He vented them; most narrow measure lent me: Ост. 6 And the good gods will mock me presently, When I shall pray, 0, bless my lord and husband! Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud, O, bless my brother! Husband win, win brother, Prays, and destroys the prayer; no midway 'Twixt these extremes at all. 3 When the best hint was given him, he not took't,] The first folio reads, not look'd. Dr. Thirlby advised the emendation, which I have inserted in the text. THEOBALD. Or did it from his teeth.] Whether this means, as we now say, in spite of his teeth, or that he spoke through his teeth, so as to be purposely indistinct, I am unable to determine. A similar passage, however, occurs in a very scarce book entitled A Courtlie Controversie of Cupid's Cautels: conteyning five Tragicall Histories, &c. Translated out of French, &c. by H. W. [Henry Wotton] 4to. 1578: "The whyche the factor considering, incontinently made his reckning that it behoued him to speake clearely, and not betweene his teeth, if he would practise surely," &c. Again, in Chapman's version of the fifteenth Iliad: "She laught, but meerly from her lips : Again, in Fuller's Historie of the Holy Warre, B. IV. ch. 17: "This bad breath, though it came but from the teeth of some, yet proceeded from the corrupt lungs of others." Again, in P. Holland's translation of the eleventh Book of Pliny's Natural History: "the noise which they make commeth but from their teeth and mouth outward." STEEVENS. 5 And-] I have supplied this conjunction, for the sake of metre. STEEVENS. • When I shall pray, &c.] The situation and sentiments of Octavia resemble those of Lady Blanch in King John. See Vol. X. p. 437. STEEVENS. ANT. Gentle Octavia, Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks Than yours so branchless." But, as you requested, 8 Shall stain your brother; Make your soonest haste; your desires are yours. So Than yours so branchless.] Old copy-your. Corrected in the second folio. This is one of the many mistakes that have arisen from the transcriber's ear deceiving him, your so and yours so, being scarcely distinguishable in pronunciation. MALONE. The mean time, lady, 8 I'll raise the preparation of a war Shall stain your brother;] Thus the printed copies. But, sure, Antony, whose business here is to mollify Octavia, does it with a very ill grace: and 'tis a very odd way of satisfying her, to tell her the war, he raises, shall stain, i. e. cast an odium upon her brother. I have no doubt, but we must read, with the addition only of a single letter— Shall strain your brother; i. e. shall lay him under constraints; shall put him to such shifts, that he shall neither be able to make a progress against, or to prejudice me. Plutarch says, that Octavius, understanding the sudden and wonderful preparations of Antony, was astonished at it; for he himself was in many wants, and the people were sorely oppressed with grievous exactions. THEOBALD. I do not see but stain may be allowed to remain unaltered, meaning no more than shame or disgrace. JOHNson. So, in some anonymous stanzas among the poems and Wyatt: 66 here at hand approacheth one "Whose face will stain you all." Again, in Shore's Wife, by Churchyard, 1593: of Surrey "So Shore's wife's face made foule Browneta blush, "As pearle staynes pitch, or gold surmounts a rush." Again, in Churchyard's Charitie, 1595: "Whose beautie staines the faire Helen of Greece." STEEVENS. I believe a line betwixt these two has been lost, the purport Thanks to my lord. Ост. The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak, Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be1 As if the world should cleave, and that slain men Should solder up the rift. ANT. When it appears to you where this begins, Turn your displeasure that way; for our faults Can never be so equal, that your love Can equally move with them. Provide your going; Choose your own company, and command what cost Your heart has mind to. SCENE V. [Exeunt. The same. Another Room in the same. Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting. ENO. How now, friend Eros? EROS. There's strange news come, sir. of which probably was, unless I am compelled in my own defence, I will do no act that shall stain, &c. After Antony has told Octavia that she shall be a mediatrix between him and his adversary, it is surely strange to add that he will do an act that shall disgrace her brother. MALONE. 9 Your reconciler!] The old copy has you. This manifest error of the press, which appears to have arisen from the same cause as that noticed above, was corrected in the second folio. MALONE. 1 -Wars 'twixt you twain would be &c.] The sense is, that war between Cæsar and Antony would engage the world between them, and that the slaughter would be great in se extensive a commotion. JOHNSON. : EROS. Cæsar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey. ENO. This is old; What is the success? EROS. Cæsar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality;2 would not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal,3 seizes him: So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine. ENO. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? 2 -rivality;] Equal rank. JOHNSON. 3 So, in Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are styled by Bernardo "the rivals" of his watch. STEEVENS. 3 upon his own appeal,] To appeal, in Shakspeare, is to accuse; Cæsar seized Lepidus without any other proof than Cæsar's accusation. JOHNSON. 4 Then, world, &c.] Old copy-Then 'would thou had'st a pair of chaps, no more; and throw between them all the food thou hast, they'll grind the other. Where's Antony? This is obscure, I read it thus: Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? Cæsar and Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey upon between them. JOHNSON. Though in general very reluctant to depart from the old copy, I have not, in the present instance, any scruples on that head. The passage, as it stands in the folio, is nonsense, there being nothing to which thou can be referred. World and would were easily confounded, and the omission in the last line which Dr. Johnson has supplied, is one of those errors that happen in almost every sheet that passes through the press, when the same words are repeated near to each other in the same sentence. Thus, in a note on Timon of Athens, Vol. XIX. Act III. sc. ii. now before EROS. He's walking in the garden-thus; and spurns The rush that lies before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus! And threats the throat of that his officer, That murder'd Pompey. ENO. Our great navy's rigged. EROS. For Italy, and Cæsar. More, Domitius;5 me, these words ought to have been printed: "Dr. Farmer, however, suspects a quibble between honour in its common acceptation and honour (i. e. the lordship of a place) in its legal sense." But the words" in its common acceptation, and" were omitted in the proof sheet by the compositor, by his eye (after he had composed the first honour) glancing on the last, by which the intermediate words were lost. In the passage before us, I have no doubt that the compositor's eye in like manner glancing on the second the, after the first had been composed, the two words now recovered were omitted. So, in Troilus and Cressida, the two lines printed in Italicks, were omitted in the folio, from the same cause: "The bearer knows not; but commends itself In the first folio edition of Hamlet, Act II. is the following passage: "I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter." But in the original quarto copy the words in the Italick character are omitted. The printer's eye, after the words I will leave him were composed, glanced on the second him, and thus all the intervening words were lost. I have lately observed that Sir Thomas Hanmer had made the same emendation. As, in a subsequent scene, Shakspeare, with allusion to the triumvirs, calls the world three-nook'd, so he here supposes it to have had three chaps. No more does not signify no longer, but has the same meaning as if Shakspeare had writtenand no more. Thou hast now a pair of chaps, and only a pair. MALONE. 5 More, Domitius;] I have something more to tell you, which I might have told at first, and delayed my news. Antony requires your presence. JOHNSON. |