211. Come, sir, despatch." "Please you, retire to your chamber ?" This is defective. We might add : "Please you, retire Cleo. " "He goes forth gallantly. That he and Cæsar might "Determine this great war in single fight! "Then, Antony," &c. The reader must have observed, that frequently, throughout these works, after a scene has apparently been finished with tag, other words are introduced unnecessarily; as here. Renouncing the rhyme, which the additional words seem to imply a disapprobation of, the first line might be reduced to measure: He goes forth gallantly. Might he and Cæsar," &c. SCENE VI. am alone the villain of the earth, And feel I am so most. All other villains lose their character, compared with me; and I not only surpass all others in villany, but in the overwhelming consciousness of it. The first part of the sentiment occurs in Cymbeline, where Posthumus imprecates: Every villain be call'd "Posthumus Leonatus, and be villany 66 This blows my heart." Dilates, distends it. "If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean Will do't.". If the active operation of melancholy do not break it, &c. Hamlet talks of "Wings as swift "As meditation, or the thoughts of love." And Brutus, in Julius Cæsar, says of Antony: "If he love Cæsar, all that he can do Is to himself: take thought, and die for Cæsar.” "Thought, in this sense, extreme anxiety, is used by Lord Verulam : Hawis, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died with thought and anguish before his business came to an end." Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the SCENE VIII. 220. "Ride on the pants triumphing." Milton thus accentuates triumph: "Who now triumphs, and, in the excess of joy," &c. Paradise Lost. SCENE IX. 222. "The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me." 66 Disponge" is a fine expression here. Comus says Thus I hurl My dazzling spells into the spongy air." In Cymbeline, too, we find "the spongy south." SCENE X. 231. "And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians." Plébeians, I think, is always in these works accentuated thus on the first syllable. 232. Her prepared nails." "Her prepared nails," I believe, is nothing more than "her nails addressed to the purpose. Dr. Warburton's notion of Octavia's letting her nails grow for the occasion, seems ludicrous. It would seem a more plausible conjecture, if the doctor had supposed, that, by prepared, we should understand-cut or sharpened for the purpose; for which he might quote from Horace : Sectis in juvenes unguibus acrium. Ode 6th. 'Tis well thou'rt gone, If it be well to live: but better 'twere "Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death Might have prevented many.". Othello utters a similar reflection, when Iago says, he is only wounded, and not killed : "I am not sorry neither: I'd have thee live; "For in my mind 'tis happiness to die." 240. SCENE XII. -Condemn myself, to lack "The courage of a woman." Pronounce this sentence against myself, that I lack, &c. 244. Then let it do at once "The thing why thou hast drawn it." "Why" stands very unwarrantably, instead of "for which." "A -I will be A bridegroom in my death." So would King Lear: "I will die "Like a smug bridegroom." 245. " How! not yet dead? not dead?” Thus in Othello: Not dead! not yet quite dead?” SCENE XIII. 250. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only." The natural exclamation, O, at the beginning of this line, seems wanting. 252. "Here's sport indeed!" Cleopatra, I imagine, speaks in frantic irony, "here is a cause for mirth !" instead of "here is an afflicting scene." 253. "I am dying, Egypt, dying." This might be supplied— "O, I am dying, Egypt, dying; pr'ythee "Give me some wine," &c, 254. "The crown o' the earth doth melt: My lord." A word is wanting: I away." suppose was it " melt "O wither'd is the garland of the war. Lee has imitated this in Theodosius: 66 O you have given A blight to the big blossom of the war." "The soldier's pole is fallen." The standard round which the soldiers rallied. This I take to be the meaning. The measure is interrupted here. I would regulate 66 Charm. " Empress, my royal mistress !" Iras, peace." 256. “To rush into the secret house of death." A line much resembling this we find in King John: "To rush into the bloody house of life." |
