion. The phrase from his teeth' seems to have been a common metaphor used to express a mere outward seeming. Mr. Singer quotes, in illustration, from Withal's Dictionarie for Children, 1616, Children, 1616, "Lingua amicus: a friend from the teeth outward," and from Dryden's Wild Gallant, “I am confident she is only angry from the teeth outward.” Could the translators of the Bible have had this phrase in mind when they gave us that singular passage in Job xix. 20, “and I am escaped by the skin of my teeth,"

p. 64.

p. 64.

p. 65.

p. 66.

p. 68.

p. 69.

p. 70.

which appears with such notable variations in the original, the septuagint, the vulgate, and the English versions?

"Shall stain your brother":— a very doubtful passage. Mr. Dyce says that stain' may mean throw in the shade; in support of which interpretation he cites this passage among others:

"I saw six gallant nymphes. I saw but one
One stain'd them all."

Lord Stirling's Aurora, Sig. C. 4, ed. 1604. Boswell more plausibly suggested that we should read, "shall stay your brother."

"Your reconciler":― The first folio, "You reconciler," which the second corrected. The trifling error of the former, "Your heart he's mind to," in the last line of this Scene, was also corrected in the latter.

SCENE V.

"Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps : The folio has, "Then would thou had'st, &c., which Hanmer corrected. In the last line of this speech the folio omits 'the one,' which was supplied by Johnson.

SCENE VI.

"His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings For he there' the folio has "hither," and for kings of kings' "king of kings," which manifest errors were left to be corrected by Steevens.

"Being an obstruct": The folio, "an abstract," which Warburton corrected.

"To do you justice make their ministers": - The folio, "make his ministers." Capell read, Capell read, "make them ministers." I believe Malone first read, "their ministers.' Mr. Collier retains "his," on the ground that 'his' refers to "justice," and not to "the gods."

SCENE VII.

"If not, denounce 't against us": i. e., pronounce, declare the cause, against us. The folio, "If not denouncd," &c., which, although inexplicable, has been hitherto retained, or changed to "Is't not [i. e., the war] denounc'd against us?" or "Is't not? Denounce against us."

"And take in Toryne?" — i. e., take it. The superflu

p. 71.

p. 73.

P. 74.

ous particle is commonly used in Great Britain. There "takes in " his newspaper; here he only

a

man

"takes" it.

"Your mariners are muliters

The first folio misprints "militers," which was corrected in the second folio.

"Their ships are yare": i. e., ready to the helm, easily managed. See the Note on "Good speak to th' mariners," The Tempest, Act I. Sc. 1.

SCENE VIII.

The entrances and exits in this Scene, and the relative position of the personages who take part in it, are much the same as those in Scene 3, Act V., of King Richard III. See the Note thereon, Vol. VIII. p. 308.

"The Antoniad": The name of Cleopatra's ship, according to North's Plutarch.

"The greater cantle":— i. e., a piece, a segment. So in Henry IV. Part I. Act III. Sc. 1, "And cuts from a monstrous cantle out."

me

66

the token'd pestilence": The plague was indicated by spots, which were called tokens; and from their fatality, according to the religious belief of the period, God's tokens.

Yond' ribaudred nag of Egypt": So Leontes in his jealous fit exclaims, "Then say my wife's a hobbyhorse.' ( Ribaudred' means indecent, bawdy; as, for instance, from Baret's Alvearie, "A ribaudrous and filthie tongue; os obscænum et impudicum. Ribaudrie, vilainie in actes or wordes, filthinesse, uncleanness."

p. 77.

p. 78.

SCENE IX.

let that be left":

a manifest misprint.

The folio, let them be

"And thou should'st tow me after": -The folio, "should'st stow a misprint by the ear, hardly worth notice.

The folio has, "Enter Ambassador from Anthony; " but we know that Euphronius, who was tutor to the children of Antony and Cleopatra, was sent upon this mission.