That have my heart parted betwixt two friends, CES Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome: Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods, Of us, and thofe that love you. Beft of comfort;" AGR. Welcome, lady. MEC. Welcome, dear madam. Each heart in Rome does love and pity you: And gives his potent regiment' to a trull, them minifters-] Old Copy-his ministers. Corrected by Mr. Capell. MALONE. 6 Best of comfort;] Thus the original copy. The connecting particle, and, feems to favour the old reading. According to the modern innovation, Be of comfort, (which was introduced by Mr. Rowe,) it ftands very awkwardly. "Beft of comfort" may mean -Thou beft of comforters! a phrafe which we meet with again in The Tempeft: "A folemn air, and the best comforter "To an unfettled fancy's cure!" Cæfar however may mean, that what he has juft mentioned is the best kind of comfort that Octavia can receive. MALONE. This elliptical phrafe, I believe, only fignifies-May the best of comfort be yours! STEEVENS. 7 potent regiment] Regiment, is, government, authority; he puts his power and his empire into the hands of a falfe woman. 1 That noises it against us. Is it fo, fir? CES. Moft certain. Sifter, welcome : Pray you, Be ever known to patience: My dearest fifter! [Exeunt. It may be obferved, that trull was not, in our author's time, a term of mere infamy, but a word of flight contempt, as wench is now. JOHNSON. Trull is used in the Firft Part of King Henry VI. as fynonymous to harlot, and is rendered by the Latin word Scortum, in Cole's Dictionary, 1679.-There can therefore be no doubt of the sense in which it is ufed here. MALONE. Regiment is used for regimen or government by moft of our ancient writers. The old tranflation of The Schola Salernitana, is called The Regiment of Helth. Again, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597: "Or Hecate in Pluto's regiment. Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. II. c. x: Trull is not employed in an unfavourable fenfe by George Peele in the Song of Coridon and Melampus, published in England's Helicon, 1600: "When fwaines fweete pipes are puft, and trulls are warme." Again, in Damatas's Figge in praife of his love, by John Wootton; printed in the fame collection: be thy mirth seene; "Heard to each fwaine, feene to each trull." Again, in the eleventh book of Virgil, Twyne's translation of the virgins attendant on Camilla, is, "Italian trulles” Mecanas, however, by this appellation, moft certainly means no compliment to Cleopatra, STEEVENS. SCENE VII. Antony's Camp, near the Promontory of Actium. Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS. CLEO. I will be even with thee, doubt it not. forfpoke my being-] To forfpeak, is to contradiЯ, Speak againft, as forbid is to order negatively. JOHNSON. Thus, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584: -thy life forfpoke by love." to To forfpeak likewife fignified to curfe. So, in Drayton's Epifle from Elinor Cobham to Duke Humphrey : "Or to forfpeak whole flocks as they did feed:** To forfpeak, in the laft inftance, has the fame power as to forbid in Macbeth: "He fhall live a man forbid." So, to forthink meant anciently to unthink, and confequently to repent: "Therefore of it be not to boolde, "Left thou forthink it when thou art too olde." Interlude of Youth, bl. 1. no date. And in Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, B. I. to forfhape is to mis-shape: "Out of a man into a stone To forfpeak has generally reference to the mischiefs effected by enchantment. So, in Ben Jonfon's Staple of News, " witch, goffip, to forfpeak the matter thus." In Shakspeare it is the oppofite of befpeak. STEEVENS. CLEO. Is't not? Denounce against us, why should not we Be there in perfon? ENO. [Afide.] Well, I could reply: 2 If we should ferve with horfe and mares together, The horse were merely loft; the mares would bear A foldier, and his horse. 9 Is't not? Denounce against us, &c.] The old copy reads: If not, denounc'd against us, &c. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS. I would read: "Is't not? Denounce against us, why should not we Cleopatra means to fay, "Is not the war denounced against us? Why should we not then attend in perfon?" She says, a little lower, A charge we bear i' the war, "And, as the prefident of my kingdom, will Appear there for a man." She fpeaks of herself in the plural number, according to the ufual ftyle of fovereigns. M. MASON. Mr. Malone reads with the old copy, introducing only the change of a fingle letter-denounc't instead of denounc'd.—I have followed Mr. Tyrwhitt. STEEVENS. 66 Mr. Tyrwhitt propofed to read-denounce, but the flight alteration for which I am anfwerable, is nearer to the original copy. I am not however fure that the old reading is not right. If not denounc'd," If there be no particular denunciation against me, why fhould we not be there in perfon? There is however, in the folio, a comma after the word not, and no point of interrogation at the end of the fentence; which favours the emendation now made. MALONE. Surely, no valid inference can be drawn from fuch uncertain premifes as the punctuation of the old copy, which (to use the words of Rofalind and Touchstone in As you like it) is " as fortune will, or as the destinies decree." STEEVENS. 2 Hamlet: 66 merely loft;] i. e. entirely, abfolutely loft. So, in things rank, and grofs in nature "Poffefs it merely," STEEVENS. CLEO. What is't you fay? ENO. Your prefence needs must puzzle Antony; Take from his heart, take from his brain, from his time, What should not then be fpar'd. He is already CLEO. Sink Rome; and their tongues rot, That speak against us! A charge we bear i' the war, And, as the prefident of my kingdom, will Appear there for a man. Speak not against it; That from Tarentum, and Brundufium, He could fo quickly cut the Ionian fea, And take in Toryne?-You have heard on't, fweet? CLEO. Celerity is never more admir'd, Than by the negligent. ANT. A good rebuke, Which might have well becom❜d the best of men, To taunt at flacknefs.-Canidius, we Will fight with him by fea. CLEO. By fea! What else? CAN. Why will my lord do fo? And take in Toryne?] To take in is to gain by conquest. See Vol. VII. p. 160, n. 5; and Vol. XII. p. 26, n. 9. STEEVENS. |