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Menas Theobald (ed. ii): Menas and Menecrates, we may remember, were two famous pirates, linked with Sextus Pompeius, and who assisted him to infest the Italian coast. We nowhere learn expressly, in the play, that Menas ever attached himself to Octavius's party. Notwithstanding, the Ff concur in marking the entrance thus, yet, in the two places in the scene, where this character speaks, they have marked in the margin, Mec., so that, as Dr Thirlby [Nichols, Illust. ii, 228] sagaciously conjectured, we must cashier ‘Menas’ and substitute Mecænas in his room. [This change has been since then uniformly adopted.] 4, 5. Being so frustrate, tell him, He mockes the pawses, etc.] Steevens (Variorum of 1778): ‘He mocks the pauses that he makes’ means that he plays wantonly with the intervals of time which he should improve to his own preservation. Or the meaning may be,—being thus defeated in all his efforts, and left without resource, tell him that these affected pauses and delays of his in yielding himself up to me, are mere idle mockery. ‘He mocks the pauses’ may be a licentious mode of expression for,—he makes a mockery of us by these pauses; i. e. he trifles with us. —In the Variorum of 1785, Malone expressed the belief that the defect in metre proved that some words had been omitted which would have rendered the line intelligible. ‘When Antony himself made these pauses, would he mock,’ Malone asks, ‘or laugh at them? and what is the meaning of mocking a pause?’ He therefore conjectured that us by were the omitted words, and in his own later edition, in 1790, thus prints the line: ‘Being so frustrate, tell him, he mocks us by The pauses,’ etc. In this same edition of 1790 Malone rather disingenuously conveys the impression that the note by Steevens (quoted above), had been written after the line had been rendered intelligible by the emendation us by. I have, therefore, dated Steevens's note to show that it was written before Malone had, in his own estimation, amended the line. In Steevens's edition of 1793 appeared the following additional note by him:—I have left Malone's emendation in the text; though, to complete the measure, we might read,—‘frustrated,’ or ‘Being so frustrate, tell him that he mocks,’ etc.; as I am well convinced we are not yet acquainted with the full and exact meaning of the verb mock, as sometimes employed by Shakespeare. [From Collier (ed. ii) we learn that this change, suggested by Steevens, ‘tell him that,’ is also given by the MS. Collier thereupon remarks]: The expression to mock pauses is far from intelligible; and it seems pretty certain that the old printer made some confusion between ‘mocks’ and makes, words so much alike in old MSS. Malone added us by, and they appear necessary in order to render the sense clear; at all events that object has been obtained, and the regularity of the verse preserved.—Ritson (Cursory Crit. p. 88): The two last words [‘us by’] of this line are added by the present Irish editor, who observes that ‘the defect of the metre,’ of which he knows as much as a superannuated jack-ass, ‘shows that something was omitted.’ Former editors [see Text. Notes] supplied the measure by reading, ‘Being so frustrated, tell him he mocks’; which, it must be confessed, does not afford an easy sense. Shakespeare, however, would never have written the above hobbling line [Malone's] which has no sort of pretensions to metre. We may read, ‘Being so frustrated, he mocks us by.’—[Knight reluctantly approves of Malone's emendation, and prints it in brackets in his text. R. G. White (ed. i) approves but does not adopt. Hudson approves heartily and adopts, and does ‘not see how it is possible to strain any sense at all out of the original reading.’ For my part, I think Steevens supplies us with a sense when he says, in effect, that Anthony's pauses, now that he is utterly vanquished, are a mockery.—Ed.
frustrate Abbott (§ 342) gives a list of verbs, ending in -te, -t, and -d, which ‘on account of their already resembling participles in their terminations, do not add -ed in the participle. . . . Words like “miscreate,” “create,” “consecrate” [‘frustrate’] being directly derived from Latin participles, stand on a different footing, and may themselves be regarded as participial adjectives, with the addition of -d.’ Walker (Vers. 8) includes the present ‘frustrate’ in his list of words illustrating the rule that, ‘Words such as Juggler, tickling, kindling, England, angry, children, and the like are,—as is well known,—frequently pronounced by the Elizabethan poets as though a vowel were interposed between the liquid and the preceding mute.’ Of the present line, he asks, ‘Can a good sense be made out of the original reading? the play of words seems a very strong argument in its favour; indeed, it seems impossible that this should be accidental. So—though it seems hardly worth while to accumulate instances of the same word used in the same manner,—Massinger, Middleton, and Rowleys Old Law: ‘The law that should take away your old wife from you, . . . Is void and frustrate; so for the rest:’ etc. [Massinger's Works, vol. iv, p. 568, ed. Gifford, 1805.] ‘What we confirm the king will frustrate.’ Marlowe's Edward II.,—Works, p. 178, ed. Dyce, 1858.
I shall Theobald: I make no doubt but it should be marked here that Dollabella goes out. 'Tis reasonable to imagine he should presently depart upon Cæsar's command; so that the speeches placed to him in the sequel of this scene, must be transferred to Agrippa, or he is introduced as a mute. Besides, that Dollabella should be gone out, appears from this, that when Cæsar asks for him, he recollects that he had sent him on business. [For this use of ‘shall’ for will, both here and in line 82, below, see, if need be, Abbott, § 315.]
Appeare thus to vs Steevens: That is, with a drawn and bloody sword in thy hand.
I wore my life Deighton: The figure is that of a dress worn for some special purpose, and also conveys the idea that to him life was as something external which could be put off at will, not an essential part of his being. 20, 21. A greater cracke. The round World Should haue shooke Lyons
into ciuill streets Johnson: I think here is a line lost, after which it is in vain to go in quest. The sense seems to have been this: ‘The round world should have shook,’ and this great alteration of the system of things should send ‘lions into streets, and citizens into dens.’ There is sense still, but it is harsh and violent.— Steevens: I believe we should read, ‘A greater crack than this: The ruin'd world,’ i. e. the general disruption of elements should have shook, etc. Shakespeare seems to mean that the death of so great a man ought to have produced effects similar to those which might have been expected from the dissolution of the universe, when all distinctions shall be lost. Perhaps, however, Shakespeare might mean nothing more here than merely an earthquake, in which the shaking of the round world was to be so violent as to toss the inhabitants of woods into cities and the inhabitants of cities into woods.—Malone: The defect of the metre strongly supports Dr Johnson's conjecture, that something is lost. Perhaps the passage originally stood thus: ‘The round world should have shook; Thrown hungry lions into civil streets,’ etc. . . . The words omitted were perhaps in the middle of the line, which originally might have stood thus in the MS: ‘Lions been hurtled into civil streets,’ etc.—Tyrwhitt: The sense, I think, is complete and plain, if we consider ‘shook’ (more properly shaken) as the participle past of a verb active.—[That there is here an omission is also the opinion of Collier, Dyce, R. G. White, Staunton, Deighton, Rolfe, and of Walker (see IV, viii, 9). But as the meaning is perfectly clear, and forcibly expressed, for my part, the tears live in an onion that shall water the sorrow for any loss.—Ed.]
selfe-hand See Abbott, § 20.
Splitted the heart Collier (ed. ii): This line cannot be right, for although ‘splitted’ might be allowed on the score of ‘splitted in the midst,’ and ‘splitted my poor tongue’ in the Comedy of Errors, yet the line is otherwise defective, and the MS gives it ‘Split that self noble heart. This is his sword,’ which we cannot but persuade ourselves is right, seeing that just above we have ‘that self-hand’ in the same way that we have ‘self noble heart’ in the line in question as amended. The change adds much force and grace to the tribute Dercetas is paying to his dead master.
Looke you sad Friends Theobald: It is requisite to transpose the comma [after ‘you’ in Pope's edition, and place it after ‘sad’; because] Octavius's friends would probably avoid showing any concern on the news of Antony's death, lest it should give displeasure to Cæsar; which Cæsar observing, it shows a noble humanity in him to bid them share in such a sorrow, and to tell them it is a calamity that ought to draw tears even from the eyes of Princes. Young Prince Henry, upon his father's death, speaks just in the same manner to his brothers; and tho' he would not have them mix fear with their affliction, he encourages them in their sorrow—‘Yet be sad, good brothers, For, by my faith, it very well becomes you.’—2 Hen. IV: V, ii, 49.
but it is Tydings Johnson: That is, may the gods rebuke me, if this be not tidings to make kings weep. ‘But’ again, for if not. [Johnson probably here refers to III, xi, 50, which see, and also IV, xi, 2. ‘Tidings’ has already been used as a singular noun in ‘this tidings’ IV, xiv, 137; which justifies those editors who prefer the reading of F2, if they need any justification.—Ed.]
To wash the eyes of Kings Craik (p. 194): ‘Wash,’ an Anglo-Saxon word (preserved also in the German waschen), is used in what is probably its primitive sense of immersing in or covering with liquid. Thus we say to wash with gold or silver. 36. Dol. And, etc.] Daniel (p. 83): I would continue this speech to Cæsar, and, in line 38, for ‘perſiſted’ would read, perfited.—Hudson accepted this distribution of speeches; ‘surely,’ he says, ‘this speech comes more fitly from Cæsar’ [than from Agrippa, to whom it had been assigned by Theobald].
wag'd equal with him Steevens: It is not easy to determine the precise meaning of the word wage. In Othello, it occurs again: ‘To wake, and wage a danger profitless.’ [I, iii, 38, of this ed., with note]. It may signify to oppose. The sense will then be, ‘his taints and honours were an equal match,’ i. e. were opposed to each other in just proportions, like the counterparts of a wager.—Ritson: Read, weigh, with F2, where it is only mis-spelled ‘way.’ So in Shore's Wife, by A. Chute, 1593: ‘notes her myndes disquyet To be so great she seemes downe wayed by it.’—[As concerns the meaning, there is little to choose between wage and weight, if we accept wage in the sense of opposing, contending, as we find it in Lear, ‘To wage against the enmity of the air’ (II, iv, 206). It is to such cases that the scholastic law applies, durior lectio preferenda est, and this, I think, points to ‘wag'd.’—Ed.] with For this use of ‘with,’ which Abbott (§ 193) says is here equivalent to in, see I, i, 72.
spirit For the pronunciation, here a disyllable, see I, ii, 143. 46, etc. I haue followed . . . we do launch, etc.] Steevens: ‘Launch’ was the ancient, and is still, the vulgar pronunciation, of lance. Nurses always talk of launching the gums of children, when they have difficulty in cutting teeth. ‘I have followed thee,’ says Cæsar, ‘to this’; i. e. I have pursued thee, till I compelled thee to self-destruction. But, adds the speaker (at once extenuating his own conduct, and considering the deceased as one with whom he had been united by the ties of relationship as well as policy, as one who had been a part of himself), the violence, with which I proceeded, was not my choice; I have done but by him as we do by our own natural bodies. I have employed force, where force only could be effectual. I have shed the blood of the irreclaimable Antony, on the same principle that we lance a disease incurable by gentler means.
declining day See III, xiii, 32.
Or looke on thine The change to look'd seems to me not only superfluous, but injurious.—Ed.
Competitor That is, colleague. See I, i, 21; I, iv, 5.
In top of all designe That is, in all our highest ambitions.
his thoughts The use of its had not yet become universal; else it would have been used here. In introducing it Pope ran a little before the years.
should diuide our equalnesse to this Johnson: That is, should have made us, in our equality of fortune, disagree to a pitch like this, that one of us must die.
heare him what he sayes For other examples of a redundant object, see Abbott, § 414.
Egyptian yet, Johnson: If this punctuation be right [Theobald's], the man means to say that he is yet an Ægyptian, that is, ‘yet a servant of the Queen of Egypt,’ though soon to become a subject of Rome.—Staunton: ‘Yet,’ that is, now.—Deighton: Perhaps the meaning is ‘one who, though conquered, still boasts himself an Egyptian.’—John Hunter: I apprehend Cleopatra to be the ‘poor Egyptian,’ and that the line should be written thus: ‘A poor Egyptian, yet the queen my mistress’; where ‘yet’ means but not less.—[I think that there is much more to be said in favour of this interpretation than against it. It sounds very like a propitiatory message such as Cleopatra, on this occasion, would send; and accords with the assertion that the Monument is now all that she possesses. Moreover, Cæsar's question is ‘Whence are you?’ not ‘Who are you?’ —this almost necessitates Hunter's interpretation.—Ed.]
How honourable See ‘'Tis noble spoken,’ II, ii, 115. It may be, however, that the termination -ly, attached to ‘kindly,’ is supposed to be effective for ‘honourable’ also. See Walker (Crit. i, 218), or Abbott (§ 397), or Schmidt (Lex. p. 1419, 6).
Cæsar cannot leaue Collier (ed. i): This was altered to live by Southern, in his copy of F4. He anticipated Pope [Rowe, ed. ii] in a change, which, if not made, would directly contradict the poet's meaning.—Dyce: I adopt the correction made by Tyrwhitt in his copy of F2 in the British Museum. 78, 79. her life in Rome, Would be eternall, etc.] Johnson: The sense is, ‘If she dies here, she will be forgotten, but if I send her in triumph to Rome, her memory and my glory will be eternal.’
you finde of her For other examples, where ‘of’ means concerning, about, see Abbott, § 174, or Franz, § 364, or I, iv, 81. 1. Enter Cleopatra, etc.] Dyce (ed. ii): When the play was originally acted, they all entered here (as in scene xv. of the preceding act) on what was called the upper-stage; but how the business of the present scene was managed after the seizure of Cleopatra, I cannot pretend to determine.
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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