ENO. Under a compelling occafion, let women die: It were pity to caft them away for nothing; though, between them and a great cause, they fhould be esteem'd nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the leaft noife of this, dies inftantly; I have feen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment: I do think, there is mettle in death, which commits fome loving act upon her, fhe hath fuch a celerity in dying. ANT. She is cunning paft man's thought. ENO. Alack, fir, no; her paffions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love: We cannot call her winds and waters, fighs and tears; ? 8 poorer moment:] For lefs reafon; upon meaner motives. JOHNSON. • We cannot call her winds and waters, fighs and tears;] I once idly fuppofed that Shakspeare wrote "We cannot call her fighs and tears, winds and waters;"-which is certainly the phrafeology we should now ufe. I mention fuch idle conjectures, however plaufible, only to put all future commentators on their guard against fufpecting a paffage to be corrupt, because the diction is different from that of the prefent day. The arrangement of the text was the phrafeology 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 fhould 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 fimilar inverfion in Vol. V. p. 456, n. 2. The paffage, however, may be understood without any inverfion. "We cannot call the clamorous heavings of her breast, and the copious streams which flow from her eyes, by the ordinary name of fighs and tears; they are greater ftorms," &c. MALONE. Dr. Young has ferioufly employed this image, though fuggefted as a ridiculous one by Enobarbus: Sighs there are tempefts here," fays Carlos to Leonora, in The Revenge. STEEVENS, they are greater ftorms and tempefts than 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 feen her! ENO. O, fir, you had then left unfeen a wonderful piece of work; which not to have been bless'd withal, would have difcredited your travel. ANT. Fulvia is dead. ENO. Sir? ANT. Fulvia is dead. ANT. Dead. ENO. Why, fir, give the gods a thankful facrifice. 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 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 cafe to be la 2it fhows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, &c.] I have printed this after the original, which, though harth and obfcure, I know not how to amend. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, They fhow to man the tailors of the earth; comforting him therein, &c. I think the paffage, with fomewhat lefs alteration, for alteration is always dangerous, may ftand thus; It shows to men the tailors of the earth, comforting them, r. JOHNSON. The meaning is this. As the gods have been pleased to take away your wife Fulvia, fo they have provided you with a new one in Cleopatra; in like manner as the tailors of the earth, when your old garments are worn out, accommodate you with new ones. ANONYMUS. 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 fupply the place of his former wife; as the tailor, when one robe is worn out, fupplies him with another. MALONE. mented: this grief is crown'd with confolation; your old fmock brings forth a new petticoat :and, indeed, the tears live in an onion,3 that should water this forrow. ANT. The bufinefs fhe hath broached in the state, Cannot endure my abfence. ENO. And the business you have broach'd here cannot be without you; efpecially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your abode. ANT. No more light answers. Let our officers Have notice what we purpose. I fhall break The cause of our expedience to the queen, And get her love to part. For not alone 4 3 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. your forrow fhould be a forced one. In another scene of this play we have onion-eyed; and in The Taming of a Shrew, the Lord fays, If the boy have not a woman's gift "To rain a fhower of commanded tears, "An onion will do well." Again, in Hall's Virgidemiarum, Lib. 6: "Some ftrong-fmeld onion fhall ftirre his eyes "Rather than no falt teares fhall then arife." STEEVENS. 4 The cause of our expedience] Expedience for expedition. WARBURTON. 5 And get her love to part.] I have no doubt but we should read leave, inftead of love. So afterwards: "'Would she had never given you leave to come!" M. MASON. The old reading may mean-And prevail on her love to confent to our feparation. STEEVENS. I fufpect the author wrote: And get her leave to part. The greater part of the fucceeding fcene is employed by Antony, in an endeavour to obtain Cleopatra's permiffion to depart, and in vows of everlasting conftancy, not in perfuading her to forget him, or love him no longer. The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, Which, like the courfer's hair, hath yet but life, 86 I go from hence, Thy foldier, fervant; making peace, or war, "As thou affect'ft." I have lately observed that this emendation had been made by Mr. Pope. If the old copy be right, the words muft mean, I will get her love to permit and endure our feparation. But the word get connects much more naturally with the word leave than with love. The fame errour [as I have fince obferved] 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," inftead of-He leaves, &c. MALONE. 6 more urgent touches,] Things that touch me more fenfibly, more preffing motives. JOHNSON. "Subdues all pangs, all fears." M. MASON. 7 Petition us at home:] With us at home; call for us to refide at home. JOHNSON. 8 the courfer's hair, &c.] Alludes to an old idle notion that the hair of a horfe dropt into corrupted water, will turn to an animal. POPE. A So, in Holinfhed's Defcription of England, p. 224: horfe-haire laid in a pale full of the like water will in a fhort time And not a ferpent's poifon. Say, our pleasure, ENO. I fhall do't. ftirre and become a living creature. [Exeunt. But fith the certaintie of these things is rather proved by few," &c. Again, in Churchyard's Difcourfe of Rebellion &c. 1570: "That lyes in donge, where on vyle ferpents brede.” STEEVENS, Dr. Lifter, in the Philofophical Tranfactions, fhowed that what were vulgarly thought animated horfe-hairs, are real infects. It was alfo affirmed, that they moved like ferpents, and were poisonous to fwallow. TOLLET. 9 -Say, our pleasure, To fuch whofe place is under us, requires Our quick remove from hence.] Say to thofe whofe place is under us, i. e. to our attendants, that our pleasure requires us to remove in hafte from hence. The old copy has-" whofe places under us," and "require." The correction, which is certainly right, was made by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. I should read the paffage thus: Say our pleasure To fuch who've places under us, requires Our quick remove &c. The amendment is as flight as that adopted by the editor, and makes the fenfe more clear. M. MASON. I concur with Mr. Malone. Before I had feen his note, I had explained these words exactly in the fame manner. I learn from an ancient Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household &c. published by the Society of Antiquaries, 1790, that it was the office of "Gentlemen Ushers to give the whole house warning upon a remove." STEEVENS |