William Shakespeare, Critical Commentary of The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra
Horace Howard Furness, Ed.

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Eros Theobald: 'Tis evident, as Dr Thirlby likewise conjectured, by what Antony immediately replies, that this line should not be placed to ‘Eros,’ but to the Soldier, who, before the battle of Actium, advised Antony to try his Fate at land.— Capell (i, 44): [Theobald] should have gone a step further, and have given [to the Soldier the speeches (lines 5 and 10)] which are no less certainly his than that [he has] given: the matter of them shews—that they come from the first speaker, and

their style is not unfitting for him; but most unsuitable to the dependent condition of Eros, the gentleness of his manners, and his extreme love of his master.—[This distribution of speeches by Capell, in lines 5 and 10, was adopted by Malone (1790), and followed by all subsequent editors.]

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Dispatch Enobarbus Capell (i, 44): The pathetick exclamation of Antony, which is fetch'd from the First Folio, is such an improvement of the scene,

that the moderns are hardly pardonable for their ‘dispatch, my Eros,’ cobbl'd up from the second.—Steevens: Holt White supposes, that ‘Antony, being astonished at the news of the desertion of Enobarbus, merely repeats his name in a tone of surprise.’ In my opinion, Antony was designed only to enforce the order he had already given to Eros. I have therefore followed the Second Folio.—Ritson: It will be evident to any person, who consults the Second Folio with attention and candour, that many of the alterations must have been furnished by some corrected copy of the First Folio, or an authority of equal weight, being such as no person, much less one so ignorant and capricious as the Editor has been represented, could have possibly hit upon, without that sort of information. Among these valuable emendations is the present, which affords a striking improvement both of the sense and of the metre, and should of course be inserted in the text, thus ‘Eros, dispatch.’—Knight: We follow the words of the original, but not the punctuation. [The original] may mean dispatch the business of Enobarbus; but it is more probable that Antony, addressing Eros, says ‘dispatch’; and then, thinking of his revolted friend, pronounces his name.—R. G. White: Considering the rhythm of the line, the appropriateness of the command, and the great probability that in the manuscript there stood only E., I have no hesitation in adopting [the reading of F2.]—[Knight's note, is to me, the most satisfactory; in substance it is followed by Collier, Singer, Hudson, and Deighton. We can hear the deep sigh with which the name ‘Enobarbus’ is breathed forth. It is like Octavius's ‘Poor Anthony!’ at the close of the first Scene of this Act.—Ed.]