a Banket Malone: A banquet frequently signified what we now call a dessert; and from the following dialogue the word must here be understood in that sense.
some o'th'their Plants Johnson: ‘Plants,’ besides its common meaning, is here used for the foot, from the Latin.—Steevens: So, in Lupton's A thousand Notable things, etc.: ‘Grind Mustard with Vineger, and rub it well and hard on the plants or soles of the feete: [and it will helpe and quicken forgetfull persons.’ —1627, The Third Booke, No. 30.]
high Conlord This gross misprint which was corrected in the Second Folio, Gould (p. 45) accepts as the genuine word, and asserts that ‘high-coloured’ is ‘one of the most absurd alterations’ he ‘ever met with.’ He then goes on to explain that Lepidus ‘was one of the triumviri or conlords, and this is the subject of conversation.’ Many years ago I regretfully announced that my patience was exhausted by the ignorance and presumption of Zachary Jackson, Andrew Becket, Lord Chedworth, and E. H. Seymour, and that thereafter, save in exceptional cases, no space on these pages should be sacrificed to their notes. After the foregoing note on ‘conlord’ would a single voice be raised in censure if George Gould be added to the list?—Ed.
Almes drinke Warburton: A phrase, amongst good fellows, to signify that liquor of another's share which his companion drinks to ease him. But it satirically alludes to Cæsar and Antony's admitting him into the Triumvirate, in order to take off from themselves the load of envy.—Collier (ed. ii): Meaning wine that did not properly belong to his share, but which each had contributed, in order to intoxicate Lepidus.—Schmidt (Lex.): It evidently means here the leavings.—Murray (N. E. D. 4. b.): The remains of liquor reserved for alms-people.—[Apparently, this is the only known instance of the use of this phrase in the language. It is the solitary example furnished by Murray. Everyone is entitled, therefore, to give it any meaning that in his opinion harmonises with the eternal fitness of things. To me, Collier's definition seems the closest. Just as an alms-penny means, as Murray says, ‘a penny given in charity or as a gratuity,’ so an ‘alms-drink’ may be a drink that is given as a charity or as a gratuity. Inasmuch as there is here no question of charity, we may take it as a gratuity, and a gratuity bestowed by more than one. Lepidus then drank not only his own share, but ‘they’ plied him with wine, which, like the contents of a poor-box, was the result of many gratuitous contributions.— Ed.]
As they pinch one another by the disposition Warburton: A phrase equivalent to that now in use, of ‘touching one in a sore place.’—Capell (i, 35): This signifies, attack for their foibles, the foibles each is dispos'd to.—Collier (ed. ii): This seems to refer to the sign they give each other regarding ‘the disposition’ of Lepidus to drink.—Staunton: ‘By the disposition’ is a very questionable expression. We ought perhaps to read, ‘by the disputation,’ that is, in the controversy.—The Cowden-Clarkes: That is, ‘as they try each other's temper by banter,’ ‘as they gall or plague each other's sensitiveness by their mutual taunts.’ Schmidt (Lex.) here defines ‘pinch’ as ‘to make ridiculous, to serve a trick.’ ‘By the disposition’ means, he also says, ‘by their foible,’ adding, ‘a servant's speech.’ [I find it, however, a little difficult to combine the two definitions into a coherent and applicable paraphrase of the whole sentence. Is it: they serve one another a trick by their foibles?—Ed.]—J. Crosby (Shakespeariana, Feb. 1884, p. 122): The servant has said [in effect], they have made him drink not only his own wine, but a share of theirs also. And now as they dispose of and set before him, their full goblets to quaff, they pinch one another, or wink significantly, at the imposition they are practising on the good-natured reveler. And this harmonises with the context, ‘he cries, “No more;” reconciles them to his entreaty, and himself to the drink.’ ‘Not another drop, gentlemen, I beseech you; I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out;’ to all of which they assent; and he forthwith proceeds to drain the cups, that raise ‘the greater war between him and his discretion.’ I formerly thought we should read ‘as they pinch one another at the imposition. But the explanation I have given seems sufficient.—Thiselton (p. 15): In order to ply Lepidus sufficiently with liquor and at the same time keep sober themselves, his companions give him ‘Almes drinke,’ thereby stinting themselves (‘pinch one another by the disposition’). By this means, he has their shares as well as his own, and, being satisfied with such good measure, and, perhaps, feeling some awkwardness at drinking alone in company, he cries out ‘No more,’ i. e. ‘enough.’ They, having so far gained their object, comply, while he proceeds to drink the wine that has been so served to him. . . . The passage has been confused by . . . the assumption that ‘reconciles’ necessarily imports the inferiority of the wine served to Lepidus, when it probably indicates a slight touch of conscience on his part at continuing to drink alone. ‘One another’ is certainly used somewhat loosely for themselves, but it must be borne in mind that it is a servant who speaks.—Deighton: This seems to mean, as they ply each other hard with the mischievous desire of seeing one another under the table, Lepidus, affecting to have had as much as he can carry, cries out ‘enough;’ yet all the same, while getting them to accept his excuses, finds it possible to quiet his scruples against further indulgence; though perhaps ‘'twere to consider too curiously to consider’ the servant's speech as having any very exact sense.—[If ‘one another’ can be regarded as the same as themselves, Thiselton's interpretation seems to be the most plausible. The excuse, first suggested by Schmidt, for any looseness of expression—that it is the servants who are speaking—is hardly applicable when we find them presently referring, as Rolfe and Deighton assume, to the ‘Ptolomaic system of astronomy,’ and using a term of astrology. But still, letting that excuse pass for what it is worth, the idea that by disposing of an extra allowance to Lepidus they stinted one another, is at least a more dignified explanation than that of supposing that they pinched each other, or tipped one another the wink, over the success of their ‘little game.’ Schmidt's paraphrase, ‘foibles,’ which he probably derived from Capell without exactly comprehending it, is to me, whether in Schmidt or Capell, unintelligible.—Ed.]
Partizan Murray (N. E. D. s. v. sb.2): Adopted from the 16th century French, partizane; an adaptation of Italian, partesana. The origin of the Italian word is disputed. . . . A military weapon used (under this name) by footmen in the 16th and 17th centuries, consisting of a long-handled spear, the blade having one or more lateral cutting projections, variously shaped, so as sometimes to pass into the gisarme and the halberd.
To be call'd into a huge Sphere, . . . pittifully disaster the cheekes Johnson: This speech seems to be mutilated; to supply the deficiencies is impossible, but perhaps the sense was originally approaching to this: ‘To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in it,’ is a very ignominious state; ‘great offices’ ‘are the holes where eyes should be, which (if eyes be wanting), pitifully disaster the cheeks.’—M. Mason: The thought, though miserably expressed, appears to be this: That a man called into a high sphere, without being seen to move in it, is a sight as unseemly as the holes where the eyes should be, without the eyes to fill them.—Malone: I do not believe a single word has been omitted. The being called into a huge sphere, and not being seen to move in it, these two circumstances, says the speaker, resemble sockets in a face where eyes should be [but are not], which empty sockets, or holes without eyes, pitifully disfigure the countenance. ‘The sphere in which the eye moves’ is an expression which Shakespeare has often used. Thus, in his 119th Sonnet: ‘How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,’ etc. Again, in Hamlet: ‘Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres.’— Rolfe here finds in ‘sphere’ an ‘allusion to the old Ptolomaic astronomy, according to which the heavenly bodies were set in hollow crystal spheres, by the revolution of which they were carried round.’ And ‘disaster,’ he observes, ‘was an astrological term and is probably suggested here by the figure that precedes.’ [Both of these suggestions are, to me, somewhat doubtful. ‘Sphere’ and ‘disaster’ had been so long used, I think, in their figurative sense, as in the two quotations given by Malone, that all thought of their origin had been lost. Of course this does not apply to ‘music of the spheres’ or ‘discord in the spheres’ and the like. Moreover, it seems to me hardly Shakespearian to put such learned allusions into the mouths of servants. Deighton agrees, however, with Rolfe and quotes him with approval.— Ed.]
A Sennet Nares: A word chiefly occurring in the stage-directions of the old plays, and seeming to indicate a particular set of notes on the trumpet or cornet, different from a flourish. ‘Trumpets sound a florish, and then a sennate.’—Decker's Satiromastix [p. 222, ed. Pearson]. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of Malta, V, ii, it is written synnet, and Mr Sympson has explained it, i. e. ‘flourish of trumpets.’ But we see from Decker's play that they were different. It appears to have been a technical term of the musicians who played those instruments. 20. Enter Cæsar, etc.] Knight (Supp. Notice, p. 357): This scene is one of those creations which render Shakspere so entirely above, and so utterly unlike, other poets. Every line is a trait of character. Here we see the solemn, ‘unmeritable’ Lepidus; the cautious Cæsar; the dashing, clever, genial Antony. His eye dances; his whole visage ‘doth cream and mantle;’ the corners of his mouth are drawn down, as he hoaxes Lepidus about the crocodile with the most admirable fooling. The revelry grows louder and louder, till ‘the Egyptian bacchanals’ close the scene. Who can doubt that Antony bears ‘the holding’ the loudest of all? These are not the lords of the world of French tragedy. Grimm, who, upon the whole, has a leaning to Shakspere, says:—‘Il est assez ridicule sans doute de faire parler les valets comme les héros; mais il est beaucoup plus ridicule encore de faire parler aux héros le langage du peuple.’ To make them drunk is worse even than the worst of the ridiculous. It is impossible to define such a sin. We think, with Dogberry, it is ‘flat burglary as ever was committed.’
they take the flow o'th'Nyle Reed: Pliny, speaking of the Nile, says: ‘How high it riseth, is known by markes and measures taken of certaine pits. The ordinary height of it is sixteen cubits. Vnder that gage the waters ouerflow not all. Aboue that stint there are a let and hinderance, by reason that the later it is ere they be fallen, and downe again. By these, the seed time is much of it spent, for that the earth is too wet. By the other there is none at all, by reason that the ground is dry and thirsty. The prouince taketh good keep and reckoning of both, the one as well as the other; For when it is no higher than 12 cubits, it findeth extream famine: yea, and at 13 it feeleth hunger still, 14 cubits comforts their hearts, 15 bids them take no care, but 16 affoordeth them plenty and delicious dainties. . . . And so soon as any part of the land is freed from the water, straight waies it is sowed.’—Holland's Trans. Bk. V., chap. ix, p. 98, ed. 1601.—Malone: Shakspeare seems rather to have derived his knowledge of this fact from Leo's History of Africa, translated by John Pory, folio, 1600: ‘Upon another side of the island standeth an house alone by itselfe, in the midst whereof there is a foure-square cesterne or channel of eighteen cubits deep, whereinto the water of Nilus is conveyed by a certain sluice under ground. And in the midst of the cisterne there is erected a certaine piller, which is marked and divided into so many cubits as the cisterne containeth in depth. And upon the seventeenth of June, when Nilus beginning to overflow, the water thereof conveied by the said sluce into the channel, increaseth daily. If the water reacheth only to the fifteenth cubit of the said piller, they hope for a fruitful yeere following; but if [it?] stayeth between the twelfth cubit and the fifteenth, then the increase of the yeere will prove but mean: if it resteth between the tenth and twelfth cubits, then it is a sign that corne will be solde ten ducates the bushel.’
Pyramid W. W. Lloyd (N. & Qu. 1897, VII, xi, 283) quotes ‘Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations.’—Macb. IV, i, 56; the present passage, and ‘rather make My Countries high pyramides my Gibbet.’— V, ii, 71, and then from them infers that by ‘pyramid,’ Shakespeare ‘understands not a proper pyramid, but an obelisk.’ It is certainly not impossible; both terms were used vaguely, in accordance with the conception in the popular mind of the objects themselves. Thus, for instance, Cotgrave defines an ‘obelisque’: ‘a great, high, and square stone, broad at the bottome, and lessening towards the top like a Pyramides.’ —Ed.
or the meane Steevens: That is, the middle.
Foizon Bradley (N. E. D.): Adopted from Old French foison, fuson = Provençal foison, regular phonetic descendant from popular Latin fŭsiōn-em for Latin fūsiōn-em, a pouring, noun of action formed on funděre to pour. 1. Plenty, abundance, a plentiful supply.
And shortly The Cambridge Edition records an Anonymous conjecture: ‘And 't shortly,’ which is highly probable. Haruest Corson (p. 287): There's an air of solidity in this speech, which indicates a consciousness on the part of the speaker, that he has imbibed quite freely, and therefore assumes a solid tone of speech.—[Or it may be merely the assurance of one who speaks of that whereof he knows. Anthony befittingly assumes to be an authority on things Egyptian.—Ed.]
Your Serpent . . . your mud . . . your Sun . . . your Crocodile If any student desires other instances of this idiom, common at this day, he may find them in Abbott, § 221. 35. I am not so well, etc.] Lepidus takes the ‘health’ literally and replies that he is not very well, but he will not on that account leave the circle, which is what he means, I suppose, by ‘I'll ne'er out;’ Enobarbus, in an Aside, perverts it, however, into meaning that he will not be out of his debauch until he can sleep it off.—Ed.
Pyramisis Malone: Pyramis for pyramid was in common use in our author's time. So, in Bishop Corbet's Poems, 1647: ‘Nor need the chancellor boast, whose pyramis Above the host and altar reared is.’ From this word Shakspeare formed the English plural, pyramises, to mark the indistinct pronunciation of a man nearly intoxicated, whose tongue is now beginning to ‘split what it speaks.’—[This suggestion of Malone, that the pronunciation ‘pyramises’ indicates the fumes of wine, has been silently adopted by several commentators since his day. There is not the smallest objection to allowing Lepidus to reach the utmost limits of intoxication, but I do not see that in the present speech he has advanced as far as Malone would have him. First, he does not say ‘pyramises;’ this plural form Capell unwarrantably puts in his mouth. He says ‘pyramisis,’ which, if he shared Bishop Corbet's apparent belief that pyramis is an English singular, is no bad attempt to form a regular English plural; certainly not so bad as to say that his tongue splits what it speaks. Secondly, Shakespeare does not depend on bad spelling to add comicality to language. All spelling in his day was too lawless. This does not apply, of course, to dialectic words like ‘chill’ for I will, and the like. If Lepidus's tongue were too ‘thick,’ in modern, not Shakespearian, speech, to pronounce pyramides, how comes it that immediately afterward he pronounces without difficulty a word quite as hard: ‘contradiction’? Lastly, in the very speech in which Cæsar says his ‘own tongue splits,’ there is no word misspelt, unless it be spleets itself, which is probably merely phonetic, and not a misspelling. See the regular plural, ‘pyramides,’ in V, ii, 71.—Ed.]
Whar This word is clearly thus spelled in my copy of the First Folio, and also a little less clearly in Staunton's photo-zincographic reproduction. But it is What in the Reprint of 1807 and in Booth's most accurate Reprint, as it is also, presumably, in the copy which the Cambridge Editors collated; they make no note of any variation. This is trivial enough, and noteworthy merely as additional proof that copies of the First Folio vary.—Ed.
it owne According to The Bible Word-Book (Eastwood and Wright) yt or it is used in the Folio fourteen times for its; Murray (N. E. D. s. v. Its) says fifteen times; its occurs ten times, whereof five (spelled it's) are in The Winter's Tale. The instances specified, in The Bible Word-Book, are given in a note on Wint. Tale, I, ii, 183, of this ed. Its does not occur in the Authorised Version of the Bible, 1611. It in place of its occurs in Levit. xxv, 5, where is the same phrase as in the present passage: ‘That which groweth of it owne accord;’ this was changed to ‘its own’ in an edition of the Bible printed, according to Murray (loc. cit.), in 1660. Milton, who died in 1674, does not use its. Abbott (§ 228) says that it is ‘occasionally’ found for its, ‘when a child is mentioned, or when anyone is contemptuously spoken of as a child.’ If this be one of the ‘occasional’ instances, it is not without meaning that Anthony now uses it to Lepidus.
the Elements See note on III, ii, 47.
Will this, etc. The Text. Notes show the Asides in these and the following lines.
tell me of that? This is purposely vague, and refers to what Menas had whispered ‘in's eare.’
held my cap off to thy Fortunes Compare, ‘my demerites May speake (vnbonnetted) to as proud a Fortune,’ etc.—Othello, I, ii, 25, of this edition.
Quicke-sands Voss: Antony refers to the cup of wine, which Pompey had ordered for Lepidus, and was now handed to him.
for you sinke If a choice must be made between Theobald's 'fore and Walker's or, the latter seems preferable. But I doubt the necessity of any choice. Staunton prefers 'fore, and also at III, xiii, 78, where he refers to the present passage as parallel.—Ed.
Hast thou drunke well Capell (i, 36, reading ‘Thou hast’): A sarcastical affirmation of Pompey's; and no interrogation, as the moderns have made it, by putting a mark after ‘well’ which they did not find in the two elder Folio's; whose only mistake, in this instance, was—a transposition of ‘hast’ and ‘thou.’—[It would not be difficult to express sarcasm by a question as well as by an affirmation, and the text of the Folio be still preserved.—Ed.]
the Ocean pales Should any poet nowadays venture on using this verb in connection with the ocean he would be, it is to be feared, severely criticised. But as in the beginning of this scene we had to pardon some expressions because uttered by servants, so here point device phrases are hardly to be expected from a pirate.—Ed.
Competitors The same word is used in I, iv, 5; V, i, 52; see I, i, 21.
Let me cut the Cable See Plutarch, Appendix.
All there is thine Steevens: This may mean, all in the vessel.—Rolfe: ‘There’ may be accompanied with a gesture towards the company they have left.— [Pope's specious then has beguiled excellent editors. Rolfe's interpretation is, to me, just; ‘there’ is spoken δεικτικω_ς. (This pedantic word will, I trust, be pardoned. I know no English word precisely equivalent; demonstratively comes, perhaps, the nearest, but this could be applied to a clenched fist, to which the Greek word, with its implied wave of the hand, would be, I think, quite inapplicable.)—Ed.]
Mine Honour it Abbott (§ 385): That is, (But it is), Mine honour (that doth lead) it (i. e. profit).
paul'd Murray (N. E. D. s. v. Palled, past participle from Pall which is apparently aphetic from Appal, to which the early senses are parallel): Enfeebled, weakened, impaired.
Who seekes . . . neuer finde it more Vischer (p. 103, footnote) recalls Schiller's apothegm: Was du von der Minute ausgeschlagen, das bringt dir keine Ewigkeit zurrück.
Ile pledge it : ‘The English,’ says Master Estienne Perlin (Description d' Angleterre, 1558), ‘are great drunkards (“fort grands yvrongnes”); for if an Englishman would treat you, he will say in his language, vis dring a quarta rim oim [? oin] gasquim oim hespaignol oim malvoysi, that is, will you drink a quart of Gascoigne wine, another of Spanish, and another of Malmsy? In drinking or eating they will say to you above a hundred times, drind iou, which is, I drink to you; and you should answer them in their language, iplaigiou, which means, I pledge you. If you would thank them in their language, you must say, god tanque artelay. When they are drunk, they will swear by blood and death that you shall drink all that is in your cup, and will say to you thus: bigod sol drind iou agoud oin.’—Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, p. 190. Not very appropriate, but amusing.—Ed.
seest not? Walker (Vers. 291): Qu. ‘seëst not?’ yet the uncontracted seëst seems strange in Shakespeare.—[Singer silently adopted this suggestion.]
then he is drunk There seems to be no necessity to adopt Rowe's omission of ‘he.’ Had there been an interrogation mark after ‘The third part,’ or even a dash, would anyone have suggested a change?—Ed.
it might go on wheeles Malone: The World runs on Wheels is the title of a pamphlet by Taylor, the Water-Poet.
encrease the Reeles Steevens: As the word—reel was not, in our author's time, employed to signify a dance or revel, and is used in no other part of his works as a substantive, it is not impossible that the passage before us, which seems designed as a continuation of the imagery suggested by Menas, originally stood thus: ‘and grease the wheels.’—Douce: Here is some corruption, and unless it was originally revels, the sense is irretrievable. In all events Steevens has erred in saying that ‘reel was not in our author's time, employed to signify a dance.’ [Hereupon Douce gives a quotation from Newes from Scotland, 1591, wherein there is a reference to a ‘reill or short daunce.’ See note on Macbeth, I, iii, 11 (of this edition), where this quotation is given in full, not, however, by Douce, but strangely enough by Steevens himself, who had evidently forgotten it.—Ed.]—Singer: Menas says ‘would it were all so (i. e. drunk), that it [the world] might go on wheels, i. e. turn round or change.’ To which Enobarbus replies, ‘Drink thou; increase the reels,’ i. e. increase its giddy course.—Schmidt (Lex.): That is, increase the motions like those of drunken men; used in this sense for the rhyme's sake.—[A sporadic rhyming couplet in a scene like the present is to me un-Shakespearian; it is probably accidental, not intentional. Moreover, the explanations of ‘Reeles,’ whether referring to the giddy course of the world or to the drunken gait of Menas, are to me forced. I much prefer to regard the word as a contraction of revels; the likelihood of this contraction is set forth in the note on I, iv, 7, above. —Ed.]
strike the Vessells Johnson: Try whether the casks sound as empty.— Steevens: This means no more than ‘chink the vessels one against the other, as a mark of our unanimity in drinking,’ as we now say chink glasses.—Holt White: Vessels probably mean kettle-drums, which were beaten when the health of a person of eminence was drank; immediately after we have, ‘make battery to our ears with the loud musick.’ They are called kettles in Hamlet: ‘Give me the cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak.’—Boswell: In Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, we meet with a passage which leaves no doubt, as Weber has observed, that to strike the vessels means to tap them: ‘Home, Launce, and strike a fresh piece of wine.’— V, x.—Dyce (Gloss.) reiterates Boswell's assertion that Weber had rightly explained the meaning of ‘strike’ in this line, and adds an example of its use ‘with the same signification in a well-known modern poem: “L' Avare, not using half his store, Still grumbles that he has no more; Strikes not the present tun, for fear The vintage should be bad next year.” ’—Prior's Alma, C. iii. The Cowden-Clarkes while granting that ‘strike’ at times means to tap, do not believe that it has this meaning here, because ‘Antony would hardly bid them broach more wine where Pompey is the entertainer; and, moreover, at this stage of the entertainment there would be no question of any one giving such an order.’ They, therefore, adopt Steevens's interpretation. [If Shakespeare had meant that the revellers should merely clink the glasses, as in Iago's song: ‘Let me the cannikin clink,’ I doubt that he would have used so strong a word as ‘strike.’ As regards courtesy, Anthony was almost invited by Pompey to call for more wine by his complaint that they had not yet reached the height of an Alexandrian feast.—Ed.]
and it grow fouler Singer reads ‘an it grow fouler,’ which, as Dyce (ed. ii) justly observes, is ‘not a probable reading.’
a Child o'th'time That is, submit like a child to the humour of the hour. Compare Lady Macbeth's words (for I believe them to be hers) to her husband: ‘Away, and mock the time with fairest show, False face must hide what the false Heart doth know.’—I, vii, 94. Lady Macbeth and Anthony use ‘time’ in the same sense, that is, ‘the company about you.’—Ed.
Possesse it Collier (ed. ii, reading Profess it from his MS, thus explains): That is, Profess to be a child of the time, and I'll do the same. Although the meaning of Profess here may not be very evident, ‘Possess’ seems to offer no consistent sense. In King Lear, I, i, we have seen the opposite error, for there ‘possesses’ was misprinted professes.—Collier in his Third Edition returned to the original text, ‘Possess,’ with the brief note: ‘So the old copies, s. q. Pass it, viz., the cup.’—Anon. (Blackwood, Oct. 1853, p. 467): Cæsar's meaning is quite obvious; he means, Be master of it. ‘Be a child of the time,’ says Antony. ‘Rather be its master, say I,’ rejoins Cæsar,—a sentiment much more likely to come from the lips of the great dictator than the paltry rejoinder which [Collier's MS] puts into his mouth—‘Profess it,’—that is, profess to be the child of the time.—Singer (Sh. Vind. 291): Cæsar may mean, ‘Possess it’ rather than waste it, like a child o'the time in drunkenness.—Staunton: There is some ambiguity in the word ‘possess,’ which, if not a misprint, is employed here in a sense we are unaccustomed to; but the meaning of the passage is plain enough. In former days it was the practice, when one good fellow drank to another, for the latter to ‘do him right’ by imbibing a quantity of wine equal to that quaffed by the health-giver. Antony proposes a health to Cæsar, but Cæsar endeavours to excuse himself, whereupon Antony urges him by saying, ‘Be a child o'the time,’ i. e. do as others do; indulge for once. Cæsar then consents to pledge the health, and says, ‘possess it,’ or propose it,—I'll do it justice. —Thiselton (p. 16): This simply means, ‘Have your wish.’—[I prefer the interpretation of Anon. in Blackwood (who is said to have been Lettsom).—Ed.]
The holding euery man shall beate Theobald: The company were to join in the burden, which the poet styles the holding. But how were they to beat this with their sides? I am persuaded the poet wrote: ‘The holding every man shall bear, as loud As his strong sides can volley.’ The breast and sides are immediately concerned in straining to sing as loud and forcibly as a man can. So in the Huntsman's Song in As You Like It, we find the marginal direction: ‘The rest shall bear this Burthen.’—Steevens: ‘Beat’ might have been the poet's word, however harsh it may appear at present. In Henry VIII. we find a similar expression: ‘— let the musick knock it.’—Johnson: ‘The holding every man shall beat.’ That is, Every man shall accompany the chorus by drumming on his sides, in token of concurrence and applause.—[Did Dr Johnson measure every one's capacity to drum on his sides by his own?—Ed.—M. Mason: To bear the burden, or, as it is here called, the holding of a song, is the phrase at this day. The passage, quoted by Steevens, from Henry VIII. relates to instrumental musick, not to vocal.—Malone: The meaning of the holding is ascertained by a passage in an old pamphlet called The Serving Man's Comfort, 1598: ‘— where a song is to be sung the under-song or holding whereof is, It is merrie in haul where beards wag all.’
The Song Capell (i, 36): When this play was fitted up for the stage in the year fifty-eight by the present editor, a stanza was then added to this truly bacchanalian song, and the song printed as follows: 1. Come, thou monarch of the vine, Plumpy Bacchus, with pink eyne; Thine it is to cheer the soul, Made, by thy enlarging bowl, Free from wisdom's fond controul, Bur. Free from &c. 2. Monarch, come; and with thee bring Tipsy dance, and revelling: In thy vats our cares be drown'd; With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd; Cup us, till the world go round, Bur. Cup us, &c.—[When Capell warbles ‘Tipsy dance, and revelling,’ I am afraid he had been lately reading Milton's Comus.]
Plumpie Green (p. 246) believes ‘of a certainty’ that the epithet ‘plumpy’ was suggested by the figures depicted in the Emblem Writers, Alciat, Whitney, and especially in Boissard's Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ, p. 213; the illustration in this last book Green reproduces, and Bacchus is therein depicted as undeniably plump, but whether the obesity be due merely to well-nourished youth or to convivial living, it is not easy to decide. The force of Green's argument in favour of the Emblem Writers (and it has undeniable force), lies in his accumulation of instances, and is not to be judged by a solitary example.—Ed. with pinke eyne Johnson (Dict. s. v. Pink. 2): An eye; commonly a small one: as pink-eyed [in the present passage].—Steevens: Thus in Holland's Pliny, Eleventh Book, we find: ‘also them that were pinke-eied, and had very small eies, they termed Ocellæ’ [p. 335, ed. 1635].—Nares (s. v. Pink eyne): Small eyes. This expression, in the quaint language and fantastic spelling of old Laneham, appears thus: ‘It was a sport very pleazaunt of theeze beastz; to see the Bear with his pink nyez leering after hiz enmiez approch’ [p. 25, ed. 1784].—Ibid. (s. v. Pink-eyed): Coles renders it by lucinius and ocella; later ed. also pætus; and in the Latin part of his Dictionary he has ‘Ocellæ,—arum. Maids with little eyes; pink-ey'd girls.’ To wink and pink with the eyes, still means to contract them, and peep out of the lids. In Fleming's Nomenclator we have: ‘Ocella, lucinius . . . Ayant fort petits yeux. That hath little eyes: pink-eyed.’—Whitney (Cent. Dict. s. v. pink-eye.2 Derived from pink3 v., wink, blink, + eye,1 after Middle Dutch *pinck-ooghe, pimp-ooghe, one who has small eyes . . . Pink in [the present line] is usually regarded as an adjective, with the assumed sense ‘winking,’ or ‘blinking;’ but if an adjective it must belong to pink2 [a pink colour].): A small eye.—Elton (p. 284): Holinshed, however, shows us that Bacchus was accused in the song of a tipsy blinking; for in his sketch of the pot-knights he makes them afraid to stir from the alehouse-bench, where they sit half-asleep, ‘still pinking with their narrow eies as halfe sleeping, till the fume of their aduersarie [be digested that he may go to it afresh. Vol. i, p. 170, ed. 1586].
Cup vs . . . round Collier (ed. ii): These last two lines, or rather the last line and the repetition of it, are expressly called ‘the burden’ (i. e. bourdon) in the MS, and they are included in a bracket.—Dowden (p. 374): If, during this tragic period, Shakspere retain any tendency to observe the comedy of incident in life, the incident will be of another sort from that which moves our laughter in The Comedy of Errors. It will rather be a fragment of titanic burlesque, overhung by some impending horror, and inspired by a deep ‘idea of world-destruction.’* Such a stupendous piece of burlesque, inspired by an idea of world-destruction, Shakspere found in Plutarch's life of Antony. and having allowed it to dilate and take colour in his own imagination, he transferred it to his play. Aboard Pompey's galley the masters of the earth hold hands and dance the Egyptian bacchanals, joining in the volleying chorus, ‘Cup us, till the world goes round!’; and Menas whispers his leader to bid him cut the cable, and fall to the throats of the Triumvirs. A great painting by Orcagna shows a terrible figure, Death, armed with the scythe, and sweeping down through bright air, upon the glad and careless garden-party of noble and beautiful persons,—men and women who lean to one another, and caress their dogs and hawks, while they listen to the music of stringed instruments. In Shakspere's scene of revelry, death seems to be more secretly, more intimately present, seems more surely to dominate life; though it passes by, it passes, as it were, with an ironical smile at the security of the possessors of this world, and at the noisy insubstantial triumph of life, permitted for a while. 1
What would you more? Corson (p. 291): Every speech of Octavius in this scene shows that, though in the revels, he is not of them. He simply endures them as a necessary evil, for the time being. ‘What would you more?’ shows that he has been a reluctant but politic attendant, and is impatient to have them over.
Let me request . . . Frownes at this leuitie Thiselton (p. 16): That is, ‘let me request you for the sake of our graver business which frowns at this levity.’ It is better to regard this passage as supplying an instance of the suppressed relative, than to alter ‘of’ to off, and bisect the sentence.—[Does not the critic overlook the fact that he leaves the sentence incomplete? What is it that Cæsar requests? It would be difficult, moreover, to find another example, exactly parallel to this, of the ‘suppression’ of a relative. I can detect none in the examples quoted by Abbott in §§ 244, 245, 246, on the ‘omission of the relative.’—Ed.]
Spleet's Collier (ed. i): We are not sure that this orthography ought not to be preserved. ‘Spleets’ was not the old mode of spelling splits, and the variation might be intentional. the wilde disguise Murray (N. E. D. s. v. Disguise. sb. 7): ‘Disorder by drink’ (Johnson). [The present passage is here quoted, and also] Ben Jonson, Masque of Augurs, ‘Groom. Disguise! what mean you by that? do you think that his majesty sits here to expect drunkards?’ [p. 429, ed. Gifford.]
Ile try you on the shore Deighton: I will make trial of your feasting on shore (as you have mine on board ship).
And shall Sir Abbott (§ 97): ‘And’ is frequently found in answers in the sense of ‘you are right and’ or ‘yes and,’ the ‘yes’ being implied. In the present passage, the phrase is equivalent to ‘You say well, and you shall,’ or ‘So you shall,’ ‘that you shall,’ emphatically.
you haue Pope unwarrantably changed this into ‘you hate.’ Whereupon Theobald administered to Pope a somewhat sarcastic rebuke, and then, in order to prove that the original text is correct, ‘insisted,’—to quote his own words,—that there is here an allusion to a ‘noted witticism’ made by Pompey on the present occasion. This witticism was founded on the fact that the splendid residence in Rome of Pompey's father, at that time in the possession of Anthony, was situated on the Via Carinæ (‘or Galley-street, as we might call it’） where even the houses themselves were built to resemble galleys; when, therefore, Pompey said that he would entertain Cæsar and Anthony on his galley, there was a witty double allusion to his galley and his house in ‘Galley-street.’ As authorities, Theobald quoted Paterculus: ‘Qui [i. e. Pompeius] haud absurde, cum in navi Cæsaremque et Antonium coena exciperet, dixit, in Carinis suis se coenam dare; referens hoc dictum ad loci nomen, in quo paterna domus ab Antonio possidebatur.’—[lib. ii, cap. lxxvii.] And also Aurelius Victor: ‘Pace facta, epulatus in navi cum Antonio et Cæsare, non invenuste ait: Hae sunt meae carinae; quia Romae in Carinis domum eius Antonius tenebat.’—[cap. lxxxiv.] It is doubtful that even Theobald's insistence can make us believe that Shakespeare had Pompey's ‘witticism’ here in mind; had he ever heard it or known it, an allusion to it would have been more appropriate in II, vi, 102, where Pompey says ‘Aboord my Galley, I inuite you all.’ Is it not enough that Shakespeare found in Plutarch that Antony kept possession of Pompey's house? See Appendix.—Ed.
Take heed you fall not Capell (i, 36): Speaking to some of them (Pompey, probably), whom he sees stagger: After which, the boat puts off with it's company; and Enobarbus, who has not yet had his dose, turns to Menas, and says— ‘Menas, I'll not on shore,’ and is reply'd to by Menas,—‘No, to my cabin.’ This is the arrangement of the passage before us; and so palpably right, that the reader shall not be insulted with any proofs of it: What he finds in the moderns,—or may find, if he is so dispos'd,—took its rise from the negligent folio's.—[The Text. Notes show that this arrangement of Capell is now adopted by all editors.]
these Drummes Staunton (Athenæum, 26 Apr. 1873), who adopts, in common with all modern editions, the division of lines in the Var. of 1778 (see Text. Notes), observes: ‘There is an obvious deficiency in this line. As a stop-gap, we might read,—“Where now are these drums,” etc.’ In attempting to scan these lines, we must remember that their rhythm was not composed by Shakespeare but by Steevens; a fact which Abbott (§ 509) overlooked when he said that the present line ‘occurs amid regular verse.’
Exeunt Corson (p. 292): There is no other scene in all the plays of Shakespeare, perhaps, which exhibits a more complete dramatic identification on the part of the poet, than this banquet scene. There must have been at the time of his writing it, the fullest sympathetic reproduction within himself, of the several characters.—Stapfer (p. 416): Voltaire's indignation is well known at Shakespeare's so-called tragedies which are only ‘farces in which the burlesque and the horrible are united,’ and in which we see ‘the lowest rabble appearing on the stage by the side of princes, and princes often using the same language as the mob.’ Judgements of this kind belong to a period in which the characters of a tragedy were merely regarded as so many lay figures, who were expected to act in a solemn and ceremonious manner, especial care being taken that they should speak in the most courtly style and be able to make court-curtseys; and they belong moreover to a country in which the spirit of society and of high-bred manners has always been peculiarly cultivated and prized, and this differs as widely from the humourous spirit as one of our garden plants does from a foreign wild flower. These adverse opinions, however, do not prevent the banquet on board Pompey's vessel from being a most excellent scene, and one even more thoroughly Shakespearian perhaps than the passages most celebrated for beauty in his plays, since in this particular kind of humourous presentation he is not only unrivalled, but has neither follower nor forerunner. ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity;’ what more amazing or more grotesque commentary on this philosophical truth, which lies at the basis of the spirit of humour, could be found than this scene, in which the lives of the Triumvirs depend upon a rope that Pompey had only to say the word to have cut, and in which Lepidus, ‘the triple pillar of the world,’ rolls dead drunk under the table, and is carried off on the back of a slave.
1 * A word applied by Heine to Aristophanes—Weltvernichtungsidee.
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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