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So your desires are yours.

Oct. Thanks to my lord. The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak, Your reconciler!9 Wars 'twixt you twain would be1 As if the world should cleave, and that slain men Should solder up the rift.

Ant. When it appears to you where this begins,
Turn your displeasure that way; for our faults
Can never be so equal, that your love

Can equally move with them. Provide your going;
Choose your own company, and command what cost
Your heart has mind to.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

The same. Another Room in the same.

Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting.

Eno. How now, friend Eros?

Eros. There's strange news come, sir.
Eno. What, man?

Eros. Cæsar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

Eno. This is old; What is the success?

Eros. Cæsar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality;2 would

Again, in Churchyard's Charitie, 1595:

"Whose beautie staines the faire Helen of Greece."

Steevens.

I believe a line betwixt these two has been lost, the purport of which probably was, unless I am compelled in my own defence, I will do no act that shall stain, &c.

After Antony has told Octavia that she shall be a mediatrix between him and his adversary, it is surely strange to add that he will do an act that shall disgrace her brother. Malone.

9 Your reconciler!] The old copy has you. This manifest error of the press, which appears to have arisen from the same cause as that noticed above, was corrected in the second folio. Malone. Wars 'twixt you twain would be &c.] The sense is, that war between Cæsar and Antony would engage the world between them, and that the slaughter would be great in so extensive a commotion, Johnson.

1—

2 -rivality;] Equal rank. Johnson.

So, in Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are styled by Bernardo "the rivals" of his watch. Steevens.

not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal,3 seizes him: So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

Eno. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony ?4 Eros. He's walking in the garden-thus; and spurns 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. Eros. For Italy, and Cæsar. More, Domitius;5 My lord desires you presently: my news

I might have told hereafter.

Eno.

"Twill be naught:

[Exeunt.

But let it be.-Bring me to Antony.

Eros. Come, sir.

SCENE VI.

Rome. A Room in Cæsar's House.

Enter CESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECENAS.

Ces. Contemning Rome, he has done all this: And

more;

In Alexandria,-here 's the manner of it,

I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,

3

upon his own appeal,] To appeal, in Shakspeare, is to accuse; Cæsar seized Lepidus without any other proof than Casar's accusation. Johnson.

4 Then, world, &c.] Old copy-Then 'would thou hadst a pair of chaps, no more; and throw between them all the food thou hast, they'll grind the other. Where's Antony? This is obscure, I read

it thus:

Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? Cesar and Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey upon between them. Johnson.

5

More, Domitius;] I have something more to tell you, which I might have told at first, and delayed my news. Antony requires your presence. Johnson.

6 I' the market-place,] So, in the old translation of Plutarch: For he assembled all the people in the show place, where

Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
Were publickly enthron'd: at the feet, sat
Cæsarion, whom they call my father's son;
And all the unlawful issue, that their lust
Since then hath made between them. Unto her
He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt; made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,7

Absolute queen.

Mec.

This in the public eye?

Ces. I' the common show-place, where they exercise. His sons he there proclaim'd, The kings of kings: Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,

He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: She

In the habiliments of the goddess Isis9

younge men doe exercise them selues, and there vpon a high tribunall siluered, he set two chayres of gold, the one for him selfe, and the other for Cleopatra, and lower chaires for his children: then he openly published before the assembly, that first of all he did establish Cleopatra queene of Egypt, of Cyprvs, of Lydia, and of the lower Syria, and at that time also, Cæsarion king of the same realmes. This Cæsarion was supposed to be the sonne of Julius Cæsar, who had left Cleopatra great with child. Secondly, he called the sonnes he had by her, the kings of kings, and gaue Alexander for his portion, Armenia, Media, and Parthia, when had conquered the country: and vnto Ptolemy for his portion, Phenicia, Syria, and Cilicia." Steevens.

7 For Lydia, Mr. Upton, from Plutarch, has restored Lybia. Johnson.

In the translation from the French of Amyot, by Tho. North, in folio, 1597,* will be seen at once the origin of this mistake: "First of all he did establish Cleopatra queen of Egypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the lower Syria. Farmer.

The present reading is right: for in page 297, where Cæsar is recounting the several kings whom Antony had assembled, he gives the kingdom of Lybia to Bocchus. M. Mason.

8 he there- The old copy has-hither. The correction was made by Mr. Steevens. Malone.

9

the goddess Isis] So, in the old translation of Plutarch: 66 Now for Cleopatra, she did not onely weare at that time (but at all other times els when she came abroad) the apparell of the goddesse Isis, and so gaue audience vnto all her subjects, as a new Isis." Steevens.

*I find the character of this work pretty early delineated:
""Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made,
"That Latin French, that French to English straid:
"Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference,
"Than i' th' same Englishman return'd from France."

Farmer

That day appear'd; and oft before
As 'tis reported, so.

gave

audience

Mec.

Inform'd.

Let Rome be thus

*

Agr. Who, queasy with his insolence

Already, will their good thoughts call from him.
Cas. The people know it; and have now received
His accusations.

Agr.

Whom does he accuse?

Cas. Cæsar: and that, having in Sicily

Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him
His part o' the isle: then does he say, he lent me
Some shipping unrestor'd: lastly, he frets,
That Lepidus of the triumvirate

Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain
All his revenue.

Agr.

Sir, this should be answer'd.

Cas. 'Tis done already, and the messenger gone. I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel;

That he his high authority abus'd,

And did deserve his change; for what I have conquer'd, I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia,

And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I

Demand the like.

Mec.

He 'll never yield to that.

Cas. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.

Enter OCTAVIA.

Oct. Hail, Cæsar, and my lord! hail, most dear Cæsar! Cas. That ever I should call thee, cast-away!

Oct. You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.

Cas. Why have you stol❜n upon us thus? You come not Like Cæsar's sister: The wife of Antony

Should have an army for an usher, and

The neighs of horse to tell of her approach,
Long ere she did appear; the trees by the way,
Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,
Longing for what it had not: nay, the dust
Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
Rais'd by your populous troops: But you are come
A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented
The ostent of our love,1 which, left unshown

- queasy-] Nauseated-sick. Am. Ed.

The ostent of our love,] Old copy-ostentation. But the me

Is often left unlov'd: we should have met you
By sea, and land; supplying every stage
With an augmented greeting.

Good my lord,

Oct.
To come thus was I not constrain❜d, but did it
On my free-will. My lord, Mark Antony,
Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted
My grieved ear withal; whereon, I begg'd
His pardon for return.

Cæs.
Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.2
Oct. Do not say so, my lord.

Which soon he granted,

Cas.

I have eyes upon him,

And his affairs come to me on the wind.

Where is he now?

Oct.

My lord, in Athens.3

Cas. No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra

tre, and our author's repeated use of the former word in The Merchant of Venice: "— Such fair ostents of love," sufficiently authorize the slight change I have made. Ostent occurs also in King Henry V:

"Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent

2 Which soon be granted,

Steevens.

Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.] [Old copy—abstract] Antony very soon complied to let Octavia go at her request, says Cæsar; and why? Because she was an abstract between his inordinate passion and him. This is absurd. We must read:

Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.

i. e. his wife being an obstruction, a bar to the prosecution of his wanton pleasures with Cleopatra. Warburton.

I am by no means certain that this change was necessary. Mr. Henley pronounces it to be "needless, and that it ought to be rejected, as perverting the sense." One of the meanings of abstracted is-separated, disjoined, and therefore our poet, with his usual licence, might have used it for a disjunctive. I believe there is no such substantive as obstruct: besides, we say, an obstruction to a thing, but not between one thing and another.

As Mr. Malone, however, is contented with Dr. Warburton's reading, I have left it in our text. Steevens.

3 My lord, in Athens.] Some words, necessary to the metre, being here omitted Sir Thomas Hanmer reads:

My lord, he is in Athens.

But I rather conceive the omission to have been in the former hemistich, which might originally have stood thus:

Where is he, pray you, now?

Oct.

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