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; Cæsar has taken Toryne. Ant. Can he be there in person? 'tis impossible; Strange, that his power should be.Canidius. Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land, And our twelve thousand horse:-We 'll to our ship; Enter a Soldier. Away, my Thetis!-How now, worthy soldier? Sold. O noble emperor,2 do not fight by sea; Trust not to rotten planks: Do you misdoubt This sword, and these my wounds? Let the Egyptians, Have us'd to conquer, standing on the earth, 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 9 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 rame 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 Egyptians and Phoenicians 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. Not in the power on 't:3 So our leader 's led, Sold. You keep by land But we keep whole by land. This speed of Cæsar's Sold. His power went out in such distractions, as Can. While he was5 yet in Rome. Who's his lieutenant, hear you? Well I know the man. Sold. They say, one Taurus. Can. Enter a Messenger. Mess. The emperor calls for Canidius." Can. With news the time 's with labour; and throes forth,8 Each minute, some. 3 Sold. By Hercules, I think, I am i' the right. Can. Soldier, thou art: but his whole action grows [Exeunt? Not in the power on 't:] That is, his whole conduct becomes ungoverned by the right, or by reason. Johnson. I think the sense is very different, and that Canidius means to say, His whole conduct in the war is not founded upon that which is his greatest strength, (namely, his land force,) but on the caprice of a woman who wishes that he should fight by sea. Dr. Johnson refers the word on 't to right in the preceding speech. I apprehend, it refers to action in the speech before us. Malone. * Carries beyond belief.] Perhaps this phrase is from archery. So, in King Henry IV, P. II: "he would have carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half." Steevens. 5 While he was-] Of what use are the words—he was, except to vitiate the metre? Steevens. 6 - distractions,] Detachments, separate bodies. Johnson. The word is thus used by Sir Paul Rycaut, in his Maxims of Turkish Polity: ". and not suffer his affections to wander on other wives, slaves, or distractions of his love." Steevens. 7 The emperor calls for Canidius.] The preposition-for, was judiciously inserted by Sir Thomas Hanmer, to complete the measure. So, in a future scene: 66 call for Enobarbus," Steevens. 8 and throes forth,] i. e. emits as in parturition. So, in The Tempest: 66 proclaim a birth "Which throes thee much to yield." Steevens. SCENE VIII. A Plain near Actium. Enter CESAR, TAURUS, Officers, and Others. Cas. My lord. Strike not by land; keep whole: Provoke not battle, till we have done at sea. Enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS. [Exeunt. Ant. Set we our squadrons on yon' side o' the hill, And so proceed accordingly. [Exeunt. Enter CANIDIUS, marching with his Land Army one Way over the Stage; and TAURUS, the Lieutenant of Cæsar, the other Way. After their going in, is heard the Noise of a Sea-Fight. Alarum. Re-enter ENOBARBUS. Eno. Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer: The Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral, With all their sixty, fly, and turn the rudder; To see 't mine eyes are blasted. Scar. Enter SCARUS. Gods, and goddesses, What's thy passion? All the whole synod of them! Eno. Scar. The greater cantle2 of the world is lost this jump.] i. e. hazard. So, in Macbeth: "We 'd jump the life to come." Steevens. 1 The Antoniad, &c.] Which Plutarch says, was the name of Cleopatra's ship. Pope. 2 The greater cantle-] A piece or lump. Pope. Cantle is rather a corner. Cæsar, in this play, mentions the three-nook'd world. Of this triangular world every triumvir had a corner. Johnson. The word is used by Chaucer, in The Knight's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 3010: "Of no partie ne cantel of a thing." Steevens. See Vol. VIII, p. 258, n. 3. Malone. With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away How appears the fight? Scar. On our side like the token'd3 pestilence, Where death is sure. Yon' ribald-rid nag of Egypt, 3 token'd-] Spotted. Johnson. The death of those visited by the plague was certain, when particular eruptions appeared on the skin; and these were called God's tokens. So, in the comedy of Two Wise Men and all the rest Fools, in seven Acts, 1619: "A will and a tolling bell are as present death as God's tokens." Again, in Herod and Antipater, 1622: "His sickness, madam, rageth like a plague, Again, in Love's Labour's Lost: "For the Lord's tokens on you both I see." See Vol. IV, p. 129, n. 9. Steevens. ribald-] A luxurious squanderer. Pope. The word is in the old edition ribaudred, which I do not understand, but mention it, in hopes others may raise some happy conjecture. Johnson. A ribald is a lewd fellow. So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592: that injurious riball that attempts Again: "To vyolate my dear wyve's chastity." 66 Injurious strumpet, and thou ribald knave." Ribaudred, the old reading, is, I believe, no more than a corruption. Shakspeare, who is not always very nice about his versification, might have written: Yon ribald-rid nag of Egypt, i. e. Yon strumpet, who is common to every wanton fellow. We find, however, in The Golden Legend, Wynkyn de Worde's edit. fol. 186, b. that " Antony was wylde, ioly, and rybauldous, and had ye syster of Octauyan to his wyfe." Steevens. I have adopted the happy emendation proposed by Mr. Steevens. Ribaud was only the old spelling of ribald; and the misprint of red for rid is easily accounted for. Whenever, by any negligence in writing, a dot is omitted over an i, compositors at the press invariably print an e. Of this I have had experience in many sheets of my edition of Shakspeare, being very often guilty of that negligence which probably produced the error in the passage before us. In our author's own edition of his Rape of Lucrece, 1594, 】 have lately observed the same error: "Afflict him in his bed with bed-red groans." Again, in Hamlet, 1604, sign. B 3, Act I, sc. ii: Whom leprosy o'ertake! i' the midst o' the fight,- Hoists sails, and flies. Eno. That I beheld: mine eyes Did sicken at the sight on 't, and could not By ribald, Scarus, I think, means the lewd Antony in particular, not " every lewd fellow," as Mr. Steevens has explained it. Malone. Yon ribald nag of Egypt,] I believe we should read—hag. What follows seems to prove it: 66 She once being loof'd, "The noble ruin of her magick, Antony, "Claps on his sea-wing." Tyrwhitt. Odd as this use of nag might appear to Mr. Tyrwhitt, jade is daily used in the same manner. Henley. The brieze, or astrum, the fly that stings cattle, proves that is the right word. Johnson. nag 5 Whom leprosy o'ertake!] Leprosy, an epidemical distemper of the Egyptians; to which Horace probably alludes in the controverted line: "Contaminato cum grege turpium "Morbo virorum." Johnson. Leprosy was one of the various names by which the Lues venerea was distinguished. So, in Greene's Disputation between a He Coneycatcher and a She Coneycacther, 1592: "Into what jeopardy a man will thrust himself for her that he loves, although for his sweet villanie he be brought to loathsome leprosie." Steevens. Pliny, who says, the white leprosy, or elephantiasis, was not scen in Italy before the time of Pompey the Great, adds, it is " a peculiar maladie, and naturall to the Egyptians; but looke when any of their kings fell into it, woe worth the subjects and poore people for then were the tubs and bathing vessels wherein they sate in the baine, filled with men's bloud for their cure." Phile mon Holland's Translation, B. XXVI, c. i. : Reed. 6 Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,] So, in Julius Cesar: "We were two lions, litter'd in one day, Steevens. 7 The brize upon her,] The brize is the gad-fly. So, in Spenser: a brize, a scorned little creature, 66 Through his fair hide his angry sting did threaten." Steevens. Did sicken at the sight on 't,] For the insertion of-on 't, to complete the measure, I am answerable, being backed, however, by the authority of the following passage in Cymbeline : 66 the sweet view on 't Might well have warm'd old Saturn, -," Steevens. |