The qualities of people. Come, my queen; DEM. I'm full sorry, That he approves the common liar, who SCENE II. The same. Another Room. Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer.5 CHAR. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the That he approves the common liar,] Fame. That he proves the common liar, fame, in his case to be a true reporter. So, in Hamlet: "He may approve our eyes, and speak to it." MALONE. STEEVENS. 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 some of the stories he relates of the profuseness and luxury of Antony's entertainments at Alexandria. Shakspeare appears to have been very anxious in this play to introduce every inci soothsayer that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew this husband, which, you say, must change his horns with garlands! 6 dent and every personage he met with in his historian. In the multitude of his characters, however, Lamprias is entirely overlooked, together with the others whose names we find in this stage-direction. It is not impossible, indeed, that Lamprius, Rannius, Lucilius, &c. might have been speakers in this scene as it was first written down by Shakspeare, who afterwards thought proper to omit their speeches, though at the same time he forgot to erase their names as originally announced at their collective entrance. STEEVENS. 6 change his horns with garlands!] This is corrupt; the true reading evidently is:-must charge his horns with garlands, i. e. make him a rich and honourable cuckold, having his horns hung about with garlands. WARBURTON. 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 dress with changes of garlands. JOHNSON. So, Taylor, the water-poet, describing the habit of a coachman: "—with a cloak of some pyed colour, with two or three change of laces about." Change of clothes, in the time of Shakspeare, signified variety of them. Coriolanus says that he has received" change of honours" from the Patricians. Act II. sc. 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 Shakspeare, Mr. Malone might have learned from the following pas sage in Cymbeline, Act I. sc. vi. i. e. the Queen's speech to Pisanio: 66 to shift his being, "Is to exchange one misery with another." Again, in the 4th Book of Milton's Paradise Lost, v. 892: where thou might'st hope to change "Torment with ease.' "" STEEVENS. I once thought that these two words might have been often confounded, by their being both abbreviated, and written chāge. But an n, as the Bishop of Dromore observes to me, was sometimes omitted both in MS. and print, and the omission thus marked, but an r never. This therefore might account for a compositor inadvertently printing charge instead of change, but ALEX. Soothsayer. not change instead of charge; which word was never abbre viated. I also doubted the phraseology-change with, and do not at present recollect any example of it in Shakspeare's plays or in his time; whilst in The Taming of the Shrew, we have the modern phraseology-change for: "To change true rules for odd inventions." But a careful revision of these plays has taught me to place no confidence in such observations; for from some 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 phraseology, will at some time or other be justified. In the present edition, many which were considered as undoubtedly corrupt, have been incontrovertibly supported. 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 sense; whilst, on the other hand, the reading of the old copy affords none: for supposing change with to mean exchange for, what idea is conveyed by this pas sage? and what other sense can these words bear? The substantive change being formerly used to signify variety, (as change of clothes, of honours, &c.) proves nothing: change of clothes or linen necessarily imports more than one; but the thing sought for is the meaning of the verb to change, and no proof is produced to show that it signified to dress; 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 present, for garlands, or any thing else, having not yet obtained them; nor could she mean, that when he did get them, he should 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 suppose, that he should wear them contentedly for life. Horns charged with garlands is an expression of a similar import with one which is found in Characterismi, or Lenton's Leasures, 8vo. 1631. In the description of a contented cuckold, he is said to " hold his velvet horns as high as the best of them." Let it also be remembered that garlands are usually wreathed round the head; a circumstance which adds great support to the emendation now made. So, Sidney: "A garland made, on temples for to wear." CHAR. Is this the man?-Is't you, sir, that know things? SOOTH. In nature's infinite book of secrecy, A little I can read. ALEX. Show him your hand. Enter ENOBArbus. ENO. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough, Cleopatra's health to drink. CHAR. Good sir, give me good fortune. SOOTH. I make not, but foresee. CHAR. Pray then, foresee me one. SOOTH. You shall be yet far fairer than you are. IRAS. No, you shall paint when you are old. It is observable that the same mistake as this happened in Coriolanus, where the same correction was made by Dr. Warburton, and adopted by all the subsequent editors: "And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt, "That should but rive an oak." The old copy there, as here, has change. Since this note was written, I have met with an example of the phrase-to change with, in Lyly's Maydes Metamorphosis, 1600: "The sweetness of that banquet must forego, "Whose pleasant taste is chang'd with bitter woe." I am still, however, of opinion that charge, and not change, is the true reading, for the reasons assigned in my original note. MALONE. "To change his horns with [i. e. for] garlands," signifies, to be a triumphant cuckold; a cuckold who will consider his state as an honourable one. Thus, says Benedick, in Much Ado about Nothing: "There is no staff more honourable than one tipt with Morn." We are not to look for serious argument in such a skipping dialogue" as that before us. STEEVENS. ALEX. Vex not his prescience; be attentive. CHAR. Hush! SOOTH. You shall be more beloving, than beloved. CHAR. I had rather heat my liver" with drinking. ALEX. Nay, hear him. CHAR. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage:" find me 8 7 I had rather heat my liver &c.] So, in The Merchant of Venice: "And let my liver rather heat with wine." STEEVENS. To know why the lady is so averse from heating her liver, it must be remembered, that a heated liver is supposed to make a pimpled face. JOHNSON. The following passage in an ancient satirical poem, entitled Notes from Blackfryars, 1617, confirms Dr. Johnson's observa tion: "He'll not approach a taverne, no nor drink ye, The liver was considered as the seat of desire. In answer to the Soothsayer, who tells her she shall be very loving, she says, "She had rather heat her liver by drinking, if it was to be heated." M. MASON. 8 -let me have a child at fifty,] This is one of Shakspeare's natural touches. Few circumstances are more flattering to the fair sex, than breeding at an advanced period of life. STEEVENS. 9to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage:] Herod paid homage to the Romans, to procure the grant of the kingdom of Judea: but I believe there is an allusion here to the theatrical character of this monarch, and to a proverbial expression founded on it. Herod was always one of the personages in the mysteries of our early stage, on which he was constantly represented as a fierce, haughty, blustering tyrant, so that Herod of Jewry became a common proverb, expressive of turbulence |