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

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Strumpets Foole Douce (ii, 73): Many ancient prints conduce to show that women of this description were attended by buffoons; and there is good reason for supposing, partly from the same kind of evidence, that in their houses such characters were maintained to amuse the guests by their broad jokes and seasonable antics. [Warburton, in the belief that the metaphor, introduced by ‘Pillar,’ needed an antithesis, asserted that we should here, for ‘Foole,’ read stool, because ‘women of this description’ sometimes sat ‘in the laps of their lovers.’ Strangely enough, Walker (Crit. i, 63) had ‘no doubt’ that Warburton was right, and believes ‘that “pillar” requires it.’ To Walker's editor, Lettsom, the emendation ‘appears very doubtful.’ Grey (ii, 190) suggested a change, which he ‘imagines would be as proper,’ namely: strumpet's tool. It was reserved to Coleridge to put the question at rest at once and for ever. ‘Warburton's conjecture is ingenious,’ he says (p. 317), ‘and would be a probable reading, if the scene opening had discovered Antony with Cleopatra on his lap. But, represented as he is walking and jesting with her, “fool” must be the word. Warburton's objection is shallow, and implies that he confounded the dramatic with the epic style. The “pillar” of a state is so common a metaphor as to have lost the image in the thing meant to be imaged.’— Ed.]

23. Cleo. If it be, etc.] Hazlitt (p. 97): The character of Cleopatra is a masterpiece. What an extreme contrast it affords to Imogen! One would think it almost impossible for the same person to have drawn both. She is voluptuous, ostentatious, conscious, boastful of her charms, haughty, tyrannical, fickle. The luxurious pomp and gorgeous extravagance of the Egyptian queen are displayed in all their force and lustre, as well as the irregular grandeur of the soul of Mark Antony. Take only the first four lines that they speak as an example of the regal style of love-making.

24. Ant. There's beggery, etc.] Mrs Jameson (ii, 150): The character of

Mark Antony, as delineated by Shakespeare, reminds me of the Farnese Hercules. There is an ostentatious display of power, an exaggerated grandeur, a colossal effect in the whole conception, sustained throughout in the pomp of the language, which seems, as it flows along, to resound with the clang of arms and the music of the revel. The coarseness and violence of the historic portrait are a little kept down; but every word which Antony utters is characteristic of the arrogant but magnanimous Roman, who ‘with half the bulk o' the world played as he pleased,’ and was himself the sport of a host of mad (and bad) passions, and the slave of a woman. [Everyone will recall Romeo's impassioned, ‘They are but beggars that can count their worth’ (II, vi, 32), and Claudio's, ‘I were but little happy, if I could say how much’ (Much Ado, II, i, 292). Steevens gives, from Theobald, without acknowledgement, a quotation from Ovid (Meta. xiii, 824) which is possibly parallel. It is where Polyphemus is boasting to Galatea of his wealth in flocks and herds;—‘All this flock is my own; many others are roaming the valleys; Many are hid in the forest, and many are stabled in caverns. Should you ask how many there are, I should not be able to tell you. To number the tale of his flock is ever the mark of a poor man.’ ‘Hoc pecus omne meum est: multae quoque vallibus errant; Multas silva tegit: multae stabulantur in antris: Nec, si forte roges, possim tibi dicere, quot sint. Pauperis est numerare pecus.’ Golding's translation (p. 170 verso), more vigorous than mine, is as follows:—‘This Cattell heere is all myne owne. And many mo besyde Doo eyther in the bottoms feede, or in the woodes them hyde, And many standing at theyr stalles doo in my Caue abyde. The number of them (if a man should ask) I cannot showe. Tush beggars of theyr Cattell vse the number for too knowe.’ Steevens quotes also from an Epigram, wholly apposite, where Martial (Bk. vi, No. 34) begs for kisses, and in answer to the question ‘how many?’ answers, ‘bid me number ocean's waves, or the shells scattered on the Ægean shore, or the number of bees wandering on the Cecropian mount, or the number of voices and applauding hands when the people catch sight of Cæsar's face in the crowded theatre. I do not want as many as the clever Catullus begged from Lesbia, that is, any definite number, however vast, because ‘pauca cupit, qui numerare potest.’—Ed.]

25. Ile, etc.] Hartley Coleridge (ii, 183): If Antony owed to Cleopatra the loss of empire, he is indebted to her for less hateful renown than would else have clung to him. Shakespeare and Dryden make the Philippics forgotten, and the murderer of Cicero is lost in the lover of Cleopatra.