The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,- Till each man drop by lottery 3. But if these, To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour "I have with such provision in mine art, Mr. M. Mason would read—" if not the faith of men—.” If the text be corrupt, faiths is more likely to have been the poet's word; which might have been easily confounded by the ear with face, the word exhibited in the old copy. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: the manner of their deaths? "I do not see them bleed : Again, in King Henry VI. Part III. : "And with their helps only defend ourselves." Again, more appositely, in The Rape of Lucrece : 66 You, fair lords, quoth she, "Shall plight your honourable faiths to me." MALONE. Gray may perhaps support Johnson's explanation: "And read their history in a nation's eyes." Boswell. 5 Till each man drop by lottery.] Perhaps the poet alluded to the custom of decimation, i. e. the selection by lot of every tenth soldier, in a general mutiny, for punishment. He speaks of this in Coriolanus : "By decimation, and a tithed death, "Take thou thy fate." STEEVENS. And will not PALTER ?] And will not fly from his engagements. Cole, in his Dictionary, 1679, renders to palter, by tergiversor. In Macbeth it signifies, as Dr. Johnson has observed, to shuffle with ambiguous expressions: and, indeed, here also it may mean to shuffle; for he whose actions do not correspond with his promises is properly called a shuffler. MALONE. That this shall be, or we will fall for it? Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits, To think, that, or our cause, or our performance, If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise that hath pass'd from him. 8 CAS. But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him? I think, he will stand very strong with us. CASCA. Let us not leave him out. CIN. No, by no means. MET. O let us have him; for his silver hairs Will purchase us a good opinion', 7 Swear priests, &c.] This is imitated by Otway : 8 66 When you would bind me, is there need of oaths?" Venice Preserved. JOHNSON. cautelous,] Is here cautious, sometimes insidious. So, in A Woman is a Weathercock, 1612: "Yet warn you, be as cautelous not to wound my integrity." Again, in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret : 66 Witty, well-spoken, cautelous, though young." Again, in the second of these two senses in the romance of Kynge Appolyn of Thyre, 1610: "—a fallacious policy and cautelous wyle." 66 Again, in Holinshed, p. 945: "the emperor's councell thought by a cautell to have brought the king in mind to sue for a licence from the pope." STEEVENS. Bullokar, in his English Expositor, 1616, explains cautelous thus: Warie, circumspect;" in which sense it is certainly used here. MALONE. 9 The EVEN virtue of our enterprize,] The calm, equable, temperate spirit that actuates us. MALONE. Thus in Mr. Pope's Eloisa to Abelard : "Desires compos'd, affections ever even—.” STEEVENS. And buy men's voices to commend our deeds: BRU. O, name him not; let us not break with him; For he will never follow any thing That other men begin. CAS. Then leave him out. CASCA. Indeed he is not fit. DEC. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Cæsar? CAS. Decius, well urg'd:-I think it is not meet, Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Cæsar, Should outlive Cæsar: We shall find of him Let Antony, and Cæsar, fall together. BRU. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs ; Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. - opinion.] i. e. character. So, in King Henry IV. Part I. Act V. Sc. IV. : "Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion." The quotation is Mr. Reed's. STEEVENS. 2-and ENVY afterwards :] Envy is here, as almost always in Shakspeare's plays, malice. MALONE. 3 O, that we then could come by Cæsar's spirit, &c.] Lord Sterline has the same thought: Brutus remonstrating against the taking off Antony, says: 6 Cæsar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends, This shall make CAS. Yet I do fear him 7: For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar, BRU. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him : If he love Cæsar, all that he can do Is to himself; take thought, and die for Cæsar: "Ah! ah! we must but too much murder see, "And would the gods that Rome could be made free, 4 --as a dish fit for the gods, &c.] Gradive, dedisti, MALONE. Ne qua manus vatem, ne quid mortalia bello Funus erat. Stat. Theb. vii. I. 696. STEEVENS. 66 5 Not hew him as a carcase fit for hounds :] Our author had probably the following passage in the old translation of Plutarch in his thoughts: - Cæsar turned himselfe no where but he was stricken at by some, and still had naked swords in his face, and was hacked and mangled among them as a wild beast taken of hunters.” MALONE. 6 Stir up their servants -] Another instance of the image which occurs, p. 38: "the mortal instruments." BOSWELL. 7. Yet I Do fear him :] For the sake of metre I have supplied the auxiliary verb. So, in Macbeth : 8 66 there is none but him "Whose being I do fear." STEEVENS. take thought,] That is, turn melancholy. JOHNSON. And that were much he should; for he is given TREB. There is no fear in him; let him not die; For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. BRU. Peace, count the clock. [Clock strikes. The clock hath stricken three. TREB. 'Tis time to part. CAS. 8 But it is doubtful yet, Whe'r* Cæsar will come forth to-day, or no ; *First folio, Whether. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "What shall we do, Enobarbus? "Think and die." Again, in Holinshed, p. 833: 66 now they are without service, which caused them to take thought, insomuch that some died by the way," &c. STEEVENS. 66 The precise meaning of take thought may be learned from the following passage in St. Matthew, where the verb μepuvaw, which signifies to anticipate, or forbode evil, is so rendered: Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."-Cassius not only refers to, but thus explains, the phrase in question, when, in answer to the assertion of Brutus concerning Antony, Act III. : "I know that we shall have him well to friend; " he replies: "I wish we may but yet I have a mind "That fears him much; and my misgiving still To take thought then, in this instance, is not to turn melancholy, whatever think may be in Antony and Cleopatra. HENLEY. With great submission, I conceive that Mr. Henley is not quite correct in either of his positions. Mepuvaw, I apprehend, never signifies "to anticipate or forbode evil:" but to be distracted by anxious cares :' and so all the commentators expound it in the passage of St. Matthew vi. 25, &c. ; and Mr. Steevens's quotation from Holinshed, proves, I think, that Dr. Johnson's explanation of take thought in the lines before us is right. Thought is used for extreme grief in a curious letter printed by Mr. Gough in his edit. of Camden, ii. 142: "Oure goode and holsom modyr y' was abbesse is so weryd and brokyn with thowt." BLAKEWAY. See vol. xi. p. 410. VOL. XII. MALONE. E |