Thanks to my lord.

Ост. The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak, Your reconciler!" Wars 'twixt you twain would be1 As if the world should cleave, and that slain men Should solder up the rift.

ANT. When it appears to you where this begins, Turn your displeasure that way; for our faults Can never be so equal, that your love

Can equally move with them. Provide your going; Choose your own company, and command what

ENO. How now, friend Eros?

EROS. There's strange news come, sir.
ENO. What, man?

of which probably was, unless I am compelled in my own defence, I will do no act that shall stain, &c.

After Antony has told Octavia that she shall be a mediatrix between him and his adversary, it is surely strange to add that he will do an act that shall disgrace her brother. Malone.

9 Your reconciler!] The old copy has you. This manifest error of the press, which appears to have arisen from the same cause as that noticed above, was corrected in the second folio. MALONE.

1

-Wars 'twixt you twain would be &c.] The sense is, that war between Cæsar and Antony would engage the world between them, and that the slaughter would be great in so extensive a commotion. JOHNSON.

EROS. Cæsar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

ENO. This is old; What is the success?

EROS. Cæsar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality;" would not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him: So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

ENO. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no

more;

And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?

rivality;] Equal rank. JOHNSON.

So, in Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are styled by Bernardo “the rivals” of his watch. STEEVENS.

3 upon his own appeal,] To appeal, in Shakspeare, is to accuse; Cæsar seized Lepidus without any other proof than Cæsar's accusation. JOHNSON.

4

Then, world, &c.] Old copy-Then 'would thou hadst a pair of chaps, no more; and throw between them all the food thou hast, they'll grind the other. Where's Antony? This is obscure, I read it thus:

Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more;

And throw between them all the food thou hast,

They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? Cæsar and Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey upon between them. JOHNson.

Though in general very reluctant to depart from the old copy, I have not, in the present instance, any scruples on that head, The passage, as it stands in the folio, is nonsense, there being nothing to which thou can be referred. World and would were easily confounded, and the omission in the last line which Dr. Johnson has supplied, is one of those errors that happen in almost every sheet that passes through the press, when the same words are repeated near to each other in the same sentence. Thus, in a note on Timon of Athens, Vol. XIX, Act III. sc. ii. now before

EROS. He's walking in the garden-thus; and

spurns

The rush that lies before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus! And threats the throat of that his officer,

That murder'd Pompey.

ENO.

Our great navy's rigged.

EROS. For Italy, and Cæsar. More, Domitius;5

me, these words ought to have been printed: "Dr. Farmer, however, suspects a quibble between honour in its common acceptation and honour (i. e. the lordship of a place) in its legal sense." But the words" in its common acceptation, and" were omitted in the proof sheet by the compositor, by his eye (after he had composed the first honour) glancing on the last, by which the intermediate words were lost. In the passage before us, I have no doubt that the compositor's eye in like manner glancing on the second the, after the first had been composed, the two words now recovered were omitted. So, in Troilus and Cressida, the two lines printed in Italicks, were omitted in the folio, from the same cause:

"The bearer knows not; but commends itself
"To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself,
"That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,
"Not going from itself," &c.

In the first folio edition of Hamlet, Act II. is the following passage: "I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter." But in the original quarto copy the words in the Italick character are omitted. The printer's eye, after the words I will leave him were composed, glanced on the second him, and thus all the intervening words were lost.

I have lately observed that Sir Thomas Hanmer had made the same emendation. As, in a subsequent scene, Shakspeare, with allusion to the triumvirs, calls the world three-nook'd, so he here supposes it to have had three chaps. No more does not signify no longer, but has the same meaning as if Shakspeare had writtenand no more. Thou hast now a pair of chaps, and only a pair. MALONE.

3

More, Domitius;] I have something more to tell you, which I might have told at first, and delayed my news. Antony requires your presence. JOHNSON..

My lord desires you presently: my news

I might have told hereafter.

ENO.

But let it be.-Bring me to Antony.

EROS. Come, sir.

'Twill be naught:

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Rome. A Room in Cæsar's House,

Enter CESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECENAS.

CES. Contemning Rome, he has done all this: And more;

6

In Alexandria.-here's the manner of it,—
I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,
Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
Were publickly enthron'd: at the feet, sat
Cæsarion, whom they call my father's son;
And all the unlawful issue, that their lust
Since then hath made between them. Unto her
He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt; made her

"I' the market-place,] So, in the old translation of Plutarch: "For he assembled all the people in the show place, where younge men doe exercise them selues, and there vpon a high tribunall siluered, he set two chayres of gold, the one for him selfe, and the other for Cleopatra, and lower chaires for his children: then he openly published before the assembly, that first of all he did establish Cleopatra queene of Egypt, of Cyprvs, of Lydia, and of the lower Syria, and at that time also, Cæsarion king of the same realmes. This Cæsarion was supposed to be the sonne of Julius Cæsar, who had left Cleopatra great with child. Secondly, he called the sonnes he had by her, the kings of kings, and gaue Alexander for his portion, Armenia, Media, and Parthia, when he had conquered the country: and vnto Ptolemy for his portion, Phenicia, Syria, and Cilicia." STEEVENS.

Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,"

Absolute queen.

MEC.

This in the publick eye?

CES. I' the common show-place, where they exercise.

His sons he there proclaim'd, The kings of kings: Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,

He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: She

In the habiliments of the goddess Isis'

That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience As 'tis reported, so.

MEC. Inform'd.

Let Rome be thus

with his insolence

AGR. Who, queasy Already, will their good thoughts call from him.

"For Lydia, Mr. Upton, from Plutarch, has restored Lybia.

JOHNSON.

In the translation from the French of Amyot, by Tho. North, in folio, 1597,* will be seen at once the origin of this mistake: "First of all he did establish Cleopatra queen of Egypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the Lower Syria." FARMER.

The present reading is right: for in page 154, where Cæsar is recounting the several kings whom Antony had assembled, he gives the kingdom of Lybia to Bocchus. M. MASON.

8

-he there-] The old copy has-hither. The correction was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

9

the goddess Isis-] So, in the old translation of Plutarch: "Now for Cleopatra, she did not onely weare at that time (but at all other times els when she came abroad) the apparell of the goddesse Isis, and so gaue audience vnto all her subjects, as a new Isis." STEEvens.

* I find the character of this work pretty early delineated: "Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made, "That Latin French, that French to English straid: "Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference,

"Than i' th' same Englishman return'd from France." FARMER.