105-107. Is it so . . . deer'st Sister Walker (Crit. iii, 303): Arrange, perhaps,—‘Is it so, sir? Most certain. Sister, welcome! | Pray you, be ever known to patience:— | My dearest sister!’—[For another scansion of these lines (solely for the eye), see Abbott, § 510.]
forespoke Johnson: To forspeak is to contradict, to speak against, as forbid is to order negatively.—Bradley (N. E. D. s. v. Forspeak, † 3): To speak against, speak evil of. [The present line quoted.]
If not, denounc'd against vs Tyrwhitt's emendation, adopted by Steevens, will be found in the Text. Notes. Malone, in 1790, read, ‘If not, denounce 't against us,’ but remarked, ‘I am not, however, sure that the old reading is not right, “If there be no particular denunciation against me, why should we not,” etc. There is, however, in the Folio, a comma after the word “not” and no point of interrogation at the end of the sentence; which favours the emendation now made.’ In the Variorum of 1821, Malone restored the text of the Folio, omitting the comma after ‘not,’ adding an interrogation at the end, and giving the foregoing paraphrase. The earlier commentators and their modern followers accept ‘denounce’ in the sense of ‘publicly arraign,’ or ‘censure.’ Monck Mason, alone among them, seems to have caught what is apparently its true meaning, namely, ‘proclaim,’ and referred it not to Cleopatra but to the wars. ‘Cleopatra means to say,’ he remarks, ‘“Is not the war denounced against us? Why should we not then attend in person?”’ Delius agrees as far as referring ‘denounce’ to the war, but gives a different paraphrase: ‘If it is not fit, yet inasmuch as the war has been proclaimed against me, why should I not be there in person?’ Naturally Schmidt (Lex.) adopts the view of Delius; so also does Thiselton, who says that ‘if not’ is equivalent to ‘otherwise.’ Singer paraphrases: ‘If we are not interdicted by proclamation, why should we not be there in person?’; and adds, ‘To denounce is most frequently used for to pronounce or proclaim by the poet.’ Hudson observes that the text which he adopts (Capell's) is ‘approved by the corresponding passage in Plutarch: “Now, after that Cæar had made sufficient preparation, he proclaimed open war against Cleopatra,” etc.’ (See Appendix.) Deighton thus amends the text: ‘If now denounced against us,’ etc. and has the following note, ‘if these wars are now declared against me, why, etc. With the Folio reading, the only sense possible would be, “if there is no special injunction against my taking part in these wars,” etc.; but, as Antony alone could object, and he shows no inclination to do so, such sense seems very unsatisfactory.’ [It seems to me safest to follow the Folio and to accept Delius's interpretation. —Ed.]
meerly Used in its derivative sense, wholly, utterly, purely.
What should not then Very plausible is Walker's conjecture (Crit. iii, 303) of thence for ‘then.’ But ‘then’ so clearly refers to ‘time,’ the last idea, that change seems uncalled for.—Ed.
Photinus an Eunuch The name of this eunuch in the original Greek is ‘Pothinus,’ both here and in the Life of Cæsar. In the latter, North has correctly reproduced it; but here, in the Life of Antonius, it is rendered Photinus. The error began, I think, with Amyot; in an edition of his translation, printed in Paris as late as 1811, the name is Photinus. Of course, Shakespeare followed North, and what the true name might be, he cared, probably, very little, and we, assuredly, care still less. Whatever his name, Photinus or Pothinus, he ought to be dead; Julius Cæsar put him to death some years before the present events. Walker (Vers. 173) calls attention to the fact that in Beaumont and Fletcher's False One ‘the name is everywhere pronounced as it is now,’ that is, Photínus, with the accent on the penult. The position of the comma after ‘eunuch’ has been deemed important; on it the number of persons referred to may be made to depend. Wordsworth remarks, ‘Dyce and other editors, including even those of the Globe, and Hudson, all following the carelessness of the First Folio, point this without a comma after Photinus, and so leave the reader to suppose that he is the eunuch; whereas there can be no doubt that Mardian is intended, as appears plain both in Plutarch's Greek and in North's translation. The Leopold edition prints the line correctly.’ The Leopold edition followed Delius. In any circumstances, I think it is a question of small moment, and becomes even less when we remember (which apparently Dr Wordsworth did not), that Photinus as well as Mardian was a eunuch.—Ed.
I will not stay behinde Garnier, whose M. Antoine was printed in 1578, represents jealousy as the cause of Cleopatra's decision to ‘be in these warres.’ Cleopatra thus speaks to Eras: ‘Mais, las! ie n'en fis conte, ayant l'ame saisie, A mon tres-grand malheur d'ardente ialousie: Par-ce que ie craignois que mon Antoine absent Reprint son Octauie, & m'allast delaissant.’—p. 179, ed. 1616. It is thus translated by the Countess of Pembroke, 1592: ‘But I car'd not: so was my soule possest (To my great harme), with burning iealousie: Fearing least in my absence Antony Should leauing me retake Octauia.’—line 463, ed. Luce.
take in Troine That is, subdue. See I, i, 35.
Which might . . . slacknesse These words, which express Anthony's hearty assent to Cleopatra's rebuke by asserting that the best of men might have used them in upbraiding sloth, Blumhof takes as a peevish rejoinder to Cleopatra's irritating remark, and regards as a separate sentence and as an exclamation of surprise, ‘To taunt at slackness!’ ‘Slackness’ is lengthened into three syllables by both Walker (Vers. 20) and Abbott (§ 477): ‘slackeness.’ But would not the pronunciation be almost as rhythmical, and quite as slovenly, were it uttered ‘selackness? The pause necessitated by the change of address supplies the rhythm. Walker finishes the line and begins the next thus ‘Canidius, come We'll fight,’ etc. See Text. Notes for Hanmer's emendation.—Ed.
Why will The accent is designedly thrown on ‘will.’
Militers See Text. Notes.—Walker (Vers. 217): Pioneer, Engineer, Muleteer, and many other (perhaps most) words of the same class, ought to be written pioner, enginer, etc. This is evident, were there no other indication of it, from the flow of the verses in which these words occur. [To the instance in the present line, which Dyce was the first to spell correctly, Walker adds, ‘Seignior, hang!—base muleteers of France.’—1 Hen. VI: III, ii, and continues:] Even here an Elizabethan ear would, I imagine, have demanded muleters; and so Folio. So everywhere in the writers of that age, as far as I have observed. Beaumont & Fletcher, Fair Maid of the Inn, II, iv, Folio of 1647, p. 36, col. 2,—‘Thou might'st have given it to a Muliter,’ etc. IV, ii, init. ‘Enter Host, Taylor, Muliter,’ etc. Love's Pilgrimage, II, iv, near the beginning,—‘No mangey Muleters, nor pinching Posts.’—[Dyce has a note to the same effect. Both Walker and Dyce seem to have overlooked a note of Malone, which calls attention to the spelling of this word in the corresponding passage in North's Plutarch: ‘for lacke of water-menne, his Captaines did prest by force all sortes of men . . . that they could take vp in the field, as trauellers, muliters, reapers, haruest men, and young boyes.’ In the ed. of 1595, the word is spelled ‘muletters.’—Ed.]
Impresse See ‘prest’ in the extract from North in the preceding note.— Skeat (Concise Etymol. Dict.): ‘Press’ is a corruption of the old word prest, ready; whence prest-money, ready money advanced to a man hired for service, earnest money; also imprest, a verb (now impress), to give a man earnest money. When it became common to use compulsion to force men into service, it was confused with the verb to press. Prest money was money lent, derived from Old French prester (French prêter) to lend, advance money.
yare Steevens: So in North's Plutarch: ‘Cæsar's ships were not built for pomp, high and great, . . . but they were light of yarage.’ ‘Yare’ generally signifies, dextrous, manageable.
Shall fall you That is, befall you. For other words where prefixes are dropped, see Abbott, § 460.
Distract your Armie In North's Plutarch, Canidius tells Antony, among other things, that he ‘would weaken his army by dividing them into ships.’ Possibly this explains the present phrase.
I haue Hanmer reads, ‘Why, I have,’—‘a very probable emendation,’ says Dyce (ed. ii). It is one of several designed to mend the metre, which is defective according to the right butter-woman's rank to market. Any deviation from the orthodox jog-trot deeply offends the truly sensitive ear. Nay, in cases where a final -er must represent a full foot (as here), Abbott (§ 478) opines that it may ‘have been sometimes pronounced with a kind of “burr,” which produced the effect of an additional syllable.’ Inasmuch as Cleopatra's variety was infinite, it is possible that a ‘burr’ may have been one of her charms.
my Thetis Steevens: Antony may address Cleopatra by the name of this sea-nymph, because she had just promised him assistance in his naval expedition; or perhaps in allusion to her voyage down the Cydnus, when she appeared like Thetis surrounded by the Nereids. [It was not Thetis, but Venus, to whom Enobarbus then compared Cleopatra.—See II, ii. 235.] 76. etc. See Plutarch, Appendix.
his whole action growes Not in the power on't Capell (i, 39): ‘Action’ is here enterprize, the enterprize then in hand; no part of which, says Canidius, ‘grows in the power on't,’ is conducted as it might be, or suitably to the means that we have in our power.—[Capell refers ‘on't’ to ‘action.’ Dr Johnson, on the other hand, refers it to ‘right’ in the Soldier's speech. ‘That is,’ he says, ‘his whole conduct becomes ungoverned by the right, or by reason.’ Malone gives what is essentially Capell's interpretation and points out Johnson's oversight. ‘I think,’ he observes, ‘that Canidius means to say, His whole conduct in the war is not founded upon that which is his greatest strength (namely, his land force), but on the caprice of a woman, who wishes that he should fight by sea. Dr Johnson refers the word on't to right in the preceding speech. I apprehend, it refers to action in the speech before us.’ Hudson says that ‘This speech may refer, not merely to the present action, but Antony's whole course of late, where his action grows, takes its shape, not from the power that executes it, that is, himself, but from the will of another.’ The phrase is certainly obscure. Possibly, it may mean that Anthony's course of action does not grow through its own native force, there are other influences at work—his deeds are not self-evolved.—Ed.]
so our Leaders leade Theobald's change, ‘our leader's led,’ which has been adopted by every subsequent editor, is pronounced needless by Thiselton (p. 19), and, I cannot but think, justly. If Cleopatra is herself a Leader, her power is more direct, and the soldiers are more emphatically her men, than if this power were exercised only indirectly through Anthony. Moreover, by the plural, ‘women,’ there is an implication that even Anthony himself has lost his manliness and is become a woman, which is missed if ‘Leader’ be restricted to Anthony alone.—Ed.
Ven. Collier (ed. ii) conjectured that this abbreviation stood ‘perhaps for Vennard, an actor in the part of Canidius.’ Dyce repeated this conjecture without comment.—Walker (Crit. ii, 185) says that the speech ‘is given to Ventidius instead of to Canidius.’
This speede . . . Carries beyond beleefe An uncommon use of the verb, carry, of which I can find no notice in the N. E. D. Steevens suggested that ‘perhaps’ it is derived ‘from archery,’ and quoted 2 Hen. IV: III, ii, 52, ‘a’ would have . . . carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half.’ Singer without even hinting at the singularity of the phrase, gives a paraphrase, obvious to the humblest capacity, ‘i. e. passes all belief’ and then remarks, ‘I should not have noticed this, but for Steevens's odd notion of its being a phrase from archery.’ Schmidt (Lex. s. v. Carry, 4) quotes the present passage and Justice Shallow's speech quoted above by Steevens, and defines both by ‘to bear, to push on to a certain distance,’ which is somewhat difficult of comprehension. It is not easy to see how anything that carries can thereby ‘push.’ Deighton and Rolfe, braving Singer's scoff, return to Steevens's suggestion and hold that the metaphor is probably taken from archery, which is also the opinion of the present Ed.
distractions Johnson: Detachments, separate bodies.
throwes forth According to Theobald's spelling, this verb occurs again in The Tempest, II, i, 231. 1. Bradley (p. 71): To come then to real defects:—one may be found in places where Shakespeare strings together a number of scenes, some very short, in which the dramatis personæ are frequently changed; as though a novelist were to tell his story in a succession of short chapters, in which he flitted from one group of his characters to another. This method shows itself here and there in the pure tragedies (e. g. in the last act of Macbeth), but it appears most decidedly where the historical material was undramatic, as in the middle part of Antony and Cleopatra. It was made possible by the absence of scenery, and doubtless Shakespeare used it because it was the easiest way out of a difficulty. But, considered abstractedly, it is a defective method, and, even as used by Shakespeare, it sometimes reminds us of the merely narrative arrangement common in plays before his time.
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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