ANT. Forbear me.[Exit Messenger. There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it: The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone; Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure." STEEVENS. 5 We wish it ours again.] Thus, in Sidney's Arcadia, lib. ii. : "We mone that lost which had we did bemone." By REVOLUTION LOWERING, does become STEEVENS. The OPPOSITE of itself:] The allusion is to the sun's diurnal course; which rising in the east, and by revolution lowering, or setting in the west, becomes the opposite of itself. WARBURTON. This is an obscure passage. The explanation which Dr. Warburton has offered is such, that I can add nothing to it; yet, perhaps, Shakspeare, who was less learned than his commentator, meant only, that our pleasures, as they are revolved in the mind, turn to pain. JOHNSON. I rather understand the passage thus: "What we often cast from us in contempt we wish again for, and what is at present our greatest pleasure, lowers in our estimation by the revolution of time; or by a frequent return of possession becomes undesirable and disagreeable." TOLLET. I believe revolution means change of circumstances. This sense appears to remove every difficulty from the passage."The pleasure of to-day, by revolution of events and change of circumstances, often loses all its value to us, and becomes to-morrow a pain." STEEVENS. 7 The hand COULD pluck her back, &c.] The verb could has a peculiar signification in this place; it does not denote power but inclination. The sense is, "the hand that drove her off would now willingly pluck her back again." HEATH. Could, would, and should, are a thousand times indiscriminately used in the old plays, and yet appear to have been so employed rather by choice than by chance. STEEVENS. Enter ENOBarbus. ENO. What's your pleasure, sir? ANT. I must with haste from hence. ENO. Why, then, we kill all our women: We see how mortal an unkindness is to them; if they suffer our departure, death's the word. ANT. I must be gone. ENO. Under a compelling occasion, let women die: It were pity to cast them away for nothing; though, between them and a great cause, they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer momentR: I do think, there is mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying. ANT. She is cunning past man's thought. ENO. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love: We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they poorer moment :] For less reason; upon meaner motives. JOHNSON. 9 We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears ;] I once idly supposed that Shakspeare wrote-" We cannot call her sighs and tears, winds and waters;"-which is certainly the phraseology we should now use. I mention such idle conjectures, however plausible, only to put all future commentators on their guard against suspecting a passage to be corrupt, because the diction is different from that of the present day. The arrangement of the text was the phraseology 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 also a similar inversion in vol. v. p. 68, n. 4. are greater storms and tempests that almanacks can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove. ANT. 'Would I had never seen her! ENO. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work; which not to have been blessed withal, would have discredited your travel. ANT. Fulvia is dead. ENO. Sir? ANT. Fulvia is dead. ANT. Dead. ENO. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth comforting therein, that when old robes The passage, however, may be understood without any inversion. "We cannot call the clamorous heavings of her breast, and the copious streams which flow from her eyes, by the ordinary name of sighs and tears; they are greater storms," &c. MALONE. Dr. Young has seriously employed this image, though suggested as a ridiculous one by Enobarbus: 66 Sighs there are tempests here," says Carlos to Leonora, in The Revenge. STEEVens. 66 it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, &c.] I have printed this after the original, which, though harsh and obscure, I know not how to amend. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads " They show to man the tailors of the earth; comforting him therein," &c. I think the passage, with somewhat less alteration, for alteration is always dangerous, may stand thus― "It shows to men the tailors of the earth, comforting them," &c. JOHNSON. 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 supply the place of his former wife; as the tailor, when one robe is worn out, supplies him with another. MALone. The meaning is this-" As the gods have been pleased to take away your wife Fulvia, so they have provided you with a new one in Cleopatra; in like manner as the tailors of the earth, when 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 case to be lamented: this grief is crowned with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new petticoat :-and, indeed, the tears live in an onion 2, that should water this sorrow. ANT. The business she hath broached in the state, Cannot endure my absence. ENO. And the business you have broached here cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your abode. ANT. No more light answers. Let our officers Have notice what we purpose. The cause of our expedience 3 I shall break to the to the queen, And get her love to part *. For not alone your old garments are worn out, accommodate you with new ANONYMOUS. ones. 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. yonr sorrow should be a forced one. In another scene of this play we have onion-eyed; and, in The Taming of a Shrew, the Lord says: 66 -If the boy have not a woman's gift "To rain a shower of commanded tears, "An onion will do well." Again, in Hall's Vigidemiarum, lib. vi. : "Some strong-smeld onion shall stirre his eyes STEEVENS. 3 The cause of our EXPEDIENCE-] Expedience, for expedi tion. WARBURTON. So, in King Henry IV. First Part, Act I. Sc. I. : "Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland, "What yesternight our council did decree 4 And get her LOVE to part.] I suspect the author wrote: The greater part of the succeeding scene is employed by Antony, in an endeavour to obtain Cleopatra's permission to depart, and The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, ing, in vows of everlasting constancy, not in persuading her to forget him, or love him no longer : 66 66 - I go from hence, Thy soldier, servant; making peace, or war, "As thou affect'st." I have lately observed that this emendation had been made by Mr. Pope. If the old copy be right, the words must mean, I will get her love to permit and endure our separation. But the word get connects much more naturally with the word leave than with love. The same error [as I have since observed] 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," 66 instead of " He leaves," &c. MALONE. I have no doubt but we should read leave, instead of love. So afterwards: 66 "'Would she had never given you leave to come! " M. MASON. The old reading may mean-" And prevail on her love to consent to our separation." STEEVENS. 5 - more urgent touches,] Things that touch me more sensibly, more pressing motives. JOHNSON. So, Imogen says in Cymbeline: pangs, all fears." M. MASON. 6 Petition us at home:] Wish us at home; call for us to :eside at home. JOHNSON. |