of vs that trade in Loue There is no thought here of traffic,—traffic is mercenary. No mercenary love demands music as its food. Cleopatra means that her sole dealing is in love; it is her very life.—Ed.
let's to Billards Malone: This game was not known in ancient times.— Hudson: ‘An anachronism,’ say the critics. But how do they know this? Late researches have shown that many things were in use in old Egypt, which, afterwards lost, have been reinvented in modern times. But Shakespeare did not know this? Doubtless, not; but then he knew that by using a term familiar to his audience he would lead their thoughts to what has always followed in the train of luxury and refinement. Suppose he had been so learned, and withal such a slave to his learning, as to use a term signifying some game which the English people had never heard of. Which were the greater anachronism?—A. A. Adee (Lit. World, 21 April, 1883, Boston): For about one hundred and fifty years, the favourite anachronism in Shakespeare's plays, singled out by the hypercritics, has been [this passage]. Of late, however, certain investigators have turned the tables, and instead of leaving the unlucky anachronism to support the Farmerian theory of Shakespeare's want of learning, or the more kindly modern belief that he wrote too impetuously to be bound by mere chronology and scientific facts, they find in it an argument against the Shakespearian authorship of the plays, since as one of them says: ‘The human encyclopedia who wrote that sentence appears to have known,—what very few people know nowadays,—that the game of billiards is older than Cleopatra.’ It may be, as asserted, that a rudimentary game, in which ivory balls were punched with a stick into holes in a table, after the fashion of our modern ‘tivoli’ or ‘bagatelle,’ was really in vogue more than two thousand years ago, but it is very certain that Shakespeare never bothered his head about it. He simply followed his habit, and cribbed the idea from somebody else. In Chapman's Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Ægiale says: ‘Go, Aspasia, Send for some ladies to go play with you At chess, at billiards, and at other game.’ As Chapman's play was printed in 1598, ten years before Ant. & Cleo. was written, it is easy to see where Shakespeare got the idea that billiards was an Egyptian game, and a favourite pastime of women. Whether George Chapman, whose classical learning enabled him to translate Homer, wrote from actual knowledge, or committed an anachronism, may be disputed; but the probabilities lean to the latter conjecture, for, in this same play, the hero flourishes a pistol, smokes tobacco, swears by ‘God's wounds,’ and talks fair modern Spanish, in the time of the Ptolomies.—Murray (N. E. D.): An adopted form of French billard, the game; so named from billard, ‘a cue,’ originally ‘a stick with curved end, a hockey-stick,’ diminutive of bille, piece of wood, stick. In England introduced only as the name of the game, and made plural as in draughts, skittles, bowls, etc. 1591 Spenser, Mother Hubberd, 803, ‘With all the thriftles games that may be found . . . With dice, with cards, with balliards. 1598 Florio, Trucco, a kinde of play with balles vpon a table, called billiards.’—[Then follows the present passage. In an Article in the Edinburgh Review (April, 1871, p. 377) on the ‘Chorizontes,’ the writer observes that ‘Shakespeare could not have made any of his characters speak of tobacco without being grossly anachronistic, the incidents in all his plays having occurred at remote periods, or, at any rate, much anterior to the introduction of tobacco into Europe, whereas Ben Jonson [who does mention tobacco] laid the plot of many a play in his own time when tobacco was familiar to all.’ This statement having been criticised by Dr Hayman, the editor of the Odyssey, the author of the Article replied (Athenæum, 6 Sept. 1873), and admirably defines the distinction between anachronisms, that might be termed permissible and those that are too ‘gross’ to be ever tolerated. After referring to the mention by Shakespeare of ‘cannon’ in King John, a ‘clock striking’ in Julius Cæsar, and ‘billiards’ in this present play, the writer continues, ‘but no dramatic author, to produce a scenic effect, would shrink from such anachronisms, because they are not “gross,” not so “gross” as to be detected in an instant by a theatrical audience, which knows nothing whatever about the origin of cannon, clocks, and billiards. But all Shakespeare's contemporaries, even the most ignorant, knowing that tobacco had been introduced into the old world during their lives, would have derided the great dramatist had he represented Sir John Falstaff consoling himself at Dame Quickly's in the reign of Henry the Fourth, with a pipe of tobacco. . . . So a dramatist of our age could not speak of William the Conqueror travelling by an express train, or sending a message by the electric telegraph; the anachronism would be “gross”; it would come immediately within the cognizance of the audience, who know what is going on in their own generation, with some knowing what went on in the generation immediately preceding; and, thinking the mistake ridiculous, they would burst into an excessive merriment. . . . But the anachronism would not be discovered by anybody in his audience, if a dramatic author were to represent the Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops going in a pair of boots to witness the progress of the building of the Great Pyramid, or the Jews returning in hats and shoes from their Babylonish captivity. For where can the theatrical audience be found that knows anything about the history of boots, hats, and shoes, when it does not comprise, peradventure, one man possessing sound learning and extensive information?’ —Ed.] 11. And when good will, etc.] Steevens: Compare, ‘For never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it.’—Mid N. D. V, i, 82.
Tawny fine fishes Theobald's emendation which seems obvious enough to us now, falls in with many another in Walker's list (Crit. ii, 61) of instances where final d and final e are confounded. See I, iv, 10; I, v, 58; V, i, 49. I do not know why Shakespeare should have here used ‘tawny,’ which is not, at least in my experience, a characteristic colour of Mediterranean fishes, some of which are extremely brilliant in hue; and he could hardly have had in mind English fish, inasmuch as he had already in Much Ado spoken of seeing ‘the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream.’ Possibly, it was Cleopatra's ‘moodiness’ which tinged everything with a sombre tint.—Ed.
hang a salt fish on his hooke See Plutarch, Appendix. Grey (ii, 198) quotes from Memoirs of the English Court, 1707, p. 489, a similar story of Nell Gwin and Charles the Second. Douce (ii, 88) gives a story from Nashe's Lenten Stuffe, where a Cambridge scholar deceived a gaping crowd in a somewhat similar fashion.
drunke Abbott (§ 339): Past indicative forms in u are very common in Shakespeare. Thus sang does not occur, while ‘sung’ is common as a past indicative. Sprang is less common as a past tense than ‘sprung.’ ‘Begun’ is not uncommon for ‘began,’ which is also used.
Then put my Tires and Mantles on him Warburton: This is finely imagined. The speaker is supposed to do this in imitation of Omphale, in her treatment of Hercules, the great ancestor of Antony.
Sword Phillippan Theobald: We are not to suppose, nor is there any warrant from history, that Antony had any particular sword so called. The dignifying weapons, in this sort, is a custom of much more recent date. We find Antony, afterwards, in this play, boasting of his own prowess at Philippi: see III, xi, 38. That was the greatest action of Antony's life; and therefore this seems a fine piece of flattery, intimating, that this sword ought to be denominated from that illustrious battle, in the same manner as modern heroes in romance are made to give their swords pompous names.
Enter a Messenger Mrs Jameson (ii, 133): As illustrative of Cleopatra's disposition, perhaps the finest and most characteristic scene in the whole play is that in which the messenger arrives from Rome with the tidings of Antony's marriage with Octavia. She perceives at once with quickness that all is not well, and she hastens to anticipate the worst, that she may have the pleasure of being disappointed. Her impatience to know what she fears to learn, the vivacity with which she gradually works herself up into a state of excitement, and at length into fury, is wrought out with a force of truth which makes us recoil.—Stapfer (p. 402): In the scene between Cleopatra and the messenger who brings the tidings of Antony's marriage with Octavia, her fury and unreasonableness know no bounds. Harpagon, thumping Maître Jacques, who, in obedience to his master's orders, tells him candidly what is said of him in the town; the Viceroy of Peru, in the ‘Périchole’ of Mérimée, banishing his secretary for a like service, are models of wisdom and coolness compared to Cleopatra. There is some shadow of excuse for their anger, as the account given them is not the mere simple announcement of a fact, but consists of a long preachment which the secretary and Maître Jacques may have flavoured with a spice of malice of their own; but the unhappy messenger to Cleopatra is as guiltless of the message as if he had given it to her under cover, closed and sealed. To insult him, beat him, and threaten him with a dagger shows a capability of exercising the same frenzy upon inanimate objects, such as pieces of furniture, mirrors, and china. No man, however furious, vents his rage in so senseless a form as this, which would seem to belong peculiarly to the anger of women and children. But at the same time, we must notice how passion dignifies every movement and action; the impetuous torrent of her wrath makes what is immeasurably petty, mean, and ridiculous appear even grand. No one would ever feel inclined to laugh at this scene, in which what might have been the subject for a comedy is transformed by the violence and force of Cleopatra's love into tragic cries and outbursts.—Collier (ed. ii): In the MS this Messenger is called Elis; but whether that were the name of the actor of the part, or of the character, as represented in some MS of the play, we cannot determine. We know no player of that day of the name of Elis or Ellis.
Ramme Steevens: Rain of Hanmer agrees better with the epithets fruitful and barren. So, in Timon: ‘Rain sacrificial whisp'rings in his ear.’—Malone: The term employed in the text is much in the style of the speaker; and is supported incontestably by a passage in Jul. Cæs.: ‘I go to meet The noble Brutus, thrusting this report Into his ears.’ Again, in The Tempest: ‘You cram these words into my ears, against The stomach of my sense.’—Ritson: Ram is a vulgar word, never used in our author's plays, but once by Falstaff, where he describes his situation in the buck-basket. It is here evidently a misprint for rain. The quotation from Jul. Cæs. does not support the old reading at all, the idea being perfectly distinct.— Steevens: ‘Ramm'd,’ however, occurs in King John: II, i, 272.—Staunton: The expression in the text is quite characteristic of the speaker.—[Had Cleopatra said sweetly and poetically ‘rain thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,’ the succeeding scene would never have been enacted.—Ed.] 33, 34. Anthonyo's dead, If thou, etc.] It is all very well for sudden terror to clutch at Cleopatra's heart and stop her pulses, but this is no excuse whatever for not speaking rhythmically. To what trouble her heedlessness gives rise! Abbott (§ 484) decides that Antony is ‘de - ad,’ and that the villain will kill his ‘Misteress.’ Walker (Vers. 48) does not prolong the term of Antony's demise, and twice slay the slain, but inserts a do after ‘thou,’ ‘If thou do say so;’ he cannot, however, abide plain ‘Mistris,’ but must also pronounce it Misteress. Delius believes that in her intense excitement Cleopatra uses Anthony's full dignified Latin name ‘Antonius,’ on the only occasion when it is used throughout the play. Keightley emits an additional groan before ‘Anthonyo.’ And thus all pare and protract the lines into nice, decorous lengths to please the eye, and rhythm is smug again.—Ed.
But well and free Rann: But well; and free:—Say but he is well; and thou gain'st thy freedom.—[Rann seldom, if ever, gives any authority in his notes; conjectures are there found of Capell, of M. Mason, and others; all mingled with those which I believe to be his own. I think that the foregoing note is one of the latter.—Ed.] 37. My blewest vaines to kisse, etc.] Hazlitt (p. 99): How all the pride of beauty and high rank breaks out in her promised reward.—[Is there not in Beaumont & Fletcher's False One, I, ii, a reminiscence of these lines:—‘and for thy news, Receive a favour kings have kneeled in vain for, And kiss my hand’?—Ed.]
no goodnesse in thy face if Anthony Be free I cannot but consider the punctuation of the Ff, which places a comma merely after ‘face,’ to be far better than Capell's colon. Cleopatra means, I think, that no one with good tidings to impart could wear such a hang-dog look.—Ed.
so tart a fauour Knight: How full of characteristic spirit is this passage, in which we exactly follow the punctuation of the original. But the editors are not satisfied with it. So they read, ‘why so tart a favour.’—Dyce (ed. ii): The ‘why’ added by Rowe (and by Collier's MS) is absolutely necessary for the sense of this passage, to say nothing of the metre.—[Knight is exactly right, I think, when he says this speech is characteristic of Cleopatra, but he seems hardly to be aware how right he is. Twice before have we had exclamations from Cleopatra as full of scorn and contempt as this. She said to Charmian (I, iii, 14) ‘Thou teachest like a fool. The way to lose him!’ and again (I, v, 86) ‘When I was green in judgement, cold in blood. To say as I said then!’ The present speech seems to me to be parallel. It appears to be a fashion of speaking as peculiar to Cleopatra as little short repetitions are to Rosalind, such as ‘Me believe it!’ ‘You a lover!’ etc. Rowe's didactic ‘why’ is to me offensive; and the pause after ‘healthful’ makes good the metre.—Ed.]
a Furie crown'd with Snakes Deighton: The Erinyes are represented by Æschylus as having bodies all black, snakes twined in their hair, and blood dripping from their eyes.
formall Johnson: Decent, regular.—Steevens: A man in his senses.— Bradley (N. E. D. s. v. † 4. c.): Normal in intellect.
'tis well Tyrwhitt's emendation, ‘is well,’ is not absolutely necessary. 56. set thee in a shower of Gold, etc.] Warburton: That is, I will give thee a kingdom, it being the eastern ceremony, at the coronation of their kings, to powder them with gold-dust and seed-pearl: So Milton,—‘the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold’—Bk. ii, line 5. In the Life of Timur-bec or Tamerlane, written by a Persian contemporary author, are the following words, as translated by Mons. Petit de la Croix, in the account there given of his coronation, Bk. ii, chap. 1: ‘Les Princes du sang royal et les Emirs repondirent à pleines mains sur sa tête quantitè d'or et de pierreries selon la coûtume.’
alay The good precedence Steevens: That is, abate the good quality of what is already reported.
fie vpon but yet Compare, Sir Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesie, 1598, p. 518, ad fin., ‘Thus doing, you shall be placed with Dantes Beatrix, or Virgils Anchises. But if (fie of such a But) you be born so neare the dirt-making Cataract of Nilus,’ etc.—Ed.
modestie Schmidt (Lex.): That is, freedom from arrogance or obtrusive impudence.—[Whereof the present passage is given as an example. But is it not, more properly, equivalent to moderation?—Ed.]
Draw a knife Note the mandatory tone, indicative of a play-house copy.— Ed.
Some Innocents scape not the thunderbolt Douce (ii, 89) takes this line as the subject of a note on the Roman belief in regard to those who were struck by lightning; it in nowise illustrates Cleopatra's words, which mean simply that the innocent sometimes suffer with the guilty, and that therefore this man cannot complain.—Walker (Crit. iii, 300) will have us arrange, ‘as my ear requires,’ he says, this and the preceding line thus: ‘The man is innocent. Some innocents | 'Scape not the thunderbolt,’ whereby it is difficult to perceive the gain. The halfline 99 is filled up, to be sure; but why should ‘'Scape not the thunderbolt’ be mutilated?
Melt Egypt . . . Turne all Abbott (§ 364) observes in regard to these two verbs that it is ‘often impossible to tell whether we have an imperative with a vocative, or a subjunctive used optatively or conditionally.’ I hardly understand what is meant by an ‘imperative with a vocative’ in this passage. The vocatives can hardly be ‘Egypt,’ or ‘kindly creatures.’ But omitting the ‘vocatives,’ both verbs seem to me imperatives, like ‘Let Rome in Tiber melt.’ Thiselton (p. 13), in the present command of Cleopatra and in that of Anthony last quoted, would find that ‘the affinity of nature between Anthony and Cleopatra is suggested by their similar imprecations when the continuance of their connection is threatened.’ —Ed.
Call? Is this interrogation mark absolutely wrong? It has been discarded by every editor since the Third Folio. But may it not indicate Charmian's hesitation, and Cleopatra's imperious questioning of her delay? May it not be similar to Lear's frenzied shout, ‘Who stirs?’ when the circle of courtiers stand motionless with horror at the banishment of Cordelia, and Lear has already cried, ‘Call France!’?—Ed. 106. These hands do lacke Nobility, etc.] Malone: This play was probably not produced until after Elizabeth's death, when a stroke at her proud and passionate demeanour to her courtiers and maids of honour (for her majesty used to chastise them too) might be safely hazarded.—[What cared Shakespeare, at such a moment, for Elizabeth and all her court? He was Cleopatra.—Ed.]
since I my selfe . . . the cause Deighton: Sc. by allowing myself to be such a slave to love for Antony.—[Or, possibly, in that she had ever allowed Anthony to leave her.—Ed.]
So halfe my Egypt Abbott (§ 133): ‘So,’ thus meaning on condition that, is sometimes used where the context implies the addition of even. Thus here, ‘So (even if) half my Egypt,’ etc.
appeere most vgly Steevens: So in King John, III, i, 36, 37: ‘Fellow, be gone; I cannot brook thy sight; This news hath made thee a most ugly man.’ 129. Take no offence, etc.] Capell (i, 35): Meaning—no new offence; and is spoke upon seeing her angry, that her question was not instantly answer'd; his delay, as the speaker would intimate, proceeding from no other cause, but—that he would not offend her.
That art not what th'art sure of Johnson: I fancy the line consists only of abrupt starts: ‘That art—not what?—Thou'rt sure on't.’ ‘That his fault should make a knave of thee that art—but what shall I say thou art not? Thou art then sure of this marriage.’—Steevens: In Meas. for Meas., II, ii, is a passage so much resembling this, that I cannot help pointing it out for the use of some future commentator, though I am unable to apply it with success to the very difficult line before us: ‘Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, His glassy essence.’—Tollet: That is, ‘Thou art not an honest man, of which thou art thyself assured, but thou art, in my opinion, a knave by thy master's fault alone.’— [Knight substantially adopts this paraphrase.]—M. Mason: A proper punctuation, with the addition of a single letter, will make this passage clear; the reading sure of't, instead of ‘sure of’: ‘That art not!—What? thou'rt sure of't?’ That is, ‘What? are you sure of what you tell me, that he is married to Octavia?’—Malone: Cleopatra begins now a little to recollect herself, and to be ashamed of having struck the servant for the fault of his master. She then very naturally exclaims: ‘O, that his fault should make a knave of thee, That art not what thou'rt sore of!’ for so I would read, with the change of only one letter. ‘Alas, is it not strange, that the fault of Antony should make thee appear to me a knave, thee, that art innocent, and art not the cause of that ill news, in consequence of which thou art yet sore with my blows!’ If it be said, that it is very harsh to suppose that Cleopatra means to say to the Messenger, that he is not himself that information which he brings, and which has now made him smart, let the following passage in Coriolanus answer the objection: ‘Lest you should chance to whip your information, And beat the messenger that bids beware Of what is to be dreaded.’—[IV, vi, 53.] The Egyptian queen has beaten her information. If the old copy be right, the meaning is—‘Strange, that his fault should make thee appear a knave, who art not that information of which thou bringest such certain assurance.’—Staunton observes that the ‘simple change [sore] proposed by Malone is more Shakespearian’ than Mason's. Collier (ed. i), who follows the punctuation of M. Mason without changing ‘of’ into of't, admits that the original text is ‘far from intelligible. By the words,’ he continues, ‘“What! thou'rt sure of?” Cleopatra intends to inquire of the messenger once more, whether he is certain of the tidings he has brought.’ In his Second Edition, however, Collier adopted Mason's of't, but in his Third Edition he returned to the punctuation and reading of his First.—Dyce (Remarks, p. 247): M. Mason's punctuation, with the change of ‘of’ to of't, afforded at least a sense; but Collier, . . . has made the passage mere nonsense. I should strongly protest against any deviation from the old eds. here. ‘That art not what thou'rt sure of’ may mean, ‘That art not the evil tidings of which thou givest me such assurance.’—[Collier did not relish having his reading stigmatised as ‘mere nonsense’; accordingly in his Second Edition he contrived in an adroit way to say that the Rev. Mr Dyce was in ‘somewhat of a dilemma,’ a hideous imputation which flesh and blood could not stand; and so in both of Dyce's subsequent editions, Dyce denounced Collier's ‘discreditable subterfuge,’ printing these two words in small capitals, which are always thus supposed to sting like adders fanged. If it were not ludicrous, would it not be humiliating, to see, in the awful presence of Shakespeare, wee atomies taking themselves so seriously?—Ed.]—R. G. White (ed. i) reads ‘That art but what thou'rt sure of,’ and thus explains: That is, being merely a messenger you are to be regarded only according to the tenor of your message . . . The universal previous punctuation of the passage makes it not superfluous to say, that it is not an optative exclamation, but a declaration; and that ‘that’ in the previous line is not the conjunction, but the definitive adjective. Cleopatra, in reply to the messenger's plea, that he only performs his office, says, ‘O that [i. e. Antony's marriage], which is his fault, should make a knave of thee, that art but what thy tidings are.’—[White retained this reading in his Second Edition, with substantially the same paraphrase.]—The CowdenClarkes: That is, who art not thyself that fault which thou art so sure has been committed. The Messenger has before said, ‘I that do bring the news made not the match,’ and ‘I have made no fault.’—Hudson (reading ‘That art in what thou'rt sure of’): That is, ‘sharest in, or art mixed up with, or infected by, the message which thou art sure of.’ So in I, ii, ‘The nature of bad news infects the teller.’ Cleopatra's idea seems to be, that the Messenger is made a knave by the knavish message which he brings, and with which he shows himself to be in sympathy by sticking to it so constantly.—C. M. Ingleby (N. & Qu. 1885, VI, xi, 362): The sense is: ‘that ought not to be confounded with thy foul message, yet seemest to be tarred with the same brush.’—G. Joicey (N. & Qu. 1891, VII, xii, 342): Read: ‘That art not—what thou art sure of!’ Is not Cleopatra about to say ‘that art not married’? She cannot bring herself to utter the (to her) detestable word again and paraphrases it as above. The meaning would be, ‘O that Antony's knavish fault of getting married should cause thee—thee that art not married—to be treated as a knave.’—Br. Nicholson (N. & Qu. 1892, VIII, i, 182): I take it that the author meant that Cleopatra,—looking to what she had just done,—would assume that such a knave was sure to be whipped or carted. One must not look for speech other than impulsive from an infuriated woman, still less from a Cleopatra maddened by jealous rage; nor was Shakespeare so bad an imitator of nature as to make her talk at such a time as thoughtfully as when debating what would best set off her charms when robed as the Paphian queen.—Deighton (Old Drama. ii, 41): Perhaps ‘That art no whit th’ author of 't': i. e., that you, who are in nowise answerable for his fault, should be made a knave by it. This seems a suitable sense, and author for ‘art sure’ is no very violent alteration considering the writing of the time and the various spellings of the word.—Herford: (With irony) that art innocent, forsooth, of offence, yet sure to offend!—[This line has not proved very encouraging to those who have lightheartedly attempted to amend it. Its most popular emendation has but five adherents. The original text can be paraphrased hardly better, I think, than it is by Dyce (following Malone substantially), as quoted above in his Remarks. What the messenger was sure of was the ill tidings. These he himself assuredly was not, and these it was that Cleopatra would like to tear in pieces; but as she had maltreated him instead, all the pity she could give him was that Anthony's fault had exposed him to the treatment of a knave.—Ed.]
em The only other instances, that I can recall (Concordances give no help) of the use in the First Folio of this abbreviation, are in The Tempest, where Prospero, speaking of his government in Naples, says ‘The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em, Or els new form'd 'em;’ I, ii, 99, 100; and again, in Henry V: IV, iii, 124, where Henry dismisses the French Herald who had come to demand a ransom from him, Henry replies, ‘They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints; Which if they have as I will leave 'em them, Shall yield them little,’ etc., where the full form, them, would be decidedly harsh; and the reason for the abbreviation is plain. Again, in Coriolanus, II, iii, 220, the First Citizen boasts, ‘I [have] twice hundred [voices] and their friends to piece 'em.’ Possibly this may indicate the low estate of the speaker. And, lastly, we find Macbeth demanding of the witches, ‘Call 'em; let me see 'em.’—IV, i, 72, which may indicate his frenzied impatience. But why this form should be used in the present line and in The Tempest, I do not know.—Ed.
I am . . . her yeares Walker (Crit. iii, 300): Arrange and write, perhaps,—‘I'm paid for't now.—Lead me from hence, I faint; | O, Iras—Charmian—’Tis no matter.—Go | To th' fellow, good Alexas; bid him report | The feature of Octavia, her years.” | 143. Report the feature, etc.] Grey (ii, 201): This is a manifest allusion to the questions put by Queen Elizabeth to Sir James Melvil concerning his mistress the Queen of Scots.—[The MS, containing Sir James Melvil's account, was not discovered until 1660, and was not published until 1683. It would not have been worth while to repeat this note of Grey, had it not been reprinted in the Variorum of 1821.—Ed.]
feature Schmidt (Lex) furnishes many examples where ‘feature’ means ‘the shape, make, exterior, the whole turn or cast of the body.’
Let him for euer go Johnson: She is now talking in broken sentences, not of the Messenger, but of Antony.—Tyrwhitt (p. 11): This, I think, would be more spirited thus:—‘Let him for ever go—let him—no,—Charmion.’—[Adopted, substantially, by Rann and Wordsworth.] let him not Thiselton (p. 14): That is, hinder him not. Cleopatra noticing that Charmian has started to bid Alexas not to bring back the Messenger, corrects herself and tells Charmian not to interfere. The first ‘him’ in this line refers to the Messenger; the second to Alexas.—[Dr Johnson's interpretation seems to me more just. Cleopatra's thoughts are not here concerned with any ignoble messenger. It is Anthony from whom she wishes to part ‘for ever,’ who, though he be in one aspect like a monster, in another he is a god.—Ed.]
painted one way . . . other wayes a Mars Staunton: An allusion to the ‘double’ pictures in vogue formerly, of which Burton says,—‘they are like these double or turning pictures; stand before wch, you see a fair maid, on the one side an ape, on the other an owl.’—[Democritus to the Reader, p. 73, ed. 1651.]—And Chapman, in All Fooles, I, i, ‘But like a cousoning picture, which one way Shewes like a Crowe, another like a Swanne.’—[Burton had once before (p. 36) thus referred to these pictures: ‘—and he, and the rest are hypocrites, ambodexters, out sides, so many turning pictures, a lyon on the one side, a lamb on the other.’—Ed.]
wayes a Mars Is not this clearly a sophistication due to the ear?—Ed.
Exeunt Mrs. Jameson (ii. 139): The pride and arrogance of the Egyptian queen, the blandishment of the woman, the unexpected but natural transitions of temper and feeling, the contest of various passions, and at length—when the wild hurricane has spent its fury—the melting into tears, faintness, and languishment, are portrayed with the most astonishing power, and truth, and skill in feminine nature. More wonderful still is the splendour and force of colouring which is shed over this extraordinary scene. The mere idea of an angry woman beating her menial presents something ridiculous or disgusting to the mind; in a queen or a tragedy heroine it is still more indecorous; yet this scene is as far as possible from the vulgar or the comic. Cleopatra seems privileged to ‘touch the brink of all we hate’ with impunity. This imperial termagant, this ‘wrangling queen, whom every thing becomes,’ becomes her fury. We know not by what strange power it is, that in the midst of all these unruly passions and childish caprices, the poetry of the character, and the fanciful and sparkling grace of the delineation are sustained and still rule in the imagination; but we feel that it is so.
William Shakespeare. Horace Howard Furness. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra. Philadelphia and London. J. B. Lippincott Company. 1907.
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