ACT II. SCENE I. Messina. A Room in POMPEY'S House. Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS3. POм. If the great gods be just, they shall assist The deeds of justest men. MENE. Know, worthy Pompey, That what they do delay, they not deny. POм. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, de cays The thing we sue for*. MENE. We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit, By losing of our prayers. Ром. I shall do well: The people love me, and the sea is mine; 3 The persons are so named in the first edition; but I know not why Menecrates appears; Menas can do all without him. JOHNSON. All the speeches in this scene that are not spoken by Pompey and Varrius, are marked in the old copy, Mene, which must stand for Menecrates. The course of the dialogue shows that some of them at least belong to Menas; and accordingly they are to him. attributed in the modern editions; or, rather, a syllable [Men.] has been prefixed, that will serve equally to denote the one or the other of these personages. I have given the first two speeches to Menecrates, and the rest to Menas. It is a matter of little consequence. MALONE. 4 Whiles we are suitors to their throne, DECAYS The thing we sue for.] The meaning is, "While we are praying, the thing for which we pray is losing its value." 5 My POWER's a crescent, &c.] In old editions : JOHNSON. "My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope Says it will come to the full." What does the relative it belong to? It cannot in sense relate Says, it will come to the full. Mark Antony No wars without doors: Cæsar gets money, where He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both, Of both is flatter'd ; but he neither loves, Nor either cares for him. MEN. Cæsar and Lepidus Are in the field; a mighty strength they carry. MEN. From Silvius, sir. POM. He dreams; I know, they are in Rome to gether, Looking for Antony: But all the charms of love, Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan'd lip! to hope, nor in concord to powers. moon; and Pompey would say, crescent; but his hopes tell him, full orb. THEOBALD. The poet's allusion is to the he is yet but a half moon, or that crescent will come to a 6 — charms-] Old copy-" the charms-." The article is here omitted, on account of metre. STEEVENS. 7 thy WAN'D lip!] In the old edition it is 66 thy wand lip!" Perhaps, for fond lip, or warm lip, says Dr. Johnson. Wand, if it stand, is either a corruption of wan, the adjective, or a contraction of wanned, or made wan, a participle. So, in Hamlet : "That, from her working, all his visage wan'd." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Queen of Corinth: "Now you look wan and pale; lips' ghosts you are.” Again, in Marston's Antonio and Mellida: 66 66 a cheek Not as yet wan'd.” Or perhaps waned lip, i. e. decreased, like the moon, in its beauty. So, in The Tragedy of Mariam, 1613: "And Cleopatra then to seek had been "So firm a lover of her wained face." Again, in The Skynner's Play, among the Chester collection of Mysteries, MS. Harl. 1013, p. 152: "O blessed be thou ever and aye; "Now wayned is all my woo." Yet this expression of Pompey's, perhaps, after all, implies a wish only, that every charm of love may confer additional softness on the lips of Cleopatra: i. e. that her beauty may improve to the Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both! ruin of her lover: or, as Mr. Ritson expresses the same idea, that "her lip, which was become pale and dry with age, may recover the colour and softness of her sallad days." The epithet wan might indeed have been added, only to show the speaker's private contempt of it. It may be remarked, that the lips of Africans and Asiaticks are paler than those of European nations. STEEVENS. Shakspeare's orthography often adds a d at the end of a word. Thus, vile is (in the old editions) every where spelt vild. Laund is given instead of lawn: why not therefore wan'd for wan here? If this however should not be accepted, suppose we read with the addition only of an apostrophe, wan'd; i. e. waned, declined, gone off from its perfection; comparing Cleopatra's beauty to the moon past the full. PERCY. 8 That sleep and feeding may prorogue HIS HONour, Even TILL a Lethe'd dulness.] I suspect our author wrote: "That sleep and feeding may prorogue his hour," &c. So, in Timon of Athens: 66 let not that part of nature, "Which my lord paid for, be of any power "To expel sickness, but prolong his hour." The words honour and hour have been more than once confounded in these plays What Pompey seems to wish is, that Antony should still remain with Cleopatra, totally forgetful of every other object. "To prorogue his honour," does not convey to me at least any precise notion. If, however, there be no corruption, I suppose Pompey means to wish, that sleep and feasting may prorogue to so distant a day all thoughts of fame and military achievement, that they may totally slide from Antony's mind. MALONE. 66 Even till a Lethe'd dulness." i. e. to a Lethe'd dulness. That till was sometimes used instead of to, may be ascertained from the following passage in Chapman's version of the eighteenth Iliad : They all ascended, two and two; and trod the honor'd shore Till where the fleete of myrmidons, drawn up in heaps, it bore," Enter VARRius. VAR. This is most certain that I shall deliver: Mark Antony is every hour in Rome Expected; since he went from Egypt, 'tis A space for further travel. Ром. I could have given1 less matter A better ear.-Menas, I did not think, This amorous surfeiter would have don'd his helm 2 Is twice the other twain: But let us rear MEN. Again, in Candlemas Day, 1512, p. 13: I cannot hope, "Thu lurdeyn, take hed what I sey the tyll." To "prorogue his honour," &c. undoubtedly means, to delay his sense of honour from exerting itself till he is become habitually sluggish.' STEEVENS. 9- since he went from Egypt, 'tis A space for further travel.] i. e. since he quitted Egypt, a space of time has elapsed in which a longer journey might have been performed than from Egypt to Rome. STEEVENS. I could have given, &c.] I cannot help supposing, on account of the present irregularity of metre, that the name of Menas is an interpolation, and that the passage originally stood as follows: on. "Pom. I could have given "Less matter better ear.—I did not think—.” STEEVENS. 2- would have DON'D his helm-] To don is to do on, to put So, in Webster's Dutchess of Malfy, 1623: "Call upon our dame aloud, "Bid her quickly don her shrowd." STEEVENS. 3-Egypt's WIDOW] Julius Cæsar had married her to young Ptolemy, who was afterwards drowned. STEEVENS. 4 I cannot HOPE, &c.] Mr. Tyrwhitt, the judicious editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, in five vols. 8vo. 1775, &c. observes, that to hope, on this occasion, means to expect. So, in The Reve's Tale, v. 4027: Cæsar and Antony shall well greet together: Ром. I know not, Menas, How lesser enmities may give way to greater. For they have entertained cause enough [Exeunt ®. "Our manciple I hope he wol be ded." STEEVENS. Yet from the following passage in Puttenham, it would seem to have been considered as a blundering expression in the days of Queen Elizabeth: "Such manner of uncouth speech did the Tanner of Tamworth use to king Edward the fourth, which Tanner having a great while mistaken him, and used very broad talke with him, at length perceiving by his traine that it was the king, was afraide he should be punished for it, said thus with a certaine rude repentance: "I hope I shall be hanged to-morrow!" For [I feare me] I shall be hanged, whereat the king laughed agood, not only to see the Tanners vaine feare, but also to heare his ill-shapen terme." BoswELL. 5- WARR'D upon him;] The old copy has-wan'd. The emendation, which was made by the editor of the second folio, is supported by a passage in the next scene, in which Cæsar says to Antony : 6 66 your wife and brother "Made wars upon me." MALONE. square] This is, quarrel. So, in The Shoemaker's Holiday, or the Gentle Craft, 1600: 66 66 What? square they, master Scott?" Sir, no doubt: "Lovers are quickly in, and quickly out." STEEVens. See vol. v. p. 202. MALONE. |