If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof Ant. I am not married, Cæfar: let me hear Agr. To hold you in perpetual amity, To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts And all great fears, which now import their dangers, Ant. Will Cæfar speak? Caf. Not 'till he hears, how Antony is touch'd With what is fpoke already. Ant. What power is in Agrippa If I would fay, Agrippa, be it for Caf. The power of Cæfar, and Ant. May I never Which Mr. Theobald, with his ufual triumph, changes to approof, which he explains, allowance. Dr. Warburton inferted reproof very properly into Hanmer's edition, but forgot it in his own. JOHNSON. The expreffion means the fame as a reproof of your rafhness. T.T. To this good purpose, that so fairly fhews, Caf. There is my hand. A fifter I bequeath you, whom no brother To join our kingdoms, and our hearts; and never Lep. Happily, amen. Ant. I did not think to draw my fword 'gainft For he hath laid ftrange courtefies and great At heel of that, defy him. Lep. Time calls upon us : Of us must Pompey presently be fought, Ant. Where lies he? Caf. About the mount Mifenum. Ant. So is the fame. 'Would, we had spoke together! hafte we for it Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we The business we have talk'd of. Caf. With most gladness; And do invite you to my fifter's view, Ant. Let us, Lepidus, not lack your company. Left my remembrance fuffer ill report;] Left I be thought too willing to forget benefits, I must barely return him thanks, and then I will defy him. JOHNSON. Lep. Lep. Noble Antony, not sickness should detain me. [Flourish. Exeunt. Manent Enobarbus, Agrippa, Mecanas. Mec. Welcome from Ægypt, fir. Eno. Half the heart of Cæfar, worthy Mecenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa!Agr. Good Enobarbus! Mec. We have cause to be glad, that matters are fo well digested. You ftay'd well by it in Ægypt. Eno. Ay fir, we did fleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking. Mec. Eight wild boars roafted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve perfons there :-Is this true? Eno. This was but as a fly by an eagle we had much more monftrous matter of feaft, which worthily deferved noting. Mec. She's a molt triumphant lady, if report be fquare to her. Eno. When she first met Mark Antony, she purs'd up his heart upon the river of Cydnus. Agr. There the appear'd, indeed; or my reporter Devis'd well for her. Eno. I will tell you: The barge fhe fat in, like a burnish'd throne, The winds were love-fick with 'em: the oars were filver; Which to the tune of flutes kept ftroke, and made In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tissue) 'O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see O'er-pi&uring that Venus, where we fee, &c.] Meaning the Venus of Protogenes mentioned by Pliny, 1. 35. c. 10. L 3 WARE. The The fancy out-work nature. On each fide her,- Agr. Oh, rare for Antony! 2 Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, A feem ▾ And what they undid, did.] It might be read lefs harshly, And what they did, undid. JOHNSON. • —tended her i' th' eyes.] Perhaps tended her by th' eyes, difco. vered her will by her eyes. JOHNSON. 3 And made their bends ADORNINGS.] This is fenfe indeed, and may be understood thus; her maids bowed with fo good an air, that it added new graces to them. But this is not what Shakefpeare would fay: Cleopatra, in this famous fcene, perfonated Venus juft rifing from the waves: at which time the Mytholo gifts tell us, the Sea-deities furrounded the Goddefs to adore, and pay her homage. Agreeably to this fable Cleopatra had dreffed her maids, the poet tells us, like Nereids. To make the whole therefore conformable to the story reprefented, we may be affured, Shakespeare wrote, And made their bends ADORINGS. They did her obfervance in the posture of adoration, as if the had been Venus. WARBURTON. That Cleopatra perfonated Venus we know; but that Shakefpeare was acquainted with the circumftance of homage being paid her by the Deities of the fea, is by no means as certain. The old reading will probably appear the more elegant of the two to modern readers, who have heard fo much about the line of beauty. The whole paffage is taken from the following in fir Thomas North's tranflation of Plutarch." She difdained to fet "forward otherwife, but to take her barge in the riuer of Cyd 66 nus, the poope whereof was of gold, the failes of purple, and "the owers of filuer, which kept ftroke in rowing after the founde "of the muficke of flutes, howboyes, citherns, violls, and fuch "other inftruments as they played vpon in the barge. And now for the perfon of her felfe: fhe was layed vnder a pauil4 lion of cloth of gold of tiffue, apparelled and attired like the "Goddeffe Venus, commonly drawen in picture: and hard by her, A feeming mermaid fteers; the filken tackles Agr. Rare Egyptian ! Eno. Upon her landing, Antony fent to her, It should be better, he became her gueft; Agr. Royal wench! She made great Cæfar lay his fword to bed; "her, on either hand of her, pretie faire boyes apparelled as "painters do fet forth God Cupide, with litle fannes in their "hands, with the which they fanned wind vpon her. Her la"dies and gentlewomen alfo, the fairest of them were apparelled "like the nymphes Nereides (which are the mermaides of the "waters) and like the Graces, some stearing the helme, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of the which "there came a wonderfull paffing sweete fauor of perfumes, that perfumed the wharfes fide, peftered with innumerable multi"tudes of people. Some of them followed the barge all alongest "the riuers fide: others alfo ranne out of the citie to fee her comming in. So that in thend, there ranne fuch multitudes of "people one after an other to fee her, that Antonius was left "poft alone in the market place, in his imperiall feate to geve "audience;" &c. STEEVENS. " Had gone 4-which, but for vacancy, -3 Alluding to an axiom in the peripatetic philofophy then in vogue, that Nature abbors a vacuum. WARBURTON. |