Page images
PDF
EPUB

SCENE IV.

144. "To public ear.”

Some words, perhaps like these, are lost:

145.

"To win the multitude."

[ocr errors]

-The gods will mock me presently, "When I shall pray, O, bless my lord and husband!

"Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud,

"O, bless my brother! husband win, win brother.

Prays, and destroys the prayer."

The words " and then" are necessary to the sense, after lord and husband. Volumnia Volumnia expostulates, in the same manner, to Coriolanus:

Thou bar'st us

"Our prayers to the gods; for how can we, "Alas! how can we for our country pray, "Whereto we are bound, together with thy vic

tory,

"Whereto we are bound? alack! or we must lose "The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person, "Our comfort in the country; we must find "An evident calamity, though we had "Our wish which side should win."

[blocks in formation]

"Shall stain your brother."

Antony, I believe, only means, that whatever censure the war shall incur, will fall on Casar, who provoked it.

[blocks in formation]

147. "The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak

[ocr errors]

"Your reconciler."

I believe we should read,

Make me most weak, most strong,

"Your reconciler."

"Can equally move," &c.

I would read, metrically,

"Can equal, move with them: provide your going."

[merged small][ocr errors]

SCENE VI.

He frets,

"That Lepidus, of the triumvirate
"Should be deposed; and, being, that we
detain."

The prepositions are often abused and confounded by the early writers, but rarely, I believe, in so striking a manner as here, "depos'd of the Triumvirate," and "being that we," &c. and being so deposed, that we detain his revenue: the elision is unwarrantable.

"Depos'd of the triumvirate.' This I take to be a Gallicism.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

And have prevented

"The ostent of our love, which, left un

shown,

"Is often left unlov'd.'

[ocr errors]

This is perplexed; "which" must refer either

to "love" or ostent;" if to love, what can be meant by "love left unlov'd?" (perhaps unvalued.) If to "ostent," besides the tautology of

ostent or ostentation left unshewn, what is intended by its being also left unloved? (perhaps, as in the other case, unvalued.) I know not what to make of the passage.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

We may add, for the measure, he is in Athens.

[merged small][ocr errors]

He hath given his empire

Up to a whore, who now are levying."

"who"

This cannot be reduced to concord, must refer to Cleopatra; the sense requires a correction of the text:

[ocr errors]

66

He hath given his empire

Up to a whore; and they're now levying "The kings," &c.

155. "More larger list of sceptres."

Oct. "

Ah me! most wretched!"

Ah should be ejected.

157.

SCENE VII.

But why, why, why?"

Why should we have here three whys before one is answered? Rejecting this superfluity, and omitting also the unnecessary "but," we should

obtain measure:

Why?"

Thou'st forespoke my being in these

wars.

"

Again, a warrantable contraction would give harmony to the following line:

"And say'st it is not fit."

158.

[ocr errors]

Well, is it, is't?

"Is't not? denounce against us; why should not we

"Be there in person?"

I think both the sense and metre require: "Is't not denounc'd 'gainst us? why should not we," &c.

159. "Your presence needs must puzzle Antony, "Take from his heart, take from his brain, from his time

"What should not then be spar'd."

This argument is used to Cora by Rolla, in Pizarro.

160. "To taunt at slackness.-Canidius, we "Will fight," &c.

The metre demands a transposition:

'To taunt at slackness; we, Canidius." 161. "I have sixty sails, Cæsar, none better."

It is monstrous to admit such an order of words as this into the text, as a verse: some change, at least is necessary: will this do?

"I have full sixty sail; Cæsar none better."
"We then can do't at land. (Enter Messenger.)
"Thy business?”

A word seems to have been lost; perhaps,
Thy business, briefly ?”

More mutilation:

"Cæsar has taken Toryne."

I suppose, by Antony's speech, as well as from

the hemistic, that the messenger said more: probably,

"Cæsar hath march'd a power and ta'en Toryne." 169. " His whole action grows

"Not in the power on't."

In his general conduct, or his whole conduct, he omits or neglects the advantages he possesses; his performance never advances with his ability. 163. "Carries beyond belief.

While he was yet in Rome."

The words, he was should be ejected.

164. "The Emperor calls for Canidius."

More disorder in the metre, which might, perhaps, have been thus:

Enter Messenger.

Mes. "The Emperor calls for Canidius."
Can. "I come to him with news; methinks the

166. "

time's

"In labour; and throes forth, each minute some.'

SCENE VIII.

Yon' ribald-rid nag of Egypt."

"Rid" appears to be a useless, fanciful interpolation, which, as it overloads the measure, should be withdrawn.

168.

66

She, once being loof'd."

I am inclined to think, that "loof'd" means no more than being aloof, removed. The nautical term for bringing a ship close to the wind is not, at least in pronunciation, "loof," but luff.

« PreviousContinue »