Welcome, lady. And ever welcome to us. Agr. Mec. Welcome, dear madam. Each heart in Rome does love and pity you: And gives his potent regiment3 to a trull, Oct. Is it so, sir? Cas. Most certain. Sister, welcome: Pray you, Be ever known to patience: My dearest sister! [Exeunt. SCENE VII. Antony's Camp, near the Promontory of Actium. Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS. Cleo. I will be even with thee, doubt it not. Eno. But why, why, why? Cleo. Thou hast forspoke my being1 in these wars; "A solemn air, and the best comforter Cæsar, however, may mean, that what he has just mentioned is the best kind of comfort that Octavia can receive. Malone. This elliptical phrase, I believe, only signifies-May the best of comfort be yours! Steevens. 8 potent regiment -] Regiment, is government, authority; he puts his power and his empire into the hands of a false woman. It may be observed, that trull was not, in our author's time, a term of mere infamy, but a word of slight contempt, as wench is now. Johnson. Trull is used in The First Part of King Henry VI, as synonymous to harlot, and is rendered by the Latin word Scortum, in Cole's Dictionary, 1679. There can therefore be no doubt of the sense in which it is used here. Malone. 1 9 That noises it against us.] Milton has adopted this uncom mon verb in his Paradise Regained, Book IV, 488: 1 66 though noising loud, -" Steevens. “And threatening nigh : —’ forspoke my being ] To forspeak, is to contradict, to speak against, as forbid is to order negatively. Johnson. Thus, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584: 66 thy life forspoke by love." To forspeak likewise signified to curse. So, in Drayton's Epistle from Elinor Cobham to Duke Humphrey: "Or to forspeak whole flocks as they did feed." Well, is it, is it? And say'st, it is not fit. Eno. Cleo. Is 't not? Denounce against us, why should not we To forspeak, in the last instance, has the same power as to forbid, in Macbeth: “He shall live a man forbid." So, to forthink, meant anciently to unthink, and consequently to repent: "Therefore of it be not to boolde, "Lest thou forthink it when thou art too olde." Interlude of Youth, bl. 1. no date. And in Gower, De Confessione Amantis, B. I, to forshape is to mis-shape: "Out of a man into a stone 66 To forspeak has generally reference to the mischiefs effected by enchantment. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News: - a witch, gossip, to forspeak the matter thus." In Shakspeare it is the opposite of bespeak. Steevens. 2 Is 't not? Denounce against us, &c.] The old copy reads: If not denounc'd against us, &c. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. I would read: Steevens. Is 't not? Denounce against us, why should not we Be there in person? Tyrwhitt. Cleopatra means to say, "Is not the war denounced against us? Why should we not then attend in person?" She says, a little lower, A charge we bear i' the war, And, as the president of my kingdom, will Appear there for a man." She speaks of herself in the plural number, according to the usual style of sovereigns. M. Mason. Mr. Malone reads with the old copy, introducing only the change of a single letter-denounc't instead of denounc'd. I have followed Mr. Tyrwhitt. So, in Turberville's translation of Ovid's Epistle from Phyllis to Demophoon: "Denounce to me what I have doone "But loud thee all to well?" Steevens. Mr. Tyrwhitt proposed to read-denounce, but the slight alteration for which I am answerable, is nearer to the original copy. I am not however sure that the old reading is not right. "If not denounc'd," If there be no particular denunciation against me, why should we not be there in person? There is, however, in the folio, a comma after the word not, and no point of interrogation at the end of the sentence; which favours the emendation now made. Malone. Surely, no valid inference can be drawn from such uncertain Be there in person? Eno. [Aside.] Well, I could reply: If we should serve with horse and mares together, The horse were merely lost;3 the mares would bear A soldier, and his horse. Cleo. What is 't you say? Eno. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony; Take from his heart, take from his brain, from his time, What should not then be spar'd. He is already Traduc'd for levity; and 'tis said in Rome, That Photinus an eunuch, and your maids, Manage this war. Cleo. Sink Rome; and their tongues rot, That speak against us! A charge we bear i' the war, And, as the president of my kingdom, will Appear there for a man. Speak not against it; I will not stay behind. Eno. Here comes the emperor. Ant. Nay, I have done : Enter ANTONY and CANIDIUS. Is 't not strange, Canidius, That from Tarentum, and Brundusium, He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea, And take in Toryne?-You have heard on 't sweet? Cleo. Celerity is never more admir'd, Than by the negligent. Ant. A good rebuke, Which might have well becom❜d the best of men, Will fight with him by sea. Cleo. By sea! What else? Can. Why will my lord do so? as for premises as the punctuation of the old copy, which (to use the words of Rosalind and Touchstone in As you Like it) is " tune will or as the destinies decree." Steevens. 3 merely lost;]i. e. entirely, absolutely lost. So, in Hamlet: things rank, and gross in nature 66 "Possess it merely." Steevens. 4 And take in Toryne?] To take in is to gain by conquest. So, in Chapman's version of the second Iliad: 66 for now Troy's broad-way'd towne "He shall take in." See Vol. VI, p. 289, n. 1. Steevens. Ant. For he dares us to 't. Eno. So hath my lord dar'd him to single fight. Can. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia, Where Cæsar fought with Pompey: But these offers, Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off; And so should you. Eno. Being prepar'd for land. Ant. By sea, by sea. Ant. I'll fight at sea. Cleo. I have sixty sails, Cæsar none better. Ant. Our overplus of shipping will we burn; And, with the rest full-mann'd, from the head of Actium 5 For he dares us ] i. e. because he dares us. So, in Othello: Haply, for I am black —." 66 The old copy redundantly reads-For that he. See Vol. XVI, note on Cymbeline, Act IV, sc. i. Steevens. for 6 Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, &c.] The old copy has militers. The correction was made by the editor of the second folio. It is confirmed by the old translation of Plutarch: ". lacke of watermen his captains did presse by force all sortes of men out of Græce, that they could rake up in the field, as travellers, muliters, reapers, harvest men, &c. Muliter was the old spelling of muleteer. Steevens. 7 Their ships are yare ; yours, heavy.] So, in Sir Thomas North's Plutarch: "Cæsar's ships were not built for pomp, high and great, &c. but they were light of yarage." Yare generally signifies, dextrous, manageable. See Vol. II, p. 9, n. 2. Steevens. 8 - Cæsar none better.] I must suppose this mutiliated line to have originally run thus: I have sixty sails, Cæsar himself none better. Steevens. Dd Beat the approaching Cæsar. But if we fail, We then can do 't at land.-Thy business? Mess. The news is true, my lord; he is descried; Ant. Can he be there in person? 'tis impossible; Away, my Thetis!'-How now, worthy soldier? This sword, and these my wounds? Let the Egyptians, Have us'd to conquer, standing on the earth, 9 Ant. Well, well, away. [Exeunt ANT. CLEO. and ENO. Sold. By Hercules, I think, I am i' the right. Can. Soldier, thou art: but his whole action grows Strange, that his power should be.] It is strange that his, forces should be there. So, afterwards, in this scene: "His power went out in such distractions, as Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece : 1 "Before the which was drawn the power of Greece." Malone. my Thetis!] Antony may address Cleopatra by the name of this sea-nymph, because she had just promised him assistance in his naval expedition; or perhaps in allusion to her voyage down the Cydnus, when she appeared like Thetis surrounded by the Nereids. Steevens. 2 O noble emperor, &c.] So, in the old translation of Plutarch: "Now, as he was setting his men in order of battel, there was a captaine, & a valiant man, that had serued Antonius in many battels & conflicts, & had all his body hacked & cut; who as Antonius passed by him, cryed out vnto him, and sayd: O, noble emperor, how commeth it to passe that you trust to these vile brittle shippes? what, doe you mistrust these woundes of myne, and this sword? let the Ægyptians and Phœnicians fight by sea, and set vs on the maine land, where we vse to conquer, or to be slayne on our feete. Antonius passed by him, and sayd neuer a word, but only beckoned to him with his hand and head, as though he willed him to be of good corage, although indeede he had no great corage himselfe," Steevens |