And send to darkness all that stop me.-Come,
Let's have one other gaudy night': call to me
All my sad captains, fill our bowls; once more
Let's mock the midnight bell.

CLEO.

It is my birth-day? I had thought, to have held it poor; but, since my

lord

Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra 3.

ANT. We'll yet do well.

CLEO. Call all his noble captains to my lord. ANT. Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force

The wine peep through their scars.—Come on, my queen;

There's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight,

66

"Till his death, I did grace to Troy; and many lives did rate "At price of ransome; but none now, of all the brood of

I

2

Troy

(Who ever Jove throwes to my hands) shall any breath enjoy." STEEVENS.

I'll set my teeth,] So, in Coriolanus, Act I. Sc. III. : - he did so set his teeth and tear it," &c. STEEVENS.

GAUDY night:] This is still an epithet bestowed on feast days in the colleges of either university. STEEVENS.

Gawdy, or Grand days in the Inns of court, are four in the year, Ascension day, Midsummer day, All-saints day, and Candlemas day. "The etymology of the word," says Blount, in his Dictionary, "may be taken from Judge Gawdy, who (as some affirm) was the first institutor of those days; or rather from gaudium, because (to say truth) they are days of joy, as bringing good cheer to the hungry students. In colleges they are most commonly called Gawdy, in inns of courts Grand days, and in some other places they are called Collar days." REED.

Days of good cheer, in some of the foreign universities, are called Gaudeamus days. C.

3 Is Antony AGAIN, &c.] I shrewdly suspect that-again, which spoils the verse, is an interpolation, on the players' old principle of opening the sense, without regard to the metre. STEEVENS.

4 There's sap in't yet.] So, in King Lear:

"Then there's life in't." STEEVENS.

I'll make death love me; for I will contend
Even with his pestilent scythe 5.

[Exeunt ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and Attendants.

ENO. Now he'll out-stare the lightning". To be furious,

Is, to be frighted out of fear: and in that mood,
The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still,
A diminution in our captain's brain

Restores his heart: When valour preys on reason,
It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek
Some way to leave him.

[Exit.

Even with his pestilent scythe.] This idea seems to have been caught from the 12th book of Harrington's translation of The Orlando Furioso, 1591:

"Death goeth about the field, rejoicing mickle,

"To see a sword that so surpass'd his sickle."

This idea, however, is not entirely modern: for in Statius, Thebaid I. 633, we find that death is armed with a weapon:

Mors fila sororum

Ense metit. STEEVENS.

6 Now he'll out-stare the lightning.] Our author, in many of the speeches that he has attributed to Antony, seems to have had the following passage in North's translation of Plutarch in his thoughts: "He [Antony] used a manner of phrase in his speeche, called Asiatick, which carried the best grace at that time, and was much like to him in his manners and life; for it was full of ostentation, foolish braverie, and vaine ambition." MALONE.

See Dr. Johnson's note, at the conclusion of the play.

STEEVENS.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

CÆSAR'S Camp at Alexandria.

Enter CESAR, reading a Letter; AGRIPPA, MECENAS, and Others.

CES. He calls me boy; and chides, as he had power

To beat me out of Egypt: my messenger

He hath whipp'd with rods; dares me to personal

combat,

Cæsar to Antony: Let the old ruffian know,
I have many other ways to die'; mean time,
Laugh at his challenge.

Cæsar must think 8,

MEC.
When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted
Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now

7 I HAVE many other ways to die ;] What a reply is this to Antony's challenge? 'tis acknowledging that he should die under the unequal combat; but if we read

"He hath many other ways to die: mean time,

"I laugh at his challenge."

In this reading we have poignancy, and the very repartee of Cæsar. Let's hear Plutarch. "After this, Antony sent a challenge to Cæsar, to fight him hand to hand, and received for answer, that he might find several other ways to end his life."

UPTON.

I think this emendation deserves to be received. It had, before Mr. Upton's book appeared, been made by Sir T. Hanmer.

JOHNSON.

Most indisputably this is the sense of Plutarch, and given so in the modern translations; but Shakspeare was misled by the ambiguity of the old one : "Antonius sent again to challenge Cæsar to fight him: Cæsar answered, that he had many other ways to die, than so." FARMER.

"Cæsar needs must think-." RITSON.

This is a very probable supplement for the syllable here apparently lost. So, in King Henry VIII.:

"But I must needs to the Tower." STEEvens.

Make boot of his distraction. Never anger
Made good guard for itself.

CES. Let our best heads Know, that to-morrow the last of many battles We mean to fight :-Within our files there are Of those that serv'd Mark Antony but late, Enough to fetch him in1. See it done 2; And feast the army: we have store to do't, And they have earn'd the waste.

2

Poor Antony!

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Alexandria. A Room in the Palace.

Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHAR-
MIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and Others.

ANT. He will not fight with me, Domitius.
ENO.

ANT. Why should he not?

No.

ENO. He thinks, being twenty times of better

fortune,

He is twenty men to one.

ANT.

To-morrow, soldier,

By sea and land I'll fight: or I will live,

Or bathe my dying honour in the blood

Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well? ENO. I'll strike; and cry, Take all3.

9 Make boot of-] Take advantage of

JOHNSON.

I Enough to FETCH HIM IN.] So, in Cymbeline :

2

66

break out, and swear

"He'd fetch us in."

STEEVENS.

See it BE done;] Be was inserted by Sir T. Hanmer, to complete the measure.

STEEVENS.

3 Take all.] Let the survivor take all. No composition; victory or death. JOHNSON.

So, in King Lear:

66

unbonneted he runs,

"And bids what will, take all." STEEVENS.

ANT.

Well said; come on.

Call forth my household servants; let's to-night

Enter Servants.

Be bounteous at our meal.-Give me thy hand, Thou hast been rightly honest ;-so hast thou ;And thou,-and thou,-and thou:-you have serv'd me well,

And kings have been your fellows.

CLEO.

What means this?

ENO. 'Tis one of those odd tricks", which sor

row shoots

Out of the mind.

ANT.

And thou art honest too.
I wish, I could be made so many men;
And all of you clapp'd up together in

An Antony; that I might do

So good as you have done.

SERV.

you service,

[Aside.

The gods forbid!

ANT. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to

night :

Scant not my cups; and make as much of me,
As when mine empire was your fellow too,
And suffer'd my command.

CLEO.

What does he mean?

Tend me to-night;

ENO. To make his followers weep.
ANT.

May be, it is the period of your duty:
Haply, you shall not see me more; or if,

4 AND thou,] And, which is wanting in the old copy, was supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer.

5

STEEVENS.

one of those odd TRICKS,] I know not what obscurity the editors find in this passage. Trick is here used in the sense in which it is uttered every day by every mouth, elegant and vulgar: yet Sir T. Hanmer changes it to freaks, and Dr. Warburton, in his rage of Gallicism, to traits. JOHNSON.