Here is to Cæfar. CES. I could well forbear it. It's monftrous labour, when I wash my brain, ANT. Be a child o' the time. CES. Poffefs it, I'll make anfwer: but I had ra ther faft From all, four days, than drink fo much in one. Ром. Let's ha't, good foldier. ANT. Come, let us all take hands; Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense In foft and delicate Lethe. ENO. All take hands. I believe, frike the vessels means no more than chink the vessels one against the other, as a mark of our unanimity in drinking, as we now fay, chink glaffes. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens is furely right. So, in one of Iago's fongs: "And let me the cannikin clink." RITSON. Veffels probably mean kettle-drums, which were beaten when the health of a perfon of eminence was drank; immediately after we have, "make battery to our ears with the loud mufic." They are called kettles in Hamlet: "Give me the cups; "And let the kettle to the trumpet fpeak." Dr. Johnfon's explanation degrades this feaft of the lords of the whole world into ruftick revel. HOLT WHITE. 3- I'll make anfwer:] The word-make, only ferves to clog the metre. STEEVENS. Come, let us all take hands;] As half a line in this place may have been omitted, the deficiency might be fupplied with words refembling those in Milton's Comus : Come let us all take hands, and beat the ground, "Till" &c. STEEVENS. Make battery to our ears with the loud mufick :- [Mufick plays. Enobarbus places them hand in hand. SONG. Come, thou monarch of the vine, • Make battery to our ears -] So, in King John: "Our ears are cudgel'd." STEEVENS. 2 The holding every man shall bear,] In old editions: The holding every man fall beat, The company were to join in the burden, which the poet ftiles, the holding. But how were they to beat this with their fides? I am perfuaded, the poet wrote: The holding every man shall bear, as loud As his ftrong fides can volley. The breaft and fides are immediately concerned in ftraining to fing as loud and forcibly as a man can. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald's emendation is very plaufible; and yet beat might have been the poet's word, however harfh it may appear at prefent. In Henry VIII. we find a fimilar expreffion : let the mufic knock it." STEEVENS. The holding every man shall beat,] Every man fhall accompany the chorus by drumming on his fides, in token of concurrence and applaufe. JOHNSON, I have no doubt but bear is the right reading. To bear the burden, or, as it is here called, the holding of a fong, is the phrafe at this day. The paffage quoted by Mr. Steevens from Henry VIII, relates to inftrumental mufick, not to vocal. Loud as his fides can volley, means, with the utmost exertion of his voice. So we fay, he laughed till he split his fides. M. MASON. Theobald's emendation appears to me fo plaufible, and the change is fo fmall, that I have given it a place in the text, as did Mr. Steevens in his edition. The meaning of the holding is afcertained by a paffage in an old pamphlet called The Serving-man's Comfort, 4to. 1598: "where a fong is to be fung the under-fing or holding whereof is, It is merrie in haul where beards wag all." MALONE. 3 with pink eyne:] Dr. Johnfon, in his Dictionary, fays a In thy vats our cares be drown'd; Cup us, till the world go round! CES. What would you more?-Pompey, good night. Good brother, Let me request you off: our graver business Frowns at this levity.-Gentle lords, let's part; You fee, we have burnt our cheeks: ftrong Enobarbe Is weaker than the wine; and mine own tongue Splits what it fpeaks: the wild disguise hath al most Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night. Good Antony, your hand. Ром. I'll try you o' the shore. ANT. And fhall, fir: give's your hand.: Ром. O, Antony, You have my father's house,+-But what? we are friends: pink eye is a fmall eye, and quotes this paffage for his authority. Pink eyne, however, may be red eyes: eyes inflamed with drinking, are very well appropriated to Bacchus. So, in Julius Cæfar: "-fuch ferret and fuch fiery eyes." 66 like So, Greene, in his Defence of Coney-Catching, 1592: a pink-ey'd ferret." Again, in a fong fung by a drunken Clown in Marius and Sylla, 1594: "Thou makeft fome to ftumble, and many mo to fumble, "And me have pinky eyne, most brave and jolly wine!" 4 O, Antony, STEEVENS. You have my father's houfe,] The hiftorian Paterculus fays: cum Pompeio quoque circa Mifenum pax inita: Qui haud abfurde, cum in navi Cæfaremque et Antonium cœna exciperet, dixit: In carinis fuis fe cœnam dare; referens hoc dictum ad loci women, in quo paterna domus ab Antonio poffidebatur." Our author, Come, down into the boat. ENO. Take heed you fall not. No, to my cabin. Exeunt Рoм. CAS. ANT. and Attendants. Menas, I'll not on fhore. MEN. Thefe drums!-thefe trumpets, flutes! what !— Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell To thefe great fellows: Sound, and be hang'd, found out. [A flourish of trumpets, with drums. ENO. Ho, fays 'a!-There's my cap. Enter VENTIDIUS, as after conqueft, with SILIUS and other Romans, officers, and foldiers; the dead body of Pacorus borne before bim. VEN. Now, darting Parthia, art thou ftruck; and now Pleas'd fortune does of Marcus Craffus' death ་ though he loft the joke, yet feems willing to commemorate the ftory. WARBURTON. The joke of which the learned editor feems to lament the lofs, could not be found in the old tranflation of Plutarch, and Shakspeare looked no further. See p. 505, n. 4. STEEVENS. 5 fruck;] Alludes to darting. Thou whofe darts have fo often ftruck others, art ftruck now thy felf. JOHNSON. Make me revenger.-Bear the king's fon's body SIL. Noble Ventidius, Whilft yet with Parthian blood thy fword is warm, The fugitive Parthians follow; fpur through Media, Mefopotamia, and the fhelters whither The routed fly: fo thy grand captain Antony O Silius, Silius, VEN. I have done enough: A lower place, note well, May make too great an act: For learn this, Silius; Better leave undone,' than by our deed acquire Too high a fame, when him we ferve's away.8 Cæfar, and Antony, have ever won More in their officer, than perfon: Soffius, One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant, For quick accumulation of renown, Which he achiev'd by the minute, loft his favour. Who does i' the wars more than his captain can, Becomes his captain's captain: and ambition, The foldier's virtue, rather makes choice of lofs, Than gain, which darkens him. 6 Thy Pacorus, Orodes,] Pacorus was the fon of Orodes, king of Parthia. STEEVENS. 7 Better leave undone, &c.] Old copies, unmetrically (becaufe the players were unacquainted with the most common ellipfis) : Better to leave undone, &c. STEEVENS. 8 when him we ferve's away.] Thus the old copy, and fuch certainly was our author's phrafeology. So, in The Winter's Tale: "I am appointed him to murder you.?? See alfo Coriolanus, Vol. XII. p. 228, n. 6. The modern editors, however, all read, more grammatically, when be we ferve, &c. MALONE. |