Of femblable import,-but he hath wag'd...? New wars'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it To publick car: Spoke fcantly of me: when perforce he could not But pay me terms of honour, cold and fickly He vented them; most narrow measure lent me : Оста. And the good gods will mock me presently, O, bless my brother! Hufband win, win brother, ANT. Gentle Octavia, Let your best love draw to that point, which feeks Beft to preserve it: If I lofe mine honour, I lofe myfelf: better I were not yours, Than yours fo branchlefs," But, as you requested, 3 When the best hint was given him, he not took't,] The first folio reads, not look'd. Dr. Thirlby advis'd the emendation which I have inferted in the text. THEOBALD. 4 Or did it from his teeth.] Whether this means, as we now fay, in spite of his teeth, or that he spoke through his teeth, fo as to be purposely indistinct, I am unable to determine. STEEVENS. 5 And I have fupplied this conjunction, for the fake of metre. STEEVENS. 6 When I fhall pray, &c.] The fituation and fentiments of Octavia resemble thofe of Lady Blanch in King John. See Vol. VIII. P. 94. STEEVENS. 1 Than yours so branchless.] Old Copy-your, Corrected in Yourself fhall go between us: The mean time, lady, I'll raise the preparation of a war i Shall ftain your brother; Make your soonest haste; So your defires are yours. Остл. Thanks to my lord. The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak, the fecond folio. This is one of the many mistakes that have arifen from the tranfcriber's ear deceiving him, your fo and yours fo, being scarcely diftinguishable in pronunciation. MALONE. -The mean time, lady, I'll raise the preparation of a war Shall ftain your brother; Thus the printed copies. But, fure, Antony, whofe bufinefs here is to mollify Octavia, does it with a very ill grace: and 'tis a very odd way of fatisfying her, to tell her the war, he raises, thall fain, i, e. cast an odium upon her brother. I have no doubt, but we must read, with the addition only of a fingle letter. Shall train your brother ; i. e. fhall lay him under constraints; fhall put him to fuch shifts, that he shall neither be able to make a progrefs againft, or to prejudice me. Plutarch fays, that Octavius, understanding the fudden and wonderful preparations of Antony, was aftonish'd at it; for he himself was in many wants, and the people were forely oppressed with grievous exactions. THEOBALD. I do not fee but flain may be allowed to remain unaltered, meaning no more than hame or difgrace. JOHNSON. So, in fome anonymous stanzas among the poems of Surrey and Wyatt: 66 here at hand approacheth one "Whofe face will ftain you all." Again, in Shore's Wife, by Churchyard, 1593: "So Shore's wife's face made foule Browneta blush, Again, in Churchyard's Charitie, 1595. "Whose beautie ftaines the faire Helen of Greece." STEEVENS. I believe a line betwixt these two has been loft, the purport of which probably was, unless I am compell'd in my own defence, I will do no act that fhall ftain, &c. After Antony has told Octavia that she shall be a mediatrix between him and his adverfary, it is furely ftrange to add that he will do an act that fhall difgrace her brother. MALONE. Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be 2 As if the world fhould cleave, and that flain men Should folder up the rift. ANT. When it appears to you where this begins, Turn your displeasure that way; for our faults Can never be fo equal, that your love Can equally move with them. Provide your going; Choose your own company, and command what ENO. How now, friend Eros? EROS. There's ftrange news come, fir. EROS. Cæfar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey. ENO. This is old; What is the fuccefs? EROS. Cæfar, having made ufe of him in the Your reconciler!] The old copy has you. This manifeft error of the prefs, which appears to have arifen from the fame cause as that noticed above, was corrected in the fecond folio. MALONE, -Wars 'twixt you twain would be &c.] The fenfe is, that war between Cæfar and Antony would engage the world between them, and that the flaughter would be great in fo extenfive a commotion. JOHNSON. wars 'gainst Pompey, prefently denied him rivality; would not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not refting here, accufes him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, feizes him: So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine. ENO. Then, world, thou haft a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou haft, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?s 3 rivality;] Equal rank. JOHNSON. So, in Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are ftyled by Bernardo "the rivals" of his watch. STEEVENS. 4 — upon his own appeal,] To appeal, in Shakspeare, is to accuse ; Cæfar feized Lepidus without any other proof than Cæfar's accufation. JOHNSON. 5 Then, world, &c.] Old copy-Then 'would thou had'ft a pair of chaps, no more; and throw between them all the food thou haft, they'll grind the other. Where's Antony? This is obfcure, I read it thus: Then, world, thou haft a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou haft, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? Cæfar and Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey upon between them. JOHNSON. The Though in general very reluctant to depart from the old сору, I have not in the prefent inftance any fcruples on that head. paffage, as it ftands in the folio, is nonfenfe, there being nothing to which thou can be referred. World and would were easily confounded, and the omiffion in the last line, which Dr. Johnfon has fupplied, is one of thofe errors that happen in almost every sheet that paffes through the prefs, when the fame words are repeated near to each other in the fame fentence. Thus, in a note on Timon of Athens, [Vol. XI. p. 539,] now before me, these words ought to have been printed: "Dr. Farmer, however, fufpects a quibble between honour in its common acceptation and honour (i. e. the lordship of a place) in its legal sense." But the words" in its common acceptation and" were omitted in the proof sheet by the compofitor, by his eye (after he had compofed the first honour,) glancing on the last, by which the intermediate words were loft. In the paffage before us, I have no doubt that the compofitor's eye in EROS. He's walking in the garden-thus; and fpurns The rush that lies before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus! And threats the throat of that his officer, That murder'd Pompey. ENO. Our great navy's rigg'd. ERO. For Italy, and Cæfar. More, Domitius;" My lord defires you prefently: my news I might have told hereafter. ENOS. But let it be.-Bring me to Antony. 'Twill be naught: [Exeunt. like manner glancing on the fecond the, after the first had been compofed, the two words now recovered were omitted. So, in Troilus and Creffida, the two lines printed in Italicks, were omitted in the folio, from the fame cause: "The bearer knows not; but commends itself "To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself "Not going from itself," &c. In the first folio edition of Hamlet, Act II. is the following paffage: "I will leave him, and fuddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter." But in the original quarto copy the words in the Italick character are omitted. The printer's eye; after the words I will leave him were compofed, glanced on the fecond him, and thus all the intervening words were loft. I have lately observed that Sir Thomas Hanmer had made the fame emendation. As, in a fubfequent fcene, Shakspeare, with allufion to the triumvirs, calls the World three-nook'd, fo he here fuppofes it to have had three chaps. No more does not fignify no longer, but has the fame meaning as if Shakspeare had writtenand no more. Thou haft now a pair of chaps, and only a pair. MALONE. 6 More, Domitius;] I have fomething more to tell you, which I might have told at firft, and delayed my news. Antony requires your prefence. JOHNSON. |