Char. To the monument; There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead. Cleo. To the monument: Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself; Mardian; and bring me how he takes my death.- SCENE XII. [Exeunt. The same. Another Room. Enter ANTONY and EROS. Ant. Eros, thou yet behold'st me? Eros. Ay, noble lord. Ant. Sometime, we see a cloud that 's dragonish;1 A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion, 8 Was never so emboss'd.] A hunting term: when a deer is hard run, and foams at the mouth, he is said to be imbost. Hanmer. See Vol. VI, p. 14, n. 9. Malone 9 The soul and body rive not more in parting, Than greatness going off.] So, in King Henry VIII: 66 it is a sufferance, panging "As soul and body's severing.' Malone. 1 Sometime, we see a cloud that's dragonish; &c.] So, Aristophanes, Nubes, v. 345: « Ηδη ποτ' ἀναβλέψας εἶδες νεφέλην Κενταύρω ὁμοίαν; Sir W. Rawlinson. 6 Η παρδάλει, ἢ λύκω, ἥ ταύρω ; —— Perhaps Shakspeare received the thought from P. Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History, B. II, ch. iii: “. - our eiesight testificth the same, whiles in one place there appeareth the resemblance of a waine or chariot, in another of a beare, the figure of a bull in this part," &c. or from Chapman's Monsieur D'Olive, 1606: "Like to a mass of clouds that now seem like Steevens. I find the same thought in Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois, 1607: like empty clouds, 66 "In which our faulty apprehensions forge "The forms of dragons, lions, elephants, Perhaps, however, Shakspeare had the following passage in A Treatise of Spectres, &c. quarto, 1605, particularly in his A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory. With trees upon 't, that nod unto the world, And mock our eyes with air: Thou hast seen these signs; They are black vesper's pageants.3 Eros. Ay, my lord. Ant. That, which is now a horse, even with a thought, The rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct, As water is in water. Eros. It does, my lord. Ant. My good knave, Eros,5 now thy captain is Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. Pack'd cards with Cæsar, and false play'd my glory thoughts: "The cloudes sometimes will seem to be monsters, lions, bulls, and wolves; painted and figured: albeit in truth the same be nothing but a moyst humour mounted in the ayre, and drawne up from the earth, not having any figure or colour, but such as the ayre is able to give unto it." Malone. 2 blue promontory With trees upon 't,] Thus, says Commodore Byron, (speaking of the deceptions of a fog-bank,) - the master of a ship, not long since, made oath, that he had seen an island between the west end of Ireland and Newfoundland, and even distinguished the trees that grew upon it. Yet it is certain that no such island exists," &c. Byron's Voyage, 4to. p. 10. Steevens. 3 They are black vesper's pageants.] The beauty both of the expression and the allusion is lost, unless we recollect the frequency and the nature of these shows in Shakspeare's age. T. Warton. 4 The rack dislimns;] i. e. The fleeting away of the clouds destroys the picture. Steevens. 5 My good knave, Eros,] Knave is servant. So, in A mery Geste of Robyn Hoode, bl. 1. no date : "I shall thee lende lyttle John my man, "For he shall be thy knave." Again, in the old metrical romance of Syr Degore, bl. 1. no date: "He sent the chylde to her full rathe, "With much money by his knave." Steevens. 6 Pack'd cards with Cæsar, and false play'd my glory Unto an enemy's triumph.] Shakspeare has here, as usual, Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us She has robb'd me of my sword. No, Antony; Mar. Ant. Hence, saucy eunuch; peace; She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death. Mar. Death of one person can be paid but once; And that she has discharg'd: What thou would'st do, Is done unto thy hand; the last she spake Was, Antony! most noble Antony! taken his metaphor from a low trivial subject; but has enobled it with much art, by so contriving that the principal term in the subject from whence the metaphor was taken, should belong to, and suit the dignity of the subject to which the metaphor is transferred: thereby providing at once for the integrity of the figure, and the nobleness of the thought. And this by the word triumph, which either signifies Octavius's conquest, or what we now call, contractedly, the trump at cards, then called the triumph, or the triumphing sort. Warburton. This explanation is very just; the thought did not deserve so good an annotation. Johnson. This use of the word triumph comes to us from the French, who at this day call the trump at cards, le triomphe. Steevens. It is evident that Ben Jonson did not consider the word trump as derived from triumph, but from the French tromper, to deceive, as appears from the following passage in his New Inn: "Yet all, sir, are not sons of the white hen; "Nor can we, as the songster says, come all "To be wrapt soft and warm in Fortune's smock. "When she is pleas'd to trick, or tromp mankind, "Some may be coats, as in the cards; but then "Some must be knaves, some varlets, bawds, and others "As aces, duces, cards of ten, to face it "Out in the game, which all the world is." M. Mason. I believe Dr. Warburton here, as in many other places, saw more than his author meant. Shakspeare, I think, only intended to say, that Cleopatra, by collusion, played the great game they were engaged in falsely, so as to sacrifice Antony's fame to that of his enemy. The playing false to the adversary's trump card (as Dr. Warburton explains the words) conveys no distinct idea. The plain sense of the passage will appear from the following dialogue in Florio's Second Frutes, 1591: "S. What a shouffling do you keepe with those cardes?-A. I plaie fair playe, and shooffel them as I ought. S. Methinks you packe, and set them." Malone. Then in the midst a tearing groan did break Between her heart and lips: she render'd life, Ant. Mar. Dead then? Dead. Ant. Eros, unarm;7 the long day's task is done, And we must sleep:-That thou depart'st hence safe, Does pay thy labour richly; Go.—Off, pluck off;— [Exit MAR. The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keeps The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides! Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,1 Crack thy frail case!-Apace, Eros, apace.No more a soldier:-Bruised pieces, go; You have been nobly borne.-From me a while.— [Exit EROS. I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now All length is torture :2-Since the torch is out, Lie down, and stray no further: Now all labour Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles Itself with strength: Seal then, and all is done.3 7 Eros, unarm;] Old copy, in defiance of metre-Unarm, Eros. Steevens. 8 The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep, &c.] This thought might have been taken from the Epistle prefixed to Wit's Commonwealth, 1598: "Which neyther a seaven-fold shielde, nor Pallas' Ægis can avoyde." Steevens. 9 The battery from my heart.] I would read: This battery from my heart. Johnson. 1 thy continent,] i. e. the thing that contains thee. So, in Hamlet: "You shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see." Steevens. 2 All length is torture:] I strongly suspect that, instead of length, our author wrote-life. Steevens. 3 Seal then, and all is done.] Metaphor taken from civil contracts, where, when all is agreed on, the sealing compleats the contract; so he hath determined to die, and nothing remained but to give the stroke. Warburton. I believe the reading is: - seel then, and all is done. To seel hawks, is to close their eyes. The meaning will be: Close thine eyes for ever, and be quiet. Johnson. Eros!-I come, my queen:-Eros!-Stay for me: And all the haunt be ours.-Come, Eros, Eros! Eros. What would my lord? Ant. Since Cleopatra died, I have liv'd in such dishonour, that the gods Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword In a former scene we have: "The wise gods seel our eyes "In our own filth." Malone. The old reading is the true one. Thus, in King Henry V: "And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd "A testament of noble-ending love." Steevens. Dido and her Æneas shall want troops,] Dr. Warburton has justly observed that the poet seems not to have known that Dido and Eneas were not likely to be found thus loving associated, "where souls do couch on flowers." He undoubtedly had read Phaer's translation of Virgil, but probably had forgot the celebrated description in the Sixth Book: "Talibus Æneas ardentem et torva tuentem "Lenibat dictis animum, lacrimasque ciebat. "Tandem proripuit sese, atque inimica refugit Dr. Warburton has also observed that Shakspeare most probably wrote-Sichæus. At least, I believe, he intended to have written so, on the strength of the passage immediately following the lines already quoted: 66 - conjux ubi pristinus illi "Respondet curis, æquatque Sichæus amorem.” Thus rendered by Phaer, edit. 1558: 66 - where ioynt with her, her husband old, "Sycheus doth complayne, and equall loue with her doth holde." But Eneas being the more familiar name of the two, our author inadvertently substituted the one for the other. Steevens. condemn myself, to lack 5 The courage of a woman; less noble mind Than she, Antony is here made to say, that he is destitute of even the courage of a woman; that he is destitute of a less VOL. XIII. Ii |