him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a worse! and let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee! IRAS. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! for, as it is a heart-breaking to see a handsome man loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded; Therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly! CHAR. Amen. ALEX. Lo, now! if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they'd do't. ENO. Hush! here comes Antony. CHAR. Not he, the queen. who has made this declaration, That if, throughout the plays, had all the speeches been printed without the very names of the persons, he believes one might have applied them with certainty to every speaker. But in how many instances has Mr. Pope's want of judgment falsified this opinion? The fact is evidently this: Alexas brings a fortune-teller to Iras and Charmian, and says himself, We'll know all our fortunes. Well; the Soothsayer begins with the women; and some jokes pass upon the subject of husbands and chastity: after which, the women hoping for the satisfaction of having something to laugh at in Alexas's fortune, call him to hold out his hand, and wish heartily that he may have the prognostication of cuckoldom upon him. The whole speech, therefore, must be placed to Charmian. There needs no stronger proof of this being a true correction, than the observation which Alexas immediately subjoins on their wishes and zeal to hear him abused. THEOBALD. CLEO. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden A Roman thought hath struck him.-Enobarbus,— ENO. Madam. CLEO. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas? 8 ALEX. Here, madam, at your service.-My lord approaches. Enter ANTONY, with a Messenger and Attendants. CLEO. We will not look upon him: Go with us. [Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, ALEXAS, IRAS, CHARMIAN, Soothsayer, and Attendants. MESS. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. ANT. Against my brother Lucius ? MESS. Ay: But soon that war had end, and the time's state 7 Saw you my lord?] Old copy-Save you. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. Saw was formerly written sawe. MALONE. 8 Here, madam,] The respect due from Alexas to his mistress, in my opinion, points out the title-Madam, (which is wanting in the old copy,) as a proper cure for the present defect in metre. STEEVENS. Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Cæsar r; Whose better issue in the war, from Italy, Upon the first encounter, drave them." ANT. What worst? Well, MESS. The nature of bad news infects the teller. SANT. When it concerns the fool, or coward.-On: Things, that are past, are done, with me.-'Tis thus; Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, I hear him as he flatter'd. Labienus MESS. (This is stiff news1) hath, with his Parthian force, Extended Asia from Euphrates; 2 9 drave them.] Drave is the ancient preterite of the verb, to drive, and frequently occurs in the Bible. Thus, in Joshua, xxiv. 12: "-and drave them out from before you.' Again, in Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad: 1 to chariot he arose, “ Drave forth,-." STEEVens. (This is stiff news)] So, in The Rape of Lucrece: 66 MALONE. * Extended Asia from Euphrates;] i. e. widened or extended the bounds of the Lesser Asia. WARBURTON. To extend, is a term used for to seize; I know not whether this be not the sense here. JOHNSON. I believe Dr. Johnson's explanation is right. So, in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, 1594: "Ay, though on all the world we make extent, "From the south pole unto the northern bear." Again, in Twelfth-Night: this uncivil and unjust extent Against thy peace." Again, in Massinger's New Way to pay old Debts, the Extortioner says: "This manor is extended to my use." Mr. Tollet has likewise no doubt but that Dr. Johnson's ex His conquering banner shook, from Syria Whilst ANT. Antony, thou would'st say, MESS. O, my lord! ANT. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue; Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome: planation is just; "for (says he) Plutarch informs us that Labienus was by the Parthian king made general of his troops, and had over-run Asia from Euphrates and Syria to Lydia and fonia.” To extend is a law term used for to seize lands and tenements. In support of his assertion he adds the following instance: "Those wasteful companions had neither lands to extend nor goods to be seized." Savile's translation of Tacitus, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. And then observes, that """ Shakspeare knew the legal signification of the term, as appears from a passage in As you like it: "And let my officers of such a nature "Make an extent upon his house and lands." See Vol. VIII. p. 82, n. 6. Our ancient English writers almost always give us Euphrates instead of Euphrates. Thus, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 21: "That gliding go in state, like swelling Euphrates." See note on Cymbeline, Act III. sc. iii. STEEVENS. 3 When our quick winds lie still;] The sense is, that man, not agitated by censure, like soil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good. JOHNSON. long An idea, somewhat similar, occurs also in The First Part of King Henry IV: "the cankers of a calm world and a peace." Again, in The Puritan: "-hatched and nourished in the idle calms of peace." MESS. At your noble pleasure. [Exit. Again, and yet more appositely, in King Henry VI. P. III : "For what doth cherish weeds, but gentle air?" Dr. Warburton has proposed to read-minds. It is at least a conjecture that deserves to be mentioned. Dr. Johnson, however, might, in some degree, have countenanced his explanation by a singular epithet, that occurs twice in the Iliad-aveμorpedès; literally, wind-nourished. In the first instance, L. XI. 256, it is applied to the tree of which a spear had been made; in the second, L. XV. 625, to a wave, impelled upon a ship. STEEVENS. I suspect that quick winds is, or is a corruption of, some provincial word, signifying either arable lands, or the instruments of husbandry used in tilling them. Earing signifies plowing both here and in page 48. So, in Genesis, c. xlv: "Yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest." BLACKSTONE. This conjecture is well founded. The ridges left in lands turned up by the plough, that they may sweeten during their fallow state, are still called wind-rows. Quick winds, I suppose to be the same as teeming fallows; for such fallows are always fruitful in weeds. Wind-rows likewise signify heaps of manure, consisting of dung or lime mixed up with virgin earth, and distributed in long rows under hedges. If these wind-rows are suffered to lie still, in two senses, the farmer must fare the worse for his want of activity. First, if this compost be not frequently turned over, it will bring forth weeds spontaneously; secondly, if it be suffered to continue where it is made, the fields receive no benefit from it, being fit only in their turn to produce a crop of useless and obnoxious herbage. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's description of wind-rows will gain him, I fear, but little reputation with the husbandman; nor, were it more accurate, does it appear to be in point, unless it can be shown that quick winds and wind-rows are synonymous; and, further, that his interpretation will suit with the context. Dr. Johnson hath considered the position as a general one, which indeed it is; but being made by Antony, and applied to himself, he, figuratively, is the idle soil; the MALICE that speaks home, the quick, or cutting winds, whose frosty blasts destroy the profusion of weeds; whilst our ILLS (that is the TRUTH faithfully) told us; a representation of our vices in their naked odiousness-is as our |