The commentators will have the word best to relate to the "good end" made by Fulvia. But it is no more than an epithet of endearment which Antony applies to Cleopatra;-read at your leisure the troubles she awakened; and at the last, my best one, see when and where she died. f I am quickly ill, and well, This has been misconceived: "So Antony loves" is "As Antony loves," and the sense therefore,-My health is as fickle as the love of Antony. And give true evidence to his love, &c.] Mr. Collier's annotator, in his eagerness to confound all traces of our early language, would poorly read, " true credence," which, like many of his suggestions, is very specious and quite wrong. The meaning of Antony is this," Forbear these taunts, and demonstrate to the world your confidence in my love by submitting it freely to the I pr'ythee, turn aside and weep for her ; ANT. ANT. Now, by my sword,- And target!-Still he mends; But this is not the best : -look, pr'ythee, How this Herculean Roman does become ANT. I'll leave you, lady. Courteous lord, one word. ANT. The carriage of his chief.] The old and every modern edition read, "The carriage of his chafe." But can any one who considers the epithet "Herculean," which Cleopatra applies to Antony, and reads the following extract from Shakespeare's authority, hesitate for an instant to pronounce chafe a silly blunder of the transcriber or compositor for "chief," meaning Hercules, the head or principal of the house of the Antonii? "Now it had bene a speech of old time, that the family of the Antonij were descended from one Anton the son of Hercules, whereof the family took the name. This opinion did Antonius seeke to confirme in all his doings: not only resembling him in the likenesse of his body, as we have said before, but also in the wearing of his garments."-Life of Antonius. NORTH'S Plutarch. SCENE IV.-Rome. An Apartment in Enter OCTAVIUS CESAR, reading a letter, LEPIDUS, and Attendants. CES. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know, It is not Cæsar's natural vice to hate This is the news:-he fishes, drinks, and wastes A man who is the abstract † of all faults LEP. CES. You are too indulgent. Let us grant, 'tis not amiss To tumble on the bed of Ptolemy; To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit As his composure must be rare indeed No way excuse his soils," when we do bear As his own state and ours,-'t is to be chid * Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body, Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, MESS. With keels of every kind: many hot inroads Antony, CES. The roughest berry on the rudest hedge; (*) Old text, fear'd. Corrected by Warburton. (†) Old text, lacking. Corrected by Theobald. (1) Old text, Vassailes. "Fall on him," &c. of Mr. Collier's annotator is a modern dilution. d they ear-] They plough. CES. Let his shames quickly Drive him to Rome: 't is time we twain Did show ourselves i' the field; and to that end ІЕР. Till which encounter, It is my business too. Farewell. LEP. Farewell, my lord; what you shall know meantime Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir, To let me be partaker. CES. I knew it for Doubt not, sir; MAR. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing But what indeed is honest to be done: O, Charmian, CLEO. Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he? Or does he walk? or is he on his horse? The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm Cæsar, When thou wast here above the ground, I was brow; There would he anchor his aspéct, and die With looking on his life. Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and Enter ALEXAS. MARDIAN. CLEO. Charmian,— CHAR. Madam. a CLEO. Indeed! (*) First folio, me. orient-] Pellucid, lustrous. See note (a), p. 395. b- an arm-gaunt steed,-] The epithet "arm-gaunt" has been fruitful of controversy. Hanmer reads arm-girt; Mason suggests, not unhappily, termagant; and Mr. Boaden, arrogant. If the original lection be genuine, which we doubt, " gaunt" must be understood to mean fierce, eager; a sense it, perhaps, bears in the following passage from Ben Jonson's "Catiline," Act III. Sc. 3, Yet, coming from him, that great med'cine hath How goes it with my brave Mark Antony? CLEO. Mine ear must pluck it thence. Was beastly dumb'd by him. |