By such poor passion as the maid that milks,
And does the meanest chares. It were for me
To throw my scepter at the injurious gods;
To tell them, that this world did equal theirs,
Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but naught;
Patience is sottish; and impatience does
Become a dog that 's mad: Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death,

Ere death dare come to us?-How do you, women?
What, what? good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian?
My noble girls!-Ah, women, women! look,
Our lamp is spent, it 's out :-Good sirs, take heart:-
[To the Guard below.
We'll bury him: and then, what's brave, what 's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,

And make death proud to take us. Come, away:
This case of that huge spirit now is cold.

Ah, women, women! come; we have no friend
But resolution, and the briefest end.

[Exeunt; those above bearing off ANTONY'S Body,

pletes the sentence, (without taking notice of the intervening words spoken by Charmian,)-Empress "no more; but e'en a woman," now on a level with the meanest of my sex. So, in Julius Cæsar, Act I, sc. iii. Cassius says

"No, it is Casca; one incorporate

"To our attempts. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna?"

to which Cinna replies, without taking any notice of the latter words [Am I not stay'd for?]:

"I am glad on 't."

i. e. I am glad that Casca is incorporate to our attempts. See also Vol. XIII, p. 50, n. 8.

The old copy reads-but in a woman. The emendation was made by Dr. Johnson. The same error has happened in many other places in these plays. See Vol. V, p. 181, n. 7. Malone. Peace, peace, Iras, is said by Charmian, when she sees the queen recovering, and thinks speech troublesome. Johnson. the meanest chares.] i. e. task-work. Hence our term chare-woman. So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630: "She, like a good wife, is teaching her servants sundry chares." Again, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613:

2

spins,

"Cards, and does chare-work.”

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, ch. 91, Robin Goodfellow says

And at my crummed messe of milke, each night from maid or dame,

"To do their chares, as they suppos'd" &c. Steevens. VOL. XIII.

Kk

ACT V..... SCENE I.

Cæsar's Camp before Alexandria.

Enter CESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MECENAS,3 GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, and Others.

Cas. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield; Being so frustrate, tell him, he mocks us by The pauses that he makes.4

3 Enter Cesar, Agrippa, Dolabella, and [Old copy] Menas, &c.] But Menas and Menecrates, we may remember, were two famous pirates, linked with Sextus Pompeius, and who assisted him to infest the Italian coast. We no where learn, expressly, in the play, that Menas ever attached himself to Octavius's party. Notwithstanding the old folios concur in marking the entrance thus, yet in the two places in the scene, where this character is made to speak, they have marked in the margin, Mec. so that, as Dr. Thirlby sagaciously conjectured, we must cashier Menas, and substitute Mecenas in his room. Menas, indeed, deserted to Cæsar no less than twice, and was preferred by him. But then we are to consider, Alexandria was taken, and Antony killed himself, anno U. C. 723. Menas made the second revolt over to Augustus, U. C. 717; and the next year was slain at the siege of Belgrade, in Pannonia, five years before the death of Antony. Theobald.

4 Being so frustrate, tell him, he mocks [us by]

The pauses that he makes.] Frustrate, for frustrated, was the language of Shakspeare's time. So, in The Tempest :

and the sea mocks

"Our frustrate search by land."

So, consummate for consummated, contaminate for contaminated, &c.

Again, in Holland's translation of Suetonius, 1606: "But the designment both of the one and the other were defeated and frustrate by reason of Piso his death."

The last two words of the first of these lines are not found in the old copy. The defect of the metre shows that somewhat was omitted, and the passage, by the omission, was rendered unintelligible.

When in the lines just quoted, the sea is said to mock the search of those who were secking on the land for a body that had been drowned in the ocean, this is easily understood. But in that before us the case is very different. When Antony himself made these pauses, would he mock, or laugh at them? and what is the meaning of mocking a pause?

In Measure for Measure, the concluding word of a line was omitted, and in like manner has been supplied:

"How I may formally in person bear [me]
"Like a true friar."

Dol.

Cæsar, I shall. [Exit DoL.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, 1599, and 1623: "And hide me with a dead man in his."

shroud or tomb being omitted.

Again, in Hamlet, 4to. 1604:

"Thus conscience doth make cowards."

the words of us all being omitted. Again, ibidem:

Seeming to feel this blow," &c.

Then senseless Ilium

Seeming to feel this blow."

See also note on the words-" mock the meat it feeds on," in Othello, Act III, sc. iii.

And similar omissions have happened in many other plays. See Vol. XI, p. 67, n. 5.

In further support of the emendation now made, it may be observed, that the word mock, of which our author makes frequent use, is almost always employed as I suppose it to have been used here. Thus, in King Lear: " Pray do not mock me." Again, in Measure for Measure:

"You do blaspheme the good in mocking me."

Again, in All's Well that Ends Well:

"You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,"
"And mock us with our bareness."

Again, in the play before us:

that nod unto the world,

"And mock our eyes with air."

The second interpretation given by Mr. Steevens, in the following note, is a just interpretation of the text as now regulated; but extracts from the words in the old copy a meaning, which, without those that I have supplied, they certainly do not afford. Malone.

I have left Mr. Malone's emendation in the text; though, to complete the measure, we might read-frustrated, or

Being so frustrate, tell him, that he mocks &c.

as I am well convinced we are not yet acquainted with the full and exact meaning of the verb mock, as sometimes employed by Shakspeare. In Othello it is used again with equal departure from its common acceptation.

My explanation of the words-He mocks the pauses that he makes, is as follows: He plays wantonly with the intervals of time which he should improve to his own preservation. Or the meaning may be-Being thus defeated in all his efforts, and left without resource, tell him that these affected pauses and delays of his in yielding himself up to me, are mere idle mockery. He mocks the pauses, may be a licentious mode of expression forhe makes a mockery of us by these pauses; i. e. he trifles with us.

Steevens.

5 Cæsar, I shall.] I make no doubt but it should be marked

Enter DERCETAS, with the Sword of ANTONY.

Cas. Wherefore is that? and what art thou, that dar❜st Appear thus to us?6

Der.

I am call'd Dercetas;

Mark Antony I serv'd, who best was worthy

Best to be serv'd: whilst he stood up, and spoke,
He was my master; and I wore my life,
To spend upon his haters: If thou please
To take me to thee, as I was to him
I'll be to Cæsar; if thou pleasest not,
I yield thee up my life.

Cas.

What is 't thou say'st?

Der. I say, O Cæsar, Antony is dead.

Cas. The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack: The round world should have shook Lions into civil streets,"

here, that Dolabella goes out. 'Tis reasonable to imagine he should presently depart upon Cæsar's command; so that the speeches placed to him in the sequel of this scene, must be transferred to Agrippa, or he is introduced as a mute. Besides, that Dolabella should be gone out appears from this, that when Cæsar asks for him, he recollects that he had sent him on business. Theobald.

6

hand.

7

thus to us?] i. e. with a drawn and bloody sword in thy Steevens.

The round world should have shook

Lions into civil streets, &c.] I think here is a line lost, after which it is in vain to go in quest. The sense seems to have been this: The round world should have shook, and this great alteration of the system of things should send lions into streets, and citizens into dens. There is sense still, but it is harsh and violent. Johnson. I believe we should read-A greater crack than this: The ruin'd world, i. e. the general disruption of elements should have shook &c. Shakspeare seems to mean that the death of so great a man ought to have produced effects similar to those which might be expected from the dissolution of the universe, when all distinctions shall be lost. To shake any thing out, is a phrase in common use among our ancient writers. So Holinshed, p. 743: "God's providence shaking men out of their shifts of supposed safetie," &c.

Perhaps, however, Shakspeare might mean nothing more here than merely an earthquake, in which the shaking of the round world was to be so violent as to toss the inhabitants of woods into cities, and the inhabitants of cities into woods. Steevens.

The sense, I think, is complete and plain, if we consider shook (more properly shaken) as the participle past of a verb active.. The metre would be improved if the lines were distributed thus:

And citizens to their dens:-The death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in the name lay

A moiety of the world.

Der.

He is dead, Cæsar;

The round world should have shook

Lions into civil streets, and citizens

Into their dens. Tyrwhitt.

The defect of the metre strongly supports Dr. Johnson's conjecture, that something is lost. Perhaps the passage originally

stood thus:

The breaking of so great a thing should make

A greater crack. The round world should have shook;
Thrown hungry lions into civil streets,

And citizens to their dens.

In this very page, five entire lines between the word shook in my note, and the same word in Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, were omitted by the compositor in the original proof sheet.

That the words-" The round world should have shook," contain a distinct proposition, and have no immediate connection with the next line, may be inferred from hence; that Shakspeare, when he means to describe a violent derangement of nature, almost always mentions the earth's shaking, or being otherwise convulsed; and in these passages constantly employs the word shook, or some synonymous word, as a neutral verb. Thus, in Macbeth:

“Clamour'd the live-long night: some say, the earth
"Was fev'rous, and did shake."

Shook, as the earth did quake.'

Again, in King Henry IV, P. I:

the sea,

"I say, the earth did shake, when I was born.-
"O, then the earth shook, to see the heavens on fire,
"And not in fear of your nativity."

Again, in King Lear:

thou all-shaking thunder,

"Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world,

"Crack nature's moulds."

This circumstance, in my apprehension, strongly confirms Dr. Johnson's suggestions that some words have been omitted in the next line, and is equally adverse to Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendation. The words omitted were probably in the middle of the line which originally might have stood thus in the MS;

"Lions been hurtled into civil streets,

"And citizens to their dens. Malone.