2 MESS. In Sicyon : Her length of fickness, with what else more serious Importeth thee to know, this bears. ANT. [Gives a Letter. Forbear me.[Exit Meffenger. There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I defire it: The opposite of itfelf: fhe's good, being gone; 5 We wish it ours again.] Thus, in Sidney's Arcadia, Lib. II: "We mone that loft which had we did bemone." By revolution lowering, does become STEEVENS. The oppofite of itself:] The allufion is to the fun's diurnal course; which rifing in the east, and by revolution lowering, or fetting in the west, becomes the oppofite of itself. WARBURTON. This is an obfcure paffage. The explanation which Dr. Warburton has offered is fuch, that I can add nothing to it; yet, perhaps, Shakspeare, who was lefs learned than his commentator, meant only, that our pleasures, as they are revolved in the mind, turn to pain. JOHNSON. I rather understand the paffage thus: What we often caft from us in contempt we wish again for, and what is at prefent our greatest pleafure, lowers in our eftimation by the revolution of time; or by a frequent return of poffeffion becomes undefirable and difagreeable. TOLLET. I believe revolution means change of circumftances. This fense appears to remove every difficulty from the paffage.-The pleasure of to-day, by revolution of events and change of circumfiances, often lofes all its value to us, and becomes tomorrow a pain. STEEVENS. 7 The hand could pluck her back, &c.] The verb could has a peculiar fignification in this place; it does not denote power but inclination. The fenfe is, the hand that drove her off would now willingly pluck her back again. HEATH. I must from this enchanting queen break off; Enter ENOBARBUS. ENO. What's your pleasure, fir? ANT. I muft with hafte from hence. ENO. Why, then, we kill all our women: We fee how mortal an unkindness is to them; if they fuffer our departure, death's the word. ANT. I must be gone. ENO. Under a compelling occafion, let women die: It were pity to caft them away for nothing; though, between them and a great caufe, they fhould be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the leaft noife of this, dies inftantly; I have feen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment: 8 I do think, there is mettle in death, which commits fome loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying. ANT. She is cunning paft man's thought. ENO. Alack, fir, no; her paffions are made of nothing but the fineft part of pure love: We cannot call her winds and waters, fighs and tears; they Could, would, and should, are a thousand times indifcriminately used in the old plays, and yet appear to have been fo employed rather by choice than by chance. STEEVENS. 8 ·poorer moment:] For lefs reafon; upon meaner motives. JOHNSON. 9 We cannot call her winds and waters, fighs and tears;] I once idly fuppofed that Shakspeare wrote "We cannot call her fighs and tears, winds and waters ;"--which is certainly the phrafeology we should now use. I mention fuch idle conjec are greater ftorms and tempefts than almanacks can report this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, the makes a fhower of rain as well as Jove. ANT. 'Would I had never seen her! ENO. O, fir, you had then left unfeen a wonderful piece of work; which not to have been bleffed withal, would have difcredited your travel. ANT. Fulvia is dead. ENO. Sir? ANT. Fulvia is dead. ENO. Fulvia? ANT. Dead. ENO. Why, fir, give the gods a thankful facrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a tures, however plaufible, only to put all future commentators on their guard againft fufpecting a paffage to be corrupt, because the diction is different from that of the prefent day. The arrangement of the text was the phrafeology of Shakspeare, and probably of his time. So, in King Henry VIII: 66 You must be well contented, "To make your house our Tower." We should certainly now write to make our Tower your house. Again, in Coriolanus: "What good condition can a treaty find, "I' the part that is at mercy ?" i. e. how can the party that is at mercy or in the power of another, expect to obtain in a treaty terms favourable to them?See alfo a fimilar inverfion in Vol. VII. p. 297, n. 7. The paffage, however, inay be understood without any inverfion. "We cannot call the clamorous heavings of her breast, and the copious ftreams which flow from her eyes, by the ordinary name of fighs and tears; they are greater forms," &c. MALONE. Dr. Young has feriously employed this image, though suggefted as a ridiculous one by Enobarbus: Sighs there are tempefts here," fays Carlos to Leonora, in The Revenge. STEEVENS. man from him, it fhows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein,' that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the cafe to be lamented: this grief is crowned with confolation; your old fmock brings forth a new petticoat :—and, indeed, the tears live in an onion, that fhould water this forrow. ANT. The bufinefs fhe hath broached in the state, Cannot endure my absence. 1 it fhows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, &c.] I have printed this after the original, which, though harsh and obfcure, I know not how to amend. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads-They fhow to man the tailors of the earth; comforting him therein, &c. I think the paffage, with fomewhat lefs alteration, for alteration is always dangerous, may ftand thus-It shows to men the tailors of the earth, comforting them, &c. JOHNSON. The meaning is this-As the gods have been pleafed to take away your wife Fulvia, fo they have provided you with a new one in Cleopatra; in like manner as the tailors of the earth, when your old garments are worn out, accommodate you with new ones. ANONYMOUS. When the deities are pleased to take a man's wife from him, this act of theirs makes them appear to man like the tailors of the earth affording this comfortable reflection, that the deities have made other women to fupply the place of his former wife; as the tailor, when one robe is worn out, fupplies him with another. MALONE. 2 -the tears live in an onion, &c.] So, in The Noble Soldier, 1634: "So much water as you might squeeze out of an onion had been tears enough," &c. i. e. your forrow should be a forced one. In another scene of this play we have onioneyed; and, in The Taming of a Shrew, the Lord fays: If the boy have not a woman's gift "To rain a fhower of commanded tears, "An onion will do well." Again, in Hall's Vigidemiarum, Lib. VI: "Some ftrong-fmeld onion fhall ftirre his eyes "Rather than no falt tears fhall then arife." STEEVENS. ENO. And the business you have broached here cannot be without you; efpecially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your abode. ANT. No more light anfwers. Let our officers Have notice what we purpose. I fhall break The cause of our expedience3 to the queen, And get her love to part.4 For not alone The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,5 REED. 3 The caufe of our expedience-] Expedience for expedition. WARBURTON. See Vol. VIII. p. 82, n. 7. 4 And get her love to part.] I have no doubt but we should read leave, inftead of love. So afterwards: "'Would she had never given you leave to come!" M. MASON. The old reading may mean-And prevail on her love to confent to our feparation. STEEVENS. I fufpect the author wrote: And get her leave to part. The greater part of the fucceeding fcene is employed by Antony, in an endeavour to obtain Cleopatra's permiffion to depart, and in vows of everlasting conftancy, not in persuading her to forget him, or love him no longer : I go from hence, Thy foldier, fervant; making peace, or war, "As thou affect'ft." I have lately observed that this emendation had been made by Mr. Pope. If the old copy be right, the words muft mean, I will get her love to permit and endure our feparation. But the word get connects much more naturally with the word leave than with love. The fame error [as I have fince obferved] has happened in Titus Andronicus, and therefore I have no longer any doubt that leave was Shakspeare's word. In that play we find: "He loves his pledges dearer than his life," Inftead of He leaves, &c. MALONE. more urgent touches,] Things that touch me more fenfibly, more preffing motives. JOHNSON. "Subdues all pangs, all fears." M. MASON. |