Say, I am dancing; if in mirth, report [Exit ALEX. CHAR. Madam, methinks, if you did love him You do not hold the method to enforce dearly, The like from him. CLEO. What should I do, I do not? CHAR. In each thing give him way, cross him in nothing. him. CLEO. Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose CHAR. Tempt him not so too far: I wish, for bear; In time we hate that which we often fear. Enter ANTONY. But here comes Antony. I am sick, and sullen. ANT. I am sorry to give breathing to my pur pose, CLEO. Help me away, dear Charmian, I shall fall; It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature Will not sustain it.2 ANT. Now, my dearest queen, CLEO. Pray you, stand further from me. ANT. the sides of nature What's the matter? Will not sustain it.] So, in Twelfth-Night: "Can bide the beating of so strong a passion." STEEVENS. CLEO. I know, by that same eye, there's some good news. What says the married woman?-You may go; ANT. The gods best know, CLEO. O, never was there queen So mightily betray'd! Yet, at the first, I saw the treasons planted. ANT. Cleopatra, CLEO. Why should I think, you can be mine, and true, Though you in swearing shake the throned gods, Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness, To be entangled with those mouth-made vows, Which break themselves in swearing! ANT. Most sweet queen, CLEO. Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going, But bid farewell, and go: when you sued staying, Then was the time for words: No going then ;Eternity was in our lips, and eyes; Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor, But was a race of heaven: They are so still, * Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,] So, in Timon of Athens : 4 "Although, I know, you'll swear, terribly swear, in our brows' bent;] i. e. in the arch of our eye-brows. So, in King John: " Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?" STEEVENS. 5 a race of heaven:] i. e. had a smack or flavour of heaven. WARBURTON. Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world, ANT. How now, lady! CLEO. I would, I had thy inches; thou should'st know, There were a heart in Egypt. ANT. Hear me, queen: The strong necessity of time commands Breeds scrupulous faction: The hated, grown to strength, Are newly grown to love: the condemn'd Pompey, This word is well explained by Dr. Warburton; the race of wine is the taste of the soil. Sir T. Hanmer, not understanding the word, reads, ray. See Vol. IV. p. 41, n. 1. JOHNSON. I am not sure that the poet did not mean, was of heavenly origin. MALONE. * Remains in use-] The poet seems to allude to the legal distinction between the use and absolute possession. JOHNSON. The same phrase has already occurred in The Merchant of Venice: 7 "I am content, so he will let me have 1 - should safe my going,] i. e. should render my going not dangerous, not likely to produce any mischief to you. Mr. CLEO. Though age from folly could not give me freedom, It does from childishness: - Can Fulvia die ? ANT. She's dead, my queen: Theobald, instead of safe, the reading of the old copy, unnecessarily reads salve. MALONE, - safe my going, is the true reading. So, in a subsequent scene, a soldier says to Enobarbus: Best you safed the bringer "Out of the host." STEEVENS. * It does from childishness:--Can Fulvia die?] That Fulvia was mortal, Cleopatra could have no reason to doubt; the meaning therefore of her question seems to be: Will there ever be an end of your excuses? As often as you want to leave me, will not some Fulvia, some new pretext be found for your departure? She has already said that though age could not exempt her from follies, at least it frees her from a childish belief in all he says. STEEVENS. I am inclined to think, that Cleopatra means no more thanIs it possible that Fulvia should die? I will not believe it. RITSON. Though age has not exempted me from folly, I am not so childish, as to have apprehensions from a rival that is no more. And is Fulvia dead indeed? Such, I think, is the meaning. MALONE. • The garboils she awak'd;] i. e. the commotion she occasioned. The word is used by Heywood, in The Rape of Lucrece, 1638: thou Tarquin, dost alone survive, "The head of all those garboiles." Again, by Stanyhurst, in his translation of the first Book of Virgil's Æneid, 1582: " Now manhood and garboils I chaunt and martial horror." Again, in Jarvis Markham's English Arcadia, 1607: "Days of mourning by continuall garboiles were, however, numbered and encreased." The word is derived from the old French garbouil, which Cotgrave explains by hurlyburly, great stir." STEEVENS. : See, when, and where she died. O most false love! CLEO. ANT. Quarrel no more, but be prepar'd to know CLEO. Cut my lace, Charmian, come ; But let it be. I am quickly ill, and well: In Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of hard Words, 8vo. 1604, garboile is explained by the word hurlyburly. MALONE. 1 - at the last, best:] This conjugal tribute to the memory of Fulvia, may be illustrated by Malcolm's eulogium on the thane of Cawdor: " Became him, like the leaving it." STEEVENS. 2 O most false love! Where be the sacred vials thou should'st fill With sorrowful water? Alluding to the lachrymatory vials, or bottles of tears, which the Romans sometimes put into the urn of a friend. JOHNSON. So, in the first Act of The Two Noble Kinsmen, said to be written by Fletcher, in conjunction with Shakspeare: "Balms and gums, and heavy cheers, 3 " Sacred vials fill'd with tears." STEEVENS. Now, by the fire, &c.] Some word, in the old copies, being here wanting to the metre, I have not scrupled to insert the adverb-Now, on the authority of the following passage in King John, as well as on that of many others in the different pieces of our author: "Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads, STEEVENS. |