With all their fixty, fly, and turn the rudder; SCAR. The greater cantle' of the world is loft With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away Kingdoms and provinces. ENO. How appears the fight? SCAR. On our fide like the token'd peftilence, Where death is fure. Yon' ribald-rid' nag of Egypt, 3 The greater cantle] A piece or lump. POPE. Cantle is rather a corner. Cæfar in this play mentions the three-nook'd world. Of this triangular world every triumvir had a corner. JOHNSON. The word is ufed by Chaucer in The Knight's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 3010: "Of no partie ne cantel of a thing." STEEVENS. See Vol. VIII. p. 492, n. 3. MALONE. 4-token'd-] Spotted. JOHNSON. The death of thofe vifited by the plague was certain, when particular eruptions appear'd on the fkin; and these were called God's tokens. So, in the comedy of Two wife Men and all the reft Fools, in feven acts, 1619: "A will and a tolling bell are as prefent death as God's tokens." Again, in Herod and Antipater, 1622: "His fickness, madam, rageth like a plague, Again, in Love's Labour's Loft: "For the Lord's tokens on you both I fee." See Vol. V. p. 339, n. 9. STEEVENS. $ribald-] A luxurious fquanderer, POPE, The word is in the old edition ribaudred, which I do not un Whom leprofy o'ertake! i' the midst o' the fight,When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd, derftand, but mention it, in hopes others may raise fome happy conjecture. JOHNSON, A ribald is a lewd fellow. So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592: that injurious riball that attempts Again: "To vyolate my dear wyve's chastity.” Injurious ftrumpet, and thou ribald knave.” Ribaudred, the old reading is, I believe, no more than a corruption. Shakspeare, who is not always very nice about his verfification, might have written: Yon ribald-rid nag of Egypt, i. e. Yon ftrumpet, who is common to every wanton fellow. STEEVENS. I have adopted the happy emendation propofed by Mr. Steevens. Ribaud was only the old fpelling of ribald; and the mifprint of red for rid is eafily accounted for.-Whenever by any negligence in writing a dot is omitted over an i, compofitors at the prefs invariably print an e. Of this I have had experience in many sheets of my edition of Shakspeare, being very often guilty of that negligence which probably produced the error in the paffage before us. In our author's own edition of his Rape of Lucrece, 1594, I have lately observed the same error : 7 "Afflict him in his bed with bed-red groans." Again, in Hamlet, 1604, Signat. B. 3. [Act I. fc. ii.] "Who impotent, and bed-red, scarcely hears "Of this his nephew's purpose.". By ribald, Scarus, I think, means the lewd Antony in particular, not every lewd fellow," as Mr. Steevens has explained it. MALONE. -Yon ribald nag of Egypt,] I believe we should read-bag. What follows feems to prove it: cr She once being loof'd, "The noble ruin of her magick, Antony, Claps on his fea-wing.". TYRWHITT. Odd as this use of nag might appear to Mr. Tyrwhitt, jade is daily used in the fame manner. HENLEY. The brieze, or ceftrum, the fly that ftings cattle, proves that nag is the right word. JOHNSON. 6 Whom leprofy o'ertake!] Leprofy, an epidemical diftemper of the Egyptians; to which Horace probably alludes in the controverted line: Both as the fame, or rather ours the elder,- ENO. That I beheld: mine eyes Did ficken at the fight on't, and could not SCAR. She once being loof'd,' The noble ruin of her magick, Antony, Claps on his fea-wing, and like a doting mallard, Leaving the fight in height, flies after her: Leprofy was one of the various names by which the Lues venerea was distinguished. So, in Greene's Difputation between a He Coneycatcher and a She Coneycatcher, 1592: " Into what jeopardy a man will thruft himself for her that he loves, although for his fweete villanie he be brought to loathfome leprofie." STEEVENS. Pliny, who fays, the white leprofy, or elephantiafis, was not feen in Italy before the time of Pompey the Great, adds, it is “a peculiar maladie, and naturall to the Egyptians; but looke when any of their kings fell into it, woe worth the fubjects and poore people: for then were the tubs and bathing veffels wherein they fate in the baine, filled with men's bloud for their cure." Philemon Holland's Tranflation, B. XXVI. c. i. Rɛɛd. Both as the fame, or rather ours the elder, Cæfar: "We were two lions, litter'd in one day, -] So, in Julius STEEVENS. The brize upon her,] The brize is the gad-fly. So, in Spenfer: a brize, a fcorned little creature, "Through his fair hide his angry fting did threaten." STEEVENS. Did ficken at the fight on't,] For the infertion of-'t, to complete the measure, I am anfwerable, being backed, however, by the authority of the following paffage in Cymbeline: 9 Might well have warm'd old Saturn,—.” STEEVENS. -being loof'd,] To loof is to bring a fhip close to the wind. This expreffion is in the old tranflation of Plutarch. STEEVENS. I never faw an action of fuch fhame; CAN. Our fortune on the fea is out of breath, ENO. Ay, are you thereabouts? Why then, good night Indeed. [afide. CAN. Towards Peloponnefus are they fled. SCAR. 'Tis eafy to't; and there I will attend What further comes. CAN. To Cæfar will I render My legions, and my horfe; fix kings already ENO. [Exeunt. 2 The wounded chance of Antony,] I know not whether the author, who loves to draw his images from the fports of the field, might not have written: The wounded chafe of Antony, The allufion is to a deer wounded and chased, whom all other deer avoid. I will, fays Enobarbus, follow Antony, though chased and wounded. The common reading, however, may very well ftand. JOHNSON. The wounded chance of Antony, is a phrafe nearly of the fame import as the broken fortunes of Antony. The old reading is indifputably the true one. So, in the fifth A&t: SCENE IX. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace. Enter ANTONY, and Attendants. ANT. Hark, the land bids me tread no more upon't, It is afham'd to bear me !-Friends, come hither; Have loft my way for ever:-I have a ship Αττ. Fly! not we. ANT. I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards To run, and show their fhoulders.-Friends, be gone; I have myself refolv'd upon a course, My treasure's in the harbour, take it.—O, "Or I fhall fhow the cinders of my fpirit, "Through the afhes of my chance." MALONE. Mr. Malone has judiciously defended the old reading. In Othello we have a phrase somewhat fimilar to wounded chance; viz. mangled matter." STEEVENS. -so lated in the world,] Alluding to a benighted traveller. So, in Macbeth, A& III: JOHNSON. "Now fpurs the lated traveller apace." STEEVENS. be gone:] We might, I think, fafely complete the meafure by reading: 3 be gone, I fay: STEEVENS. |