race of wine is the taste of the soil. Sir T. Hanmer, not understanding the word, reads, ray. JOHNSON. 8 So great weight in his lightness.] The word light is one of Shakspeare's favourite play-things. The sense is, His trifling levity throws so much burden upon us. JOHNSON. 9 It hath been taught us-] The earliest histories inform us, that the man in supreme command was always wished to gain that command, till he had obtained it. And he, whom the multitude has contentedly seen in a low condition, when he begins to be wanted by them, becomes dear to them. 10mandragora.] A plant of which the infusion was supposed to procure sleep. Shakspeare mentions it in Othello: Not poppy, nor mandragora, Can ever med' cine thee to that sweet sleep. JOHNSON. 11 And burgonet of men.] A burgonet is a kind of helmet. Hen. VI. "This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet." So in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632. "I'll hammer on thy proof-steel'd burgonet." STEEVENS. 12 Broad-fronted Cæsar-] Mr. Seyward is of opinion, that the poet wrote bald-fronted Cæsar. 13 -My sallad days! When I was green in judgment, cold in blood! To say, as I said then.] This puzzles Mr. Theobald. He says, Cleopatra may speak very naturally here with contempt of her judgment at that period: but how truly with regard to the coldness of her blood may admit some question: and then employs his learning to prove, that at this cold season of her blood, she had seen twenty good years. But yet he thinks his author may be justified, because Plutarch calls Cleopatra at those years, Kógn, which by ill luck proves just the contrary; for that state which the Greeks designed by Kógy, was the very height of blood. But Shakspeare's best justification is restoring his own sense, which is done merely by a different pointing: My sallad days; When I was green in judgment:-Cold in blood, Cold in blood, is an upbraiding expostulation to her maid. Those, says she, were my sallad days, when I was green in judgment, but your blood is as cold as my judgment, if you have the same opinion of things. now as I had then. WARBURTON. 14 -square between themselves;] To square is to quarrel. 15 -true reports,] Reports for reporters. 16 -her garboiles-] i. e. the disturbance she made. The word is used by Heywood, in the Rape of Lucrece, 1616: "thou, Tarquin, dost alone survive "The head of all these garboiles." And by Stanyhurst, in his translation of the first four books of Virgil, 1582: "Now manhood and garboils I chaunt, and martial horror." STEEVENS. 17 O'er picturing that Venus,] Meaning the Venus of Protogenes mentioned by Pliny, 1. 35. c. 10. אן WARBURTON. -which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,] Alluding to an axiom in the peripatetic philosophy then in vogue, that Nature abhors a vacuum. 19 WABURTON. his quails-] The ancients used to match quails as we match cocks. JOHNSON. Lucian says that quail-fighting was exhibited among the public shews at Athens. 20 STEEVENS. -his sword Philippan.] We are not to suppose, nor is there any warrant from history, that Antony had any particular sword so called. The dignifying weapons, in this sort, is a custom of much more recent date. This therefore seems a compliment à posteriori. We find Antony, afterwards, in this play, boasting of his own prowess at Philippi : Ant. Yes, my lord, yes; he at Philippi kept That was the greatest action of Antony's life; and therefore this seems a fine piece of flattery, intimating, that his sword ought to be denominated from that illustrious battle, in the same manner as modern heroes in romance are made to give their swords pompous names. THEOBALD. 21 I'll set thee in a shower of gold,] That is, I will give thee a kingdom: it being the eastern ceremony, at the coronation of their kings, to powder them with gold-dust and seed-pearl; so Milton, -the gorgeous east with liberal hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. In the life of Timur-bec or Tamerlane, written by a Persian contemporary author, are the following words, as translated by Mons. Petit de la Croix, in the account there given of his coronation, book ii. chap. i. Les princes du sang royal & les emirs repandirent à pleines mains sur sa tête quantité d'or & de pierreries selon la coûtume. WARBURTON. 22 Let him for ever go:] She is now talking in broken sentences, not of the messenger, but Antony. 23 JOHNSON. -the cuckoo builds not for himself,] Since, like the cuckoo, that seizes the nests of other birds, you have invaded a house which you could not build, keep it while you can. 24a partizan-] A pike. 25 To be call'd into a huge sphere, &c.] This speech seems to be mutilated; to supply the deficiencies is impossible, but perhaps the sense was originally approaching to this To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in it, is a very ignominious state; great offices are the holes where eyes should be, which, if eyes be wanting, pitifully disaster the cheeks. 26 Arabian bird!] The phoenix. JOHNSON. 27 were he a horse ;] A horse whose eyes appear dull and cloudy, is always suspected as likely to go blind. THEOBALD. 28 Believe it, till I weep too.] I have ventur❜d to alter the tense of the verb here, against the authority of all the copies. There was no sense in it, I think, as it stood before. I am afraid there was better sense in the passage as it stood before, than Mr. Theobald's alteration will afford us. "Believe it, (says Enobarbus) that Antony did so, i. e. that he wept over such an event, till you see me weeping on the same occasion, when I shall be obliged to you for putting such a construction on my tears, which, in reality, (like his) will be tears of joy." I have replaced the old reading. Theobald reads, " till I wept too." STEEVENS. 29 Is she as tall as me ? &c.] This scene (says Dr. Gray) is a manifest allusion to the questions put by queen Elizabeth to sir James Melvil, concerning his mistress, the queen of Scots. Whoever will give himself the trouble to consult his Memoirs, will probably suppose the resemblance to be more than accidental. 30 That I so harry'd him.] To harry, is to use roughly. I meet with the word in The Revenger's Tragedy, 1607: "He harried her, and midst a throng, &c." So in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601; "Will harry me about instead of her." Holinshed, speaking of the body of Rich. III. says, it was "harried on horseback, dead." STEEVENS. |