his pestilent Sythe Schmidt (Lex.): ‘Pestilent sythe’ is here equivalent to the scythe of pestilence, the deaths occasioned by pestilence.—[That is, I will rival the scythe that mows down victims in a pestilence.—Ed.] Exeunt Vischer (p. 125): And thus Antony commits the extraordinary blunder of allowing himself to be won over. But how? It is hardly conceivable that he should have done so, after Cleopatra's baseness in yielding herself to Cæsar and in giving his messenger her hand to be kissed. The question arises whether or not an intermediate scene be lost. The conclusion, that this is the case, is almost inevitable. And why does Cleopatra here display so little charm? Did the Poet intend that she should here appear insipid?—[Never insipid, but dazed, and thinking very fast. She is at the parting of the ways.—Ed.]
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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