Thy full supremacy' thou knew'st; and that CLEO. ANT. O, my pardon. Now I must To the young man send humble treaties, dodge CLEO. O pardon, pardon. ANT. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates All that is won and lost: Give me a kiss; Even this repays me.-We sent our schoolmaster, Is he come back ?-Love, I am full of lead: 8 Some wine, within there, and our viands:-Fortune knows, We scorn her most when most she offers blows. SCENE X. CESAR'S Camp in Egypt. [Exeunt. Enter CESAR, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, and CES. Let him appear that's come from Antony.Know you him? This is one of the many corruptions occasioned by the transcriber's ear deceiving him. The correction was made by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 7 THY full supremacy-] Old copy-The full—. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. 8 -within- This word might be fairly ejected, as it has no other force than to derange the metre. STEEVENS. 9-Thyreus,] In the old copy always-Thidias. STEEVENS, DOL. 1 Cæsar, 'tis his schoolmaster 1: An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither He sends so poor a pinion of his wing, Which had superfluous kings for messengers, Not many moons gone by. CES. Enter EUPHRONIUS. Approach, and speak. EUP. Such as I am, I come from Antony: I was of late as petty to his ends, As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf nius. his schoolmaster:] The name of this person was EuphroSTEEVENS. He was schoolmaster to Antony's children by Cleopatra. MALONE. TO HIS grand sea.] Thus the old copy. To whose grand sea? I know not. Perhaps we should read: "To this grand sea." We may suppose that the sea was within view of Cæsar's camp, and at no great distance. TYRWHITT. The modern editors arbitrarily read :-the grand sea. I believe the old reading is the true one. "His grand sea" may mean his full tide of prosperity.' So, in King Henry VI. Part I.: "You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow; Again, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher: "His ocean needs not my poor drops, yet they There is a playhouse tradition that the first Act of this play was written by Shakspeare. Mr. Tollet offers a further explanation of the change proposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt: "Alexandria, towards which Cæsar was marching, is situated on the coast of the Mediterranean sea, which is sometimes called mare magnum. Pliny terms it, "immensa æquorum vastitas." I may add, that Sir John Mandeville, p. 89, calls that part of the Mediterranean which washes the coast of Palestine, "the grete see.” Again, in A. Wyntown's Cronykil, b. ix. ch. xii. v. 40: CES. Be it so; Declare thine office. To let him breathe between the heavens and earth, CES. 4 For Antony, I have no ears to his request. The queen CES. Bring him through the bands. [Exit EUPHRONIUS. To try thy eloquence, now 'tis time: Despatch; the Mediterane, "The gret se clerk is callis it swa." The passage, however, is capable of yet another explanation. "His grand sea" may mean the sea from which the dew-drop is exhaled. Shakspeare might have considered the sea as the source of dews as well as rain. His is used instead of its. STEEVENS. Tyrwhitt's amendment is more likely to be right than Steevens's explanation. M. MASON. I believe the last is the right explanation. HENLEY. The last of Mr. Steevens's explanations certainly gives the sense of Shakspeare. If his be not used for its, he has made a person of the morn-drop. RITSON. 4 The circle of the Ptolemies-] The diadem; the ensign of royalty. JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth: Sc. V. "All that impedes thee from the golden round, "Would have thee crown'd withal." MALONE. - friend,] i. e. paramour. See note on Cymbeline, Act I. STEEVENS. From Antony win Cleopatra: promise, [To THYREUS. And in our name, what she requires; add more, From thine invention, offers: women are not, In their best fortunes, strong; but want will perjure The ne'er-touch'd vestal: Try thy cunning, Thy reus; Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we CES. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw"; And what thou think'st his very action speaks In every power that moves ". THYR. Cæsar, I shall. [Exeunt. SCENE XI. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace. Enter CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS. CLEO. What shall we do, Enobarbus ?? ENO. will perjure Think, and die1. The ne'er-touch'd VESTAL :] So, in The Rape of Lucrece : "O Opportunity! thy guilt is great : "Thou mak'st the vestal violate her oath." MAlone. 7-how Antony becomes his flaw;] That is, how Antony conforms himself to this breach of his fortune. JOHNSON. 8 And what thou think'st his very ACTION SPEAKS In every power that moves.] So, in Troilus and Cressida : her foot speaks, her-spirits look out 66 "At every joint and motive of her body." STEEvens. 9 What shall we DO, Enobarbus ?] I have little doubt but that the verb-do, which is injurious to the metre, was interpolated, and that some player or transcriber (as in many former instances) has here defeated the purpose of an ellipsis convenient to versification. What shall we? in ancient familiar language, is frequently understood to signify-What shall we do? STEEVENS. CLEO. IS Antony, or we, in fault for this? I THINK, and die.] Sir T. Hanmer reads: 66 Drink, and die." And his emendation has been approved, it seems, by Dr. Warburton and Mr. Upton. Dr. Johnson, however, has not advanced it into the page, not being convinced that it is necessary." "Think, and die; " says he, "that is, Reflect on your own folly, and leave the world, is a natural answer." I grant it would be, according to this explanation, a very proper answer from a moralist or a divine; but Enobarbus, I doubt, was neither the one nor the other. He is drawn as a plain, blunt soldier; not likely, however, to offend so grossly in point of delicacy as Sir T. Hanmer's alteration would make him. I believe the true reading is: When the ship is going to be cast away, in The Sea Voyage of Beaumont and Fletcher, (Act I. Sc. I.) and Aminta is lamenting, Tibalt says to her: 66 Go, take your gilt "Prayer-book, and to your business; wink, and die :" insinuating plainly, that she was afraid to meet death with her eyes open. And the same insinuation, I think, Enobarbus might very naturally convey in his return to Cleopatra's desponding question. TYRWHITT. I adhere to the old reading, which may be supported by the following passage in Julius Cæsar : 66 all that he can do "Is to himself; take thought, and die for Cæsar." Mr. Tollet observes, that the expression of taking thought, in our old English writers, is equivalent to the being anxious or solicitous, or laying a thing much to heart. So, says he, it is used in our translations of The New Testament, Matthew vi. 25, &c. So, in Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 50, or anno 1140: "taking thought for the losse of his houses and money, he pined away and died." In the margin thus: "The bishop of Salisburie dieth of thought." Again, in p. 833. Again, in Stowe's Chronicle, anno 1508: "Christopher Hawis shortened his life by thought-taking." Again, in p. 546, edit. 1614. Again, in Leland's Collectanea, vol. i. p. 234: “ - their mother died for thought." Mr. Tyrwhitt, however, might have given additional support to the reading which he offers, from a passage in The Second Part of King Henry IV.: 66 led his powers to death, "And winking leap'd into destruction." STEEVENS. After all that has been written upon this passage, I believe the old reading is right; but then we must understand think and die |
