To lean upon but it would warm his spirits, The universal landlord. CLEO. What's your name? Most kind messenger, THYR. My name is Thyreus. Say to great Cæsar this, In disputation I kiss his conqu'ring hand': tell him, I am prompt Say to great Cæsar this, In DISPUTATION I kiss his conqu'ring hand:] The poet certainly wrote: i. e. by proxy; I depute you to pay him that duty in my name. WARBURTON. : I am not certain that this change is necessary. "I kiss his hand in disputation "—may mean, I own he has the better in the controversy. I confess my inability to dispute or contend with him. To dispute may have no immediate reference to words or language by which controversies are agitated. So, in Macbeth Dispute it like a man ;" and Macduff, to whom this short speech is addressed, is disputing or contending with himself only. Again, in Twelfth Night: "For though my soul disputes well with my sense." If Dr. Warburton's change be adopted, we should read" by deputation." STEEVENS. 66 I have no doubt but deputation is the right reading. Steevens having proved, with much labour and ingenuity, that it is but by a forced and unnatural construction that any sense can be extorted from the words as they stand. It is not necessary to read by deputation, instead of in. That amendment indeed would render the passage more strictly grammatical, but Shakspeare is, frequently, at least as licentious in the use of his particles. M. MASON. I think Dr. Warburton's conjecture extremely probable. The objection founded on the particle in being used, is, in my apprehension, of little weight. Though by deputation is the phraseology of the present day, the other might have been common in the time of Shakspeare. Thus a Deputy says in the first scene of King John: 66 Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France, "In my behaviour, to his majesty, "The borrow'd majesty of England here." Again, in King Henry IV. Part I. : 66 66 Of all the favourites that the absent king In deputation left behind him here." To lay my crown at his feet, and there to kneel: Tell him, from his all-obeying breath I hear The doom of Egypt. 'Tis your noblest course. THYR. My duty on your hand. CLEO. Give me grace to lay Your Cæsar's father oft, When he hath mus'd of taking kingdoms in', Again: Bacon, in his History of Henry VII. says, "—if he relied upon that title, he could be but a king at courtesie." We should now say, "by courtesy." So, "in any hand," was the phrase of Shakspeare's time, for which," at any hand," was afterwards used. 66 Supposing disputation to mean, as Mr. Steevens conceives, not verbal controversy, but struggle for power, or the contention of adversaries, to say that one kisses the hand of another in contention, is surely a strange phrase: but to "kiss by proxy," and to marry by proxy," was the language of Shakspeare's time, and is the language of this day. I have, however, found no example of in deputation being used in the sense required here. MALONE. 8 Tell him, from his ALL-OBEYING breath, &c.] Doom is declared rather by an all-commanding, than an "all-obeying breath." I suppose we ought to read 66 all-obeyed breath." JOHNSON. There is no need of change. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakspeare uses longing, a participle active, with a passive signification: "To furnish me upon my longing journey." i. e. my journey long'd for. In The Unnatural Combat, by Massinger, the active participle is yet more irregularly employed: "For the recovery of a strangling husband." i. e. one that was to be strangled. All-obeying breath is, in Shakspeare's language, breath which all obey. Obeying for obeyed. So, inexpressive for inexpressible, delighted for delighting, &c. MALONE. 9 I Give me grace-] Grant me the favour. JOHNSON. -taking kingdoms in,] To take in is to gain by conquest; so, before, p. 299: "And take in Toryne." REED. 2 As it RAIN'D KISSES.] This strong expression is adopted in Pope's version of the 17th Odyssey: The bidding of the fullest man3, and worthiest ENO. You will be whipp'd. ANT. Approach, there :-Ay, you kite!-Now gods and devils! Authority melts from me: Of late, when I cry'd, ho! Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth, Your will? Have you no ears? I am And cry, Enter Attendants. Antony yet. Take hence this Jack', and whip him. ENO. "Tis better playing with a lion's whelp, Than with an old one dying. 3 ANT 66 in his embraces dies, Moon and stars! "Rains kisses on his neck, his face, his eyes." STEEVENS. the FULLEST man,] The most complete, and perfect. So, in Othello, vol. ix. p. 226: 66 What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe." MALONE. So before, p. 322: "the full Cæsar." Boswell. 4 Like boys unto a MUSS,] i. e. a scramble. POPE. So used by Ben Jonson, in his Magnetick Lady: 66 nor are they thrown "To make a muss among the gamesome suitors." Again, in The Spanish Gipsie, by Middleton and Rowley, 1653: “To see if thou be'st alcumy or no, 66 They'll throw down gold in musses.” This word was current so late as in the year 1690: 66 Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down, "But there's a muss of more than half the town." Dryden's Prologue to The Widow Ranter, by Mrs. Behn. 5 -Take hence this JACK,] See vol. viii. p. 52. STEEVENS. MALONE. Whip him :-Were't twenty of the greatest tribu taries That do acknowledge Cæsar, should I find them So saucy with the hand of she here, (What's her name, Since she was Cleopatra ?)-Whip him, fellows, ANT. Tug him away: being whipp'd, Bring him again :-This Jack' of Cæsar's shall Bear us an errand to him. [Exeunt Attend. with THYREUS. You were half blasted ere I knew you: Ha! Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome, Forborne the getting of a lawful race, And by a gem of women, to be abus'd By one that looks on feeders 9 ? 6 (What's her name, Since she was Cleopatra ?)] That is, since she ceased to be Cleopatra. So, when Ludovico says: "Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?" Othello replies, "That's he that was Othello. Here I am." M. MASON. - THIS Jack-] Old copy-The Jack. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONe. 7 8 -a GEM of women,] This term is often found in Chapman's version of the Iliad. Thus, in the sixth book: 66 which though I use not here, "Yet still it is my gem at home." 66 In short, beautiful horses, rich garments, &c. in our translator's language, are frequently spoken of as gems. A jewel of a man,” is a phrase still in use among the vulgar. STEEVENS. 9 By one that looks on FEEDERS ?] One that waits at the table while others are eating. JOHNSON. A feeder, or an eater, was anciently the term of reproach for a servant. So, in Ben Jonson's Silent Woman: "Bar my doors. Where are all my eaters? My mouths now? bar up my doors, my varlets." Again, in The Wits, a comedy, by Sir W. D'Avenant; tall eaters in blew coats, "Sans number." CLEO. Good my lord, ANT. You have been a boggler ever: "One who looks on feeders," is one who throws away her regard on servants, such as Antony would represent Thyreus to be. Thus, in Cymbeline: 66 that base wretch, "One bred of alms, and foster'd with cold dishes, "The very scraps o' the court." STEEVENS. I incline to think Dr. Johnson's interpretation of this passage the true one. Neither of the quotations, in my apprehension, support Mr. Steevens's explication of feeders as synonymous to a servant. So fantastick and pedantick a writer as Ben Jonson, having in one passage made one of his characters call his attendánts, his eaters, appears to me a very slender ground for supposing feeders and servants to be synonymous. In Timon of Athens, this word occurs again: 66 So the gods bless me, "When all our offices have been oppress'd "With riotous feeders—." There also Mr. Steevens supposes feeders to mean servants. But I do not see why "all our offices may not mean all the apartments in Timon's house; (for certainly the steward did not mean to lament the excesses of Timon's retinue only, without at all noticing that of his master and his guests;) or, if offices can only mean such parts of a dwelling-house as are assigned to servants, I do not conceive that, because feeders is there descriptive of those menial attendants who were thus fed, the word used by itself, unaccompanied by others that determine its meaning, as in the passage before us, should necessarily signify a servant. It must, however, be acknowledged, that a subsequent passage may be urged in favour of the interpretation which Mr. Steevens has given: 66 To flatter Cæsar, would you mingle eyes "With one that ties his points?" MALONE. On maturer consideration, Mr. Malone will find that Timon's Steward has not left the excesses of his master, and his guests, unnoticed; for though he first adverts to the luxury of their servants, he immediately afterwards alludes to their own, which he confines to the rooms (not offices) that "blaz'd with lights, and bray'd with minstrelsy." My definition, therefore, of the termoffices, will still maintain its ground. In further support of it, see a note on Macbeth, vol. xi. p. 90, n. 8, where offices occurs [in Mr. Steevens's edition], a reading which Mr. Malone has overlooked, and consequently left without remark. Duncan would hardly have "sent forth" largess to Macbeth's |
