I'll feem the fool I am not; Antony ANT. But ftirr'd by Cleopatra.5Now, for the love of Love, and her foft hours, Let's not confound the time with conference harsh: There's not a minute of our lives fhould stretch Without fome pleasure now: What sport to-night? CLEO. Hear the ambaffadors. ANT. Fye, wrangling queen! Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, 5 - Antony Will be himself. Ant. But firr'd by Cleopatra.] But, in this paffage, feems to have the old Saxon fignification of without, unless, except. Antony, fays the queen, will recollect his thoughts. Unless kept, he replies, in commotion by Cleopatra. JOHNSON. What could Cleopatra mean by faying Antony will recollect his thoughts? What thoughts were they, for the recollection of which the was to applaud him? It was not for her purpose that he should think, or roufe himself from the lethargy in which the wished to keep him. By Antony will be himself, the means to fay, "that Antony will act like the joint fovereign of the world, and follow his own inclinations, without regard to the mandates of Cæfar, or the anger of Fulvia." To which he replies, If but fiirr'd by Cleopatra; that is, if moved to it in the flighteft degree by her. M. MASON. Now, for the love of Love, and her foft hours,] For the love of Love, means, for the fake of the queen of love. The Comedy of Errors: So, in "Let Love, being light, be drowned if she fink." Mr. Rowe fubftituted his for her, and this unjuftifiable alteration was adopted by all the fubfequent editors. MALONE. 7 Let's not confound the time-] i. e. let us not confume the time. So, in Coriolanus: "How could'st thou in a mile confound an hour, Whom every thing becomes,] "Quicquid enim dicit, feu facit, omne decet." Marullus, Lib. II. STEEVENS. To weep; whofe every paffion fully strives' To-night, we'll wander through the streets,3 and note 9 Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, "There is fuch ftrength and warrantise of skill, MALONE. whofe every paffion fully ftrives-] The folio readswho. It was corrected by Mr. Rowe; but " whofe every paffion" was not, I fufpect, the phraseology of Shakspeare's time. The text however is undoubtedly corrupt. MALONE. Whofe every, is an undoubted phrase of our author. So, in The Tempeft: "A A fpace, whofe every cubit "Seems to cry out," &c. See Vol. IV. p. 74. Again, in Cymbeline, A&t I. fc. vii : 66 this hand, whose touch, The fame expreffion occurs again in another play, but I have loft my reference to it. STEEVENS. 2 No meffenger; but thine and all alone, &c.] Cleopatra has faid, "Call in the meffengers ;" and afterwards, "Hear the ambassadors." Talk not to me, fays Antony, of meffengers; I am now wholly thine, and you and I unattended will to-night wander through the ftreets. The fubfequent words which he utters as he 66 goes out, Speak not to us," confirm this interpre tation. MALONE. 3 To-night, we'll wander through the Streets, &c.] So, in Sir Thomas North's tranflation of The Life of Antonius:"-Sometime also when he would goe up and downe the citie disguised like a flave in the night, and would peere into poore mens' windowes and their fhops, and fcold and brawl with them within the house; Cleopatra would be alfo in a chamber maides array, and amble up and down the streets with him," &c. STEEVENS. The qualities of people. Come, my queen; Exeunt ANT. and CLEOP. with their Train. DEM. I'm full forry, That he approves the common liar, who Thus fpeaks of him at Rome: But I will hope Of better deeds to-morrow. Reft you happy! [Exeunt. The fame. Another Room. Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothfayer.5 CHAR. Lord Alexas, fweet Alexas, moft any thing Alexas, almoft moft abfolute Alexas, where's the 4 That he approves the common liar,] Fame. That he proves the common liar, fame, in his cafe to be a true reporter. So, in Hamlet: "He may approve our eyes, and speak to it." MALONE. STEEVENS. 5 Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer.] The old copy reads: "Enter Enobarbus, Lamprius, a Soothsayer, Rannius, Lucilius, Charmian, Iras, Mardian the Eunuch, and Alexas." Plutarch mentions his grandfather Lamprias, as his author for fome of the ftories he relates of the profufenefs and luxury of Antony's entertainments at Alexandria. Shakspeare appears to have been very anxious in this play to introduce every inci foothfayer that you praised fo to the queen? O, that I knew this husband, which, you fay, must change his horns with garlands!" dent and every perfonage he met with in his hiftorian. In the multitude of his characters, however, Lamprias is entirely overlooked, together with the others whofe names we find in this ftage-direction. It is not impoffible, indeed, that Lamprius, Rannius, Lucilius, &c. might have been speakers in this fcene as it was first written down by Shakspeare, who afterwards thought proper to omit their speeches, though at the fame time he forgot to erafe their names as originally announced at their collective entrance. STEEVENS. change his horns with garlands!] This is corrupt; the true reading evidently is :-muft charge his horns with garlands, i. e. make him a rich and honourable cuckold, having his horns hung about with garlands. WARBURTton. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, not improbably, change for horns his garlands. I am in doubt whether to change is not merely to dress, or to drefs with changes of garlands. JOHNSON. So, Taylor, the water-poet, defcribing the habit of a coachman: "—with a cloak of fome pyed colour, with two or three change of laces about." Change of clothes, in the time of Shakipeare, fignificd variety of them. Coriolanus fays that he has received" change of honours" from the Patricians. Act II. fc. i. That to change with, "applied to two things, one of which is to be put in the place of the other," is the language of Shakfpeare, Mr. Malone might have learned from the following paffage in Cymbeline, Act I. fc. vi. i. e. the Queen's fpeech to to fhift his being, "Is to exchange one mifery with another." Again, in the 4th Book of Milton's Paradife Loft, v. 892: where thou might'ft hope to change "Torment with eafe." STEEVENS. I once thought that these two words might have been often confounded, by their being both abbreviated, and written chige. But an n, as the Bishop of Dromore obferves to me, was fometimes omitted both in MS. and print, and the omiflion thus marked, but an r never. This therefore might account for å compofitor inadvertently printing charge inftead of change, but ALEX. Soothfayer. SOOTH. Your will? not change instead of charge; which word was never abbreviated. I alfo doubted the phrafeology-change with, and do not at prefent recollect any example of it in Shakspeare's plays or in his time; whilft in The Taming of the Shrew, we have the modern phrafeology-change for: "To change true rules for odd inventions." But a careful revifion of thefe plays has taught me to place no confidence in such observations; for from fome book or other of the age, I have no doubt almost every combination of words that may be found in our author, however uncouth it may appear to our ears, or however different from modern phrafeology, will at fome time or other be juftified. In the present edition, many which were confidered as undoubtedly corrupt, have been incontrovertibly fupported. Still, however, I think that the reading originally introduced by Mr. Theobald, and adopted by Dr. Warburton, is the true one, because it affords a clear fenfe; whilft, on the other hand, the reading of the old copy affords none: for fuppofing change with to mean exchange for, what idea is conveyed by this paffage? and what other fenfe can these words bear? The fubftantive change being formerly used to fignify variety, (as change of clothes, of honours, &c.) proves nothing: change of clothes or linen neceffarily imports more than one; but the thing fought for is the meaning of the verb to change, and no proof is produced to fhow that it fignified to drefs; or that it had any other meaning than to exchange. Charmian is talking of her future husband, who certainly could not change his horns, at prefent, for garlands, or any thing else, having not yet obtained them; nor could fhe mean, that when he did get them, he fhould change or part with them, for garlands but he might charge his horns, when he should marry Charmian, with garlands: for having once got them, she intended, we may fuppofe, that he thou'd wear them contentedly for life. Horns charged with garlands is an expreffion of a fimilar import with one which is found in Characterifmi, or Lenton's Leafures, 8vo. 1631. In the defcription of a contented cuckold, he is faid to "hold his velvet horns as high as the best of them." Let it also be remembered that garlands are ufually wreathed round the head; a circumftance which adds great fupport to the emendation now made. So, Sidney: "A garland made, on temples for to wear." |