A strange invisible pérfume hits the sense that the very act of humiliation was an improvement of her ow beauty. The foregoing notes supply a very powerful instance of the uncertainty of verbal criticism; for here we meet with the same phrase explained with reference to four different images-Bows, GROUPS, EYES, and TAILS. Steevens. A passage in Drayton's Mortimeriados, quarto, no date, may serve to illustrate that before us : "The naked nymphes, some up, some downe descending, "Small scattering flowres one at another flung, "With pretty turns their lymber bodies bending, —.” I once thought, their bends referred to Cleopatra's eyes, and not to her gentle women. Her attendants, in order to learn their mistress's will, watched the motion of her eyes, the bends or movements of which added new lustre to her beauty. See the quotation from Shakspeare's 149th Sonnet, p. 244. In our author we frequently find the word bend applied to the eye. Thus, in the first Act of this play: those his goodly eyes 66 now bend, now turn," &c. Again, in Cymbeline: Although they wear their faces to the bent "Of the king's looks." Again, more appositely, in Julius Cæsar: "And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world." Mr. Mason, remarking on this interpretation, acknowledges that "their bends may refer to Cleopatra's eyes, but the word made must refer to her gentlewomen, and it would be absurd to say that they made the bends of her eyes adornings." Assertion is much easier than proof. In what does the absurdity consist? They thus standing near Cleopatra, and discovering her will by the eyes, were the cause of her appearing more beautiful, in consequence of the frequent motion of her eyes; i. e. (in Shakspeare's language) this their situation and office was the cause, &c. We have, in every page of this author such diction. But I shall not detain the reader any longer on so clear a point; especially as I now think that the interpretation of these words given originally by Dr. Warburton is the true one. Bend being formerly sometimes used for a band or troop, Mr. Tollet very idly supposes that the word has that meaning here. Malone. I had determined not to enter into a controversy with the edi tors on the subject of any of my former comments; but I cannot resist the impulse I feel, to make a few remarks on the strictures of Mr. Steevens, both on the amendment I proposed in this passage, and my explanation of it; for if I could induce him to accede to my opinion, it would be the highest gratification to me. His objection to the amendment I have proposed, that of reading in the guise instead of in the eyes, is, that the phrase in the Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast guise cannot be properly used, without adding somewhat to it, to determine precisely the meaning; and this, as a general observation, is perfectly just, but it does not apply in the present case; for the preceding lines, Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, and the subsequent line, A seeming mermaid steers ; very clearly point out the meaning of the word guise. If you ask. in what guise? I answer in the guise of mermaids; and the connection is sufficiently clear even for prose, without claiming any allowance for poetical licence. But this objection may be entirely done away, by reading that guise instead of the guise, which I should have adopted, if it had not departed some what farther from the text. With respect to my explanation of the words, and made their bends adornings, I do not think that Mr. Steevens's objections are equally well founded. He says that a mermaid's tail is an unclassical image, adopted from modern sign posts: that such a being as a mermaid did never actually exist, I will readily acknowledge. But the idea is not of modern invention. In the oldest books of heraldry you will find mermaids delineated in the same form that they are at this day. The crest of my own family, for some centuries, has been a mermaid; and the Earl of Howth, of a family much more ancient, which came into England with the Conqueror, has a mermaid for one of his supporters. Boyse tells us, in his Pantheon, on what authority I cannot say, that the Syrens were the daughters of Achelous, that their lower parts were like fishes, and their upper parts like women; and Virgil's description of Scylla, in his third Æneid, corresponds exactly with our idea of a mermaid: "Prima hominis facies, and pulchro pectore virgo "Pube tenus, postrema immani corpore pristis." I have, therefore, no doubt but this was Shakspeare's idea also. Mr. Steevens's observations on the aukward and ludicrous situation of Cleopatra's attendants, when involved in their fishes' tails, is very jocular and well imagined; but his jocularity proceeds from his not distinguishing between reality and deception. If a modern fine lady were to represent a mermaid at a masquerade, she would contrive, I have no doubt, to dress in that character, yet to preserve the free use of all her limbs, and that with ease; for the mermaid is not described as resting on the extremity of her tail, but on one of the bends of it, sufficiently broad to conceal the feet. Notwithstanding the arguments of Malone and Steevens, and the deference I have for their opinions, I can find no sense in the passage as they have printed it. M. Mason. Enthron'd in the market-place, did sit alone, And made a gap in nature. Agr. Rare Egyptian! Eno. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, It should be better, he became her guest; For what his eyes eat only. Agr. Royal wench! She made great Cæsar lay his sword to bed; He plough'd her, and she cropp'd. Eno. I saw her once And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted, And, breathless, power breathe forth. Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly. Eno. Never; he will not; Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale That yarely frame the office.] i. e. readily and dexterously perform the task they undertake. See Vol. II, p. 9, n. 2. Steevens. 5 which, but for vacancy, Had gone - Alluding to an axiom in the peripatetic philosophy then in vogue, that Nature abhors a vacuum. Warburton. But for vacancy, means, for fear of a vacuum. • For what his eyes eat only.] Thus Martial: 7 Malone. "Inspexit molles pueros, oculisque comedit." Steevens. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety:] Such is the praise bestowed by Shakspeare on his heroine; a praise that well deserves the consideration of our female readers. Cleopatra, as appears from the tetradrachms of Antony, was no Venus; and indeed the majority of ladies who most successfully enslaved the hearts of princes, are known to have been less remarkable for personal than men. tal attractions. The reign of insipid beauty is seldom lasting;" but permanent must be the rule of a woman who can diversify the sameness of life by an inexhausted variety of accomplish ments. To stale is a verb employed by Heywood, in The Iron Age, 1632: "One that hath stal'd his courtly tricks at home." Steevens. Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry, Mec. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle A blessed lottery to him.3 Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry, Where most she satisfies.] Almost the same thought, clothed nearly in the same expressions, is found in the old play of Pericles: "Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry, "The more she gives them speech." Again, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety, "But rather famish them amid their plenty." Malone. 9 For vilest things 1 Become themselves in her;] So, in our author's 150th Sonnet: "Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill?" Malone. the holy priests, &c.] In this, and the foregoing description of Cleopatra's passage down the Cydnus, Dryden seems to have emulated Shakspeare, and not without success: "she's dangerous: "Her eyes have power beyond Thessalian charms, 66 "The holy priests gaze on her when she smiles; "And with heav'd hands, forgetting gravity, "They bless her wanton eyes. Even I who hate her, Be it remembered, however, that, in both instances, without a spark from Shakspeare, the blaze of Dryden might not have been enkindled. 2 Reed. -when she is riggish.] Rigg is an ancient word meaning a strumpet. So, in Whetstone's Castle of Delight, 1576: "Then loath they will both lust and wanton love, "Or else be sure such ryggs my care shall prove." Again: "Immodest rigg, I Ovid's counsel usde." Again, in Churchyard's Dolorous Gentlewoman, 1593: "About the streets was gadding, gentle rigge, 3 "With clothes tuckt up to set bad ware to sale, "For youth good stuffe, and for olde age a stale." Steevens. Octavia is A blessed lottery to him.] Dr. Warburton says, the poe Agr. Let us go. Good Enobarbus make yourself my guest, Eno. Humbly, sir, I thank you. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The same. A Room in Cæsar's House. Enter CESAR, ANTONY, OCTAVIA between them; Attendants, and a Soothsayer. Ant. The world, and my great office, will sometimes Divide me from your bosom. Octa. Ant. Good night, sir.-My Octavia, I have not kept my square; but that to come wrote allottery, but there is no reason for this assertion. The ghost of Andrea, in The Spanish Tragedy, says: "Minos in graven leaves of lottery "Drew forth the manner of my life and death." Farmer. Lottery for allotment. Henley. 4 shall bow my prayers-] The same construction is found in Coriolanus, Act I, sc. i: Shouting their emulation." Again, in King Lear, Act II, sc. ii: 5 Ant. Good night, dear lady Octa. Good night, sir.] These last words, which in the only authentick copy of this play are given to Antony, the modern editors have assigned to Octavia. I see no need of change. He addresses himself to Cæsar, who immediately replies, Good night. Malone. I have followed the second folio, which puts these words (with sufficient propriety) into the mouth of Octavia. Steevens. Antony has already said "Good night, sir," to Cæsar, in the three first words of his speech. The repetition would be absurd. The editor of the second folio appears, from this and numberless other instances, to have had a copy of the first folio corrected by the players, or some other well-informed person. Ritson. |
