Have shown to thee such a declining day, In top of all design, my mate in empire, stars, 4 Unreconciliable, should divide Our equalness to this 3.—Hear me, good friends,— But I will tell you at some meeter season; Enter a Messenger. The business of this man looks out of him, We'll hear him what he says.-Whence are you? MESS. A poor Egyptian yet. mistress', The queen my fying, we use the lancet; and if we neglect to do so, we are destroyed by it. Antony was to me a disease; and by his being cut off, I am made whole. We could not both have lived in the world together. Launch, the word in the old copy, is only the old spelling of launce. See Minsheu's Dictionary, in v. So also Daniel, in one of his Sonnets: 4 66 - sorrow's tooth ne'er rankles more, "Than when it bites, but launcheth not the sore." MALONE. HIS thoughts-] His is here used for its. M. MASON. 5 Our equalness to this.] That is, should have made us, in our equality of fortune, disagree to a pitch like this, that one of us must die. JOHNSON. 6 - Whence are you?] The defective metre of this line, and the irregular reply to it, may authorize a supposition that it originally stood thus: "We'll hear him what he says.-Whence, and who are you?" STEEVENS. 7 A poor Ægyptian yet. The queen my mistress, &c.] If this punctuation be right, the man means to say, that he is "yet an Confin'd in all she has, her monument, CES. 8 Bid her have good heart; She soon shall know of us, by some of ours, How honourable and how kindly we Determine for her: for Cæsar cannot live To be ungentle 9. MESS. So the gods preserve thee! [Exit. CES. Come hither, Proculeius; Go, and say, We purpose her no shame: give her what comforts The quality of her passion shall require; Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke Would be eternal in our triumph1: Go, And, with your speediest, bring us what she says, And how you find of her. PRO. Cæsar, I shall. [Exit PROCULEIUS. Ægyptian," that is, yet a servant of the Queen of Egypt," though soon to become a subject of Rome. JOHNSON. 8 HOW HONOURABLE and how kindly we-] Our author often uses adjectives adverbially. So, in Julius Cæsar : See p. Young man, thou could'st not die more honourable." 228. The modern editors, however, all read-honourably. MALONE. 9- for Cæsar cannot LIVE To be ungentle.] The old copy has leave. Mr. Pope made the emendation. MALONE. Would be ETERNAL IN our triumph :] Hanmer reads, judiciously enough, but without necessity: "Would be eternalling our triumph." The sense is, "If she dies here, she will be forgotten, but if I send her in triumph to Rome, her memory and my glory will be eternal." JOHNSON. The following passage in The Scourge of Venus, &c. a poem, 1614, will sufficiently support the old reading: "If some foule-swelling ebon cloud would fall, STEEVENS. CES. Gallus, go you along.—Where's Dolabella, [Exit GALLUS. To second Proculeius? AGR. MEC. Dolabella! CES. Let him alone, for I remember now [Exeunt. SCENE II. Alexandria. A Room in the Monument. Enter CLEOPATRA2, CHARMIAN, and IRAs. 2 Enter Cleopatra, &c.] Our author, here, (as in King Henry VIII. Act V. Sc. I.) has attempted to exhibit at once the outside and the inside of a building. It would be impossible to represent this scene in any way on the stage, but by making Cleopatra and her attendants speak all their speeches, till the queen is seized, within the monument. MALONE. 3 fortune's KNANE,] The servant of fortune. JOHNSON. 4 And it is great To do that thing that ends all other deeds; Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change; Which sleeps, and never palates more the DUNG, The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's.] The difficulty of the passage, if any difficulty there be, arises only from this, that the act Enter, to the Gates of the Monument, PROCULEIUS, GALLUS, and Soldiers. PRO. Cæsar sends greeting to the queen of Egypt; of suicide, and the state which is the effect of suicide, are confounded. Voluntary death, says she, is an act which bolts up change; it produces a state, "Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung, Which has no longer need of the gross and terrene sustenance, in the use of which Cæsar and the beggar are on a level. The speech is abrupt, but perturbation in such a state is surely natural. JOHNSON. "The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's" means, I apprehend, ‘death,' (as Warburton has observed, in a note which I have restored,) and not, as Johnson supposed, the gross substance on which Cæsar and the beggar were fed. BOSWELL. It has been already said in this play, that 66 ―our dungy earth alike "Feeds man as beast.” And Mr. Tollet observes," that in Herodotus, b. iii. the Æthiopian king, upon hearing a description of the nature of wheat, replied, that he was not at all surprized, if men, who eat nothing but dung, did not attain a longer life." Shakspeare has the same epithet in The Winter's Tale: 66 the face to sweeten "Of the whole dungy earth Again, in Timon: -." "That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen The action of suicide is here said to shackle accidents; to bolt up change; to be the beggar's nurse and Cæsar's. So far the description is intelligible. But when it is said that it sleeps and never palates more the dung, we find neither sense nor propriety: which is occasioned by the loss of a whole line between the third and fourth, and the corrupt reading of the last word in the fourth. We should read the passage thus: 66 And it is great "To do the thing that ends all other deeds; "Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change; "Which sleeps, and never palates more the dugg: "The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's." That this line in hooks was the substance of that lost, is evident from its making sense of all the rest: which are to this ef And bids thee study on what fair demands CLEO. [Within.] PRO. My name is Proculeius. CLEO. [Within.] What's thy name? Antony Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but I do not greatly care to be deceiv'd, That have no use for trusting. If your master No less beg than a kingdom: if he please PRO. Be of good cheer; You are fallen into a princely hand, fear nothing: CLEO. [Within.] Pray you, tell him I am his fortune's vassal, and I send him fect. "It is great to do that which frees us from all the accidents of humanity, lulls our over-wearied nature to repose, (which now sleeps and has no more appetite for worldly enjoyments,) and is equally the nurse of Cæsar and the beggar." WARBURTON. 5 He gives me so much of mine own, as I Will kneel to him with thanks.] I would read—and I, instead of as I. M. MASON. I believe the old reading to be the true one. 6 that WILL PRAY IN AID for kindness,] STEEVENS. Praying in aid is a term used for a petition made in a court of justice for the calling in of help from another that hath an interest in the cause in ques tion. 7 HANMER. send him The greatness he has got.] I allow him to be my conqueror; Lown his superiority with complete submission. JOHNSON. |
