ENO. When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus. 6 AGR. There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised well for her. ENO. I will tell you: The barge she sat in,' like a burnish'd throne, 6 When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.] This passage is a strange instance of negligence and inattention in Shakspeare. Enobarbus is made to say that Cleopatra gained Antony's heart on the river Cydnus; but it appears from the conclusion of his own description, that Antony had never seen her there; that, whilst she was on the river, Antony was sitting alone, enthroned in the market-place, whistling to the air, all the people having left him to gaze upon her: and that, when she landed, he sent to her to invite her to supper. M. MASON. The barge she sat in, &c.] The reader may not be displeased with the present opportunity of comparing our author's description with that of Dryden : "Her galley down the silver Cydnus row'd, "The tackling, silk, the streamers wav'd with gold, "Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were "Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay. "She lay, and leant her cheek upon her hand, "As if, secure of all beholders' hearts, "Neglecting she could take 'em: Boys, like Cupids, "A darting glory seem'd to blaze abroad; "But hung upon the object: To soft flutes "The silver oars kept time; and while they play'd, "The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight, "And both to thought. 'Twas heaven, or somewhat more; "For she so charm'd all hearts, that gazing crouds "Stood panting on the shore, and wanted breath Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The fancy out-work nature: on each side her, AGR. O, rare for Antony! ENO. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,2 like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water:] The same idea occurs in Chapman's translation of the tenth Book of the Odyssey: 66 In a throne she plac'd "My welcome person. Of a curious frame STEEVENS. O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see, &c.] Meaning the Venus of Protogenes, mentioned by Pliny, L. XXXV. c. x. WARBURTON. And what they undid, did.] It might be read less harshly: The reading of the old copy is, I believe, right. The wind of the fans seemed to give a new colour to Cleopatra's cheeks, which they were employed to cool; and what they undid, i. e. that warmth which they were intended to diminish or allay, they did, i. e. they seemed to produce. MALONE. 2 Perhaps tended her by th' tended her the eyes,] eyes, discovered her will by her eyes. VOL. XVII. G And made their bends adornings:3 at the helm Perhaps this expression, as it stands in the text, may signify that the attendants on Cleopatra looked observantly into her eyes, to catch her meaning, without giving her the trouble of verbal explanation. Shakspeare has a phrase as uncommon, in another play: "Sweats in the eye of Phoebus." After all, I believe that "tended her in th' eyes" only signifies waited before her, in her presence, in her sight. So, in Hamlet, Act IV. SC. iv: "If that his majesty would aught with us, "We shall express our duty in his eye." i. e. in our personal attendance on him, by giving him ocular proof of our respect. Mr. Henley explains it thus; obeyed her looks without waiting for her words. See note on Hamlet, Act IV. SC. iv. STEEVENS. So, Spenser, Fairy Queen, B. I. c. iii: he wayted diligent, "With humble service to her will prepar'd; Again, in our author's 149th Sonnet: "Commanded by the motion of thine eyes." The words of the text may, however, only mean, they performed their duty in the sight of their mistress. MALONE. 3 And made their bends adornings:] This is sense indeed, and may be understood thus:-Her maids bowed with so good an air, that it added new graces to them. But this is not what Shakspeare would say. Cleopatra, in this famous scene, personated Venus just rising from the waves; at which time, the mythologists tell us, the sea-deities surrounded the goddess to adore, and pay her homage. Agreeably to this fable, Cleopatra had dressed her maids, the poet tells us, like Nereids. To make the whole, therefore, conformable to the story represented, we may be assured, Shakspeare wrote: And made their bends adorings. They did her observance in the posture of adoration, as if she had been Venus. WARBURTON. That Cleopatra personated Venus, we know; but that Shakspeare was acquainted with the circumstance of homage being paid her by the deities of the sea, is by no means as certain. The old term will probably appear the more elegant of the two to modern readers, who have heard so much about the line of A seeming Mermaid steers; the silken tackle beauty. The whole passage is taken from the following in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch: "She disdained to set forward otherwise, but to take her barge in the riuer of Cydnus, the poope whereof was of golde, the sailes of purple, and the owers of siluer, whiche kept stroke in rowing after the sounde of the musicke of flutes, howboyes, citherns, violls, and such other instruments as they played vpon in the barge. And now for the person of her selfe: she was layed under a pauillion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the Goddesse Venus, commonly drawn in picture; and hard by her, on either hand of her, pretie faire boyes apperelled as painters do set forth God Cupide, with little fannes in their hands, with the which they fanned wind vpon her. Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them were apparelled like the nymphes Nereides (which are the mermaides of the waters) and like the Graces, some stearing the helme, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of the which there came a wonderfull passing sweete sauor of perfumes, that perfumed the wharfes side, pestered with innumerable multitudes of people. Some of them followed the barge all alongst the riuer's side: others also ranne out of the citie to see her coming in. So that in thend, there ranne such multitudes of people one after another to see her, that Antonius was left post alone in the market place, in his imperiall seate to geve audience :" &c. STEEVENS. There are few passages in these plays more puzzling than this; but the commentators seem to me to have neglected entirely the difficult part of it, and to have confined all their learning and conjectures to that which requires but little, if any explanation: for if their intrepretation of the words, tended her i the eyes, be just, the obvious meaning of the succeeding line will be, that in paying their obeisance to Cleopatra, the humble inclination of their bodies was so graceful, that it added to their beauty. Warburton's amendment, the reading adorings, instead of adornings, would render the passage less poetical, and it cannot express the sense he wishes for, without an alteration; for although, as Mr. Steevens justly observes, the verb adore is frequently used by the ancient dramatick writers in the sense of to adorn, I do not find that to adorn was reciprocally used in the sense of to adore. Tollet's explanation is ill imagined; for though the word band might formerly have been spelled with an e, and a troop of beautiful attendants would add to the general magnificence of the scene, they would be more likely to eclipse than Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, to increase the charms of their mistress. And as for Malone's conjecture, though rather more ingenious, it is just as ill founded. That a particular bend of the eye may add lustre to the charms of a beautiful woman, every man must have felt; and it must be acknowledged that the words, their bends, may refer to the eyes of Cleopatra; but the word made must necessarily refer to her gentlewomen: and it would be absurd to say that they made the bends of her eyes, adornings. But all these explanations, from the first to the last, are equally erroneous, and are founded on a supposition that the passage is correct, and that the words, tended her i' the eyes, must mean, that her attendants watched her eyes, and from them received her commands. How those words can, by any possible construction, imply that meaning, the editors have not shown, nor can I conceive. Of this I am certain, that if such arbitrary and fanciful interpretations be admitted, we shall be able to extort what sense we please from any combination of words.-The passage, as it stands, appears to me wholly unintelligible; but it may be amended by a very slight deviation from the text, by reading, the guise, instead of the eyes, and then it will run thus: Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the guise, And made their bends, adornings. con In the guise, means in the form of mermaids, who were supposed to have the head and body of a beautiful woman, cluding in a fish's tail: and by the bends which they made adornings, Enobarbus means the flexure of the fictitious fishes' tails, in which the limbs of the women were necessarily involved, in order to carry on the deception, and which it seems they adapted with so much art as to make them an ornament, instead of a deformity. This conjecture is supported by the very next sentence, where Enobarbus, proceeding in his description, says: 66 at the helm "A seeming mermaid steers." M. MASON. In many of the remarks of Mr. M. Mason I perfectly concur, though they are subversive of opinions I had formerly hazarded. On the present occasion, I have the misfortune wholly to disagree with him. His deviation from the text cannot be received; for who ever employed the phrase he recommends, without adding somewhat immediately after it, that would determine its precise meaning? We may properly say-in the guise of a shepherd, |