PRO. You do extend fhall These thoughts of horror further than you What thou haft done thy master Cæfar knows, PRO. So, Dolabella, If you'll employ me to him. CLEO. [to CLEOPATRA. Say, I would die. [Exeunt PROCULEIUS, and Soldiers. DOL. Most noble empress, you have heard of me? CLEO. I cannot tell. DOL. Affuredly, you know me. CLEO. No matter, fir, what I have heard, or known. You laugh, when boys, or women, tell their dreams; Is't not your trick? DOL. I understand not, madam. CLEO. I dream'd, there was an emperor An tony ; O, fuch another fleep, that I might fee But fuch another man! DOL. If it might please you, CLEO. His face was as the heavens; and therein 8 as ftuck This conjunction is wanting in the first, but is fupplied by the fecond folio. STEEVENS. A fun, and moon; which kept their course, and lighted The little O, the earth.2 DOL. Moft fovereign creature, CLEO. His legs beftrid the ocean: his rear'd arm Crested the world: his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; ' But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, "In the grey vault of heaven." STEEVENS. 2 The little O, the earth.] Old copy The little o' the earth. Dol. Moft fovereign creature! What a bleffed limping verfe thefe hemiftichs give us! Had none of the editors an ear to find the hitch in its pace? There is but a fyllable wanting, and that, I believe verily, was but of a fingle letter. I reftore: The little o' th' earth. i. e. the little orb or circle. Our poet in other paffages chufes to exprefs himself thus. THEOBALD. When two words are repeated near to each other, printers very often omit one of them. The text however may well stand. Shakspeare frequently uses O for an orb or circle. So, in King Henry V: "Within this wooden O the very cafques," &c. Again, in A Midfummer-Night's Dream: Than all yon fiery oes, and eyes of light." MALONE. 3 His legs beftrid the ocean: &c.] So, in Julius Cæfar• Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, "Like a Coloffus." MALONE, 4 his rear'd arm. Crefted the world:] Alluding to fome of the old crefts in heraldry, where a raised arm on a wreath was mounted on the helmet. 5 PERCY. and that to friends;] Thus the old copy. The modern editors read, with no lefs obfcurity: when that to friends. STEEVENS. There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, 6 For his bounty, There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, -an Antony it was, There was certainly a contrast both in the thought and terms, defign'd here, which is loft in an accidental corruption. How could an Antony grow the more by reaping? I'll venture, by a very eafy change, to reftore an exquifite fine allufion; which carries its reafon with it too, why there was no winter in his bounty: For his bounty, There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, I ought to take notice, that the ingenious Dr. Thirlby likewife ftarted this very emendation, and had mark'd it in the margin of his book. THEOBALD. The following lines in Shakspeare's 53d Sonnet add fupport to the emendation: "Speak of the fpring, and foifon of the year, "And you in every bleffed fhape we know." By the other in the third line, i. e. the foifon of the year, the poet means autumn, the feafon of plenty. Again, in The Tempeft: "How does my bounteous fifter [Ceres]?" MALONE. I cannot refift the temptation to quote the following beautiful paffage from Ben Jonfon's New Inn, on the fubject of liberality: "He gave me my firft breeding, I acknowledge; "Then fhow'r'd his bounties on me, like the hours "That open-handed fit upon the clouds, "And prefs the liberality of heaven "Down to the laps of thankful men." STEEVENS. His delights poem Were dolphin-like; &c.] This image occurs in a fhort inferted in T. Lodge's Life and Death of William Longbeard, the most famous and witty English Traitor &c. 1593. 4to. bl. 1. "Oh faire of faireft, Dolphin-like, "Within the rivers of my plaint," &c. STEEVENS. CLEO. Think you, there was, or might be, fuch a man As this I dream'd of? DOL. Gentle madam, no. CLEO. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods. But, if there be, or ever were one such,9 It's past the size of dreaming: Nature wants stuff To vie ftrange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine An Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy, Condemning fhadows quite.' 8 As plates] Plates mean, I believe, filver money. So, in Marlow's Jew of Malia, 1633: Again: "What's the price of this flave 200 crowns? "Rat'ft thou this Moor but at 200 plates ?" STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens juftly interprets plates to mean filver money. It is a term in heraldry. The balls or roundels in an efcutcheon of arms, according to their different colours, have different names. If gules, or red, they are called torteauxes; if or, or yellow, bezants; if argent, or white, plates, which are buttons of filver without any impreffion, but only prepared for the stamp. So Spenfer, Faery Queen, L. II. c. vii. ft. 5: "Some others were new driven, and distent "The antique fhapes of kings and kefars, ftraung and rare." WHALLEY. or ever were one fuch,] The old copy has-nor ever, &c. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 2 To vie ftrange forms -] To vie was a term at cards. See Vol. VI. p. 338, n.9; and p. 459, n. z. 3 - yet, to imagine STEEVENS. An Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy, Condemning shadows quite.] The word piece, is a term appro DOL. Hear me, good madam: Your lofs is as yourfelf, great; and you bear it By the rebound of yours, a grief that shoots3 CLEO. I thank you, fir. Know you, what Cæfar means to do with me? DOL. I am loath to tell you what I would you knew. CLEO. Nay, pray you, fir,— Enter CESAR, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, MECENAS, SELEUCUS, and Attendants. priated to works of art. Here Nature and Fancy produce each their piece, and the piece done by Nature had the preference. Antony was in reality paft the fize of dreaming; he was more by Nature than Fancy could prefent in fleep. JOHNSON. 3fboots] The old copy reads-fuites. STEEVENS. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. The error arose from the two words, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, being pronounced alike. See Vol. V. p. 252, n. 6. MALONE. |