Her people out upon her; and Antony,. it, to determine precisely the meaning; and this, as a general obfervation, is perfectly juft, but it does not apply in the present cafe; for the preceding lines, Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, and the fubfequent line, A feeming mermaid Steers; very clearly point out the meaning of the word guife. If you alk in what guife? I answer in the guise of mermaids; and the connection is fufficiently clear even for profe, without claiming any allowance for poetical licence. But this objection may be entirely done away, by reading that guife inftead of the guife, which I fhould have adopted, if it had not departed fomewhat farther from the text. With refpect 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 fays that a mermaid's tail is an unclaffical image, adopted from modern fign posts: that such a being as a mermaid did never actually exift, 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 fame form that they are at this day. The creft 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 fupporters. Boyfe tells us, in his Pantheon, on what authority I cannot fay, that the Syrens were the daughters of Achelous, that their lower parts were like fithes, and their upper parts like women; and Virgil's defcription of Scylla, in his third neid, correfponds exactly with our idea of a mermaid: "Prima hominis facies, & pulchro pectore virgo Pube tenus, poftrema immeni corpore priftis." I have, therefore, no doubt but this was Shakspeare's idea alfo. Mr. Steevens's obfervations on the aukward and ludicrous fituation of Cleopatra's attendants, when involved in their fishes' tails, is very jocular and well imagined; but his jocularity proceeds from his not diftinguishing between reality and deception. If a modern fine lady were to represent a mermaid at a mafquerade, he would contrive, I have no doubt, to drefs in that character, yet to preferve the free ufe of all her limbs, and that with cafe; for the mermaid is not defcribed as refting on the Enthron'd in the market-place, did fit alone, And made a gap in nature. AGR. Rare Egyptian! ENO. Upon her landing, Antony fent to her, Invited her to fupper: fhe replied, It should be better, he became her gueft; For what his eyes eat only. AGR. Royal wench! She made great Cæfar lay his fword to bed; ENO. extremity of her tail, but on one of the bends of it, fufficiently 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 paffage as they have printed it. M. MASON. 4 That yarely frame the office.] i. e. readily and dexterously perform the talk they undertake. See Vol. IV. p. 5, n. 2. STEEVENS. S which, but for vacancy, Had gone-] Alluding to an axiom in the peripatetic philofophy then in vogue, that Nature abhors a vacuum. But for vacancy, means, for fear of a vacuum. WARBURTON, MALONE. For what his eyes eat only.] Thus Martial: STEEVENS. That she did make defect, perfection, MEC. Now Antony must leave her utterly. ENO. Never; he will not; Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry, 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 confideration of our female readers. Cleopatra, as appears from the tetradrachms of Antony, was no Venus; and indeed the majority of ladies who moft fuccefsfully enflaved the hearts of princes, are known to have been lefs remarkable for perfonal than mental attractions. The reign of infipid beauty is seldom lafting; but permanent must be the rule of a woman who can diverfify the fameness of life by an inexhausted variety of accomplishments. To ftale is a verb employed by Heywood, in The Iron Age, 1632: "One that hath ftal'd his courtly tricks at home." Other women STEEVENS. Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry, Where most he fatisfies.] Almoft the fame thought, elothed nearly in the fame expreffions, is found in the old play of Pericles: "Who ftarves the ears fhe feeds, and makes them hungry, "The more the gives them fpeech." Again, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd fatiety, "But rather famish them amid their plenty." MALONE. For vileft things Become themselves in her ;] So, in our author's 150th Sonnet : "Whence haft thou this becoming of things ill?" MALONE. Bless her, when she is riggish.2 MEC. If beauty, wisdom, modefty, can settle The heart of Antony, Octavia is A bleffed lottery to him.3 I the holy priests &c.] In this, and the foregoing defcription of Cleopatra's paffage down the Cydnus, Dryden seems to have emulated Shakspeare, and not without fuccefs : fhe's dangerous: "Her eyes have power beyond Theffalian charms, Age buds at fight of her, and fwells to youth: ; They bless her wanton eyes. Even I who hate her, "With a malignant joy behold such beauty, "And while I curfe defire it." Be it remembered, however, that, in both inftances, without a fpark from Shakspeare, the blaze of Dryden might not have been enkindled. REED. 2 when he is riggish.] Rigg is an ancient word meaning a ftrumpet. So, in Whetstone's Cafile of Delight, 1576: "Then loath they will both luft and wanton love, "Or elfe be fure fuch ryggs my care shall prove." Again: "Immodeft rigg, I Ovid's counfel ufde." Again, in Churchyard's Dolorous Gentlewoman, 1593: "About the ftreets was gadding, gentle rigge, "With clothes tuckt up to fet bad ware to fale, "For youth good stuffe, and for olde age a stale." STEEVENS. Again, in J. Davies's Scourge of Folly, printed about the year 1611: "When wanton rig, or lecher diffolute, "Do ftand at Paules Crofs in a-fuite." MALONE. Octavia is A bleffed lottery to him.] Dr. Warburton fays, the poet wrote allottery, but there is no reafon for this affertion. The ghost of Andrea, in The Spanish Tragedy, fays: "Minos in graven leaves of lottery "Drew forth the manner of my life and death." FARMER. AGR. Let us go. Good Enobarbus make yourself my gueft, ENO. Humbly, fir, I thank you. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The fame. A Room in Cæfar's House. Enter CESAR, ANTONY, OCTAVIA between them; Attendants and a Soothsayer. ANT. The world, and my great office, will some times Divide me from your bofom. Оста. All which time Before the gods my knee fhall bow my prayers4 ANT. So, in Stanyhurft's tranflation of Virgil, 1582: "By this hap efcaping the filth of lottarye carnal." Again, in The Honeft Man's Fortune, By Beaumont and Fletcher : "Fortune's false lottery." STEEVENS. Lottery for allotment. HENLEY. 4 -Shall bow my prayers-] The fame conftruction is found in Coriolanus, A& I. fc. i: 66 Shouting their emulation." Again, in King Lear, A&t II. fc. ii: "Smile you my speeches ?" Modern editors have licentiously read : bow in prayers. STEEVENS. |