Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast "The naked nymphes, some up, some downe descending, "Small scattering flowres one at another flung, "With pretty turns their lymber bodies bending,-.' I once thought, their bends referred to Cleopatra's eyes, and not to her gentlewomen. Her attendants, in order to learn their mistress's will, watched the motion of her eyes, the bends or movements of which added new lustre to her beauty. See the quotation from Shakspeare's 149th Sonnet, p. 82. In our author we frequently find the word bend applied to the eye. Thus, in the first Act of this play: those his goodly eyes 66 now bend, now turn," &c. Again, in Cymbeline: "Although they wear their faces to the bent Again, more appositely, in Julius Cæsar: "And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world." Mr. Mason, remarking on this interpretation, acknowledges that "their bends may refer to Cleopatra's eyes, but the word made must refer to her gentlewomen, and it would be absurd to say that they made the bends of her eyes adornings." Assertion is much easier than proof. In what does the absurdity consist? They thus standing near Cleopatra, and discovering her will by the eyes, were the cause of her appearing more beautiful, in consequence of the frequent motion of her eyes; i. e. (in Shakspeare's language,) this their situation and office was the cause, &c. We have in every part of this author such diction. But I shall not detain the reader any longer on so clear a point; especially as I now think that the interpretation of these words given originally by Dr. Warburton is the true one. Bend being formerly sometimes used for a band or troop, Mr. Tollet very idly supposes that the word has that meaning here. MALone. I had determined not to enter into a controversy with the editors on the subject of any of my former comments; but I cannot resist the impulse I feel, to make a few remarks on the strictures of Mr. Steevens, both on the amendment I proposed in this passage, and my explanation of it; for if I could induce him to accede to my opinion, it would be the highest gratification to me. His objection to the amendment I have proposed, that of reading in the guise instead of in the eyes, is, that the phrase in the guise cannot be properly used, without adding somewhat to Her people out upon her; and Antony, it, to determine precisely the meaning; and this, as a general observation, is perfectly just, but it does not apply in the present case; for the preceding lines, Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, and the subsequent line, A seeming mermaid steers ; very clearly point out the meaning of the word guise. If you ask in what guise? I answer in the guise of mermaids; and the connection is sufficiently clear even for prose, without claiming any allowance for poetical licence. But this objection may be entirely done away, by reading that guise instead of the guise, which I should have adopted, if it had not departed somewhat farther from the text. With respect to my explanation of the words, and made their bends adornings, I do not think that Mr. Steevens's objections are equally well founded. He says that a mermaid's tail is an unclassical image, adopted from modern sign posts: that such a being as a mermaid did never actually exist, I will readily acknowledge. But the idea is not of modern invention. In the oldest books of heraldry you will find mermaids delineated in the same form that they are at this day. The crest of my own family, for some centuries, has been a mermaid; and the Earl of Howth, of a family much more ancient, which came into England with the Conqueror, has a mermaid for one of his supporters. Boyse tells us, in his Pantheon, on what authority I cannot say, that the Syrens were the daughters of Achelous, that their lower parts were like fishes, and their upper parts like women; and Virgil's description of Scylla, in his third Æneid, corresponds exactly with our idea of a mermaid: "Prima hominis facies, & pulchro pectore virgo "Pube tenus, postrema immani corpore pristis." I have, therefore, no doubt but this was Shakspeare's idea also. Mr.Steevens's observations on the aukward and ludicrous situation of Cleopatra's attendants, when involved in their fishes' tails, is very jocular and well imagined; but his jocularity proceeds from his not distinguishing between reality and deception. If a modern fine lady were to represent a mermaid at a masquerade, she would contrive, I have no doubt, to dress in that character, yet to preserve the free use of all her limbs, and that with ease; for the mermaid is not described as resting on the Enthron'd in the market-place, did sit alone, 5 And made a gap in nature. AGR. Rare Egyptian! ENO. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, Invited her to supper: she replied, It should be better, he became her guest; For what his eyes eat only. AGR. Royal wench! She made great Cæsar lay his sword to bed; ENO. I saw her once Hop forty paces through the publick street: And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted, extremity of her tail, but on one of the bends of it, sufficiently broad to conceal the feet. Notwithstanding the arguments of Malone and Steevens, and the deference I have for their opinions, I can find no sense in the passage as they have printed it. M. MASON. 4 That yarely frame the office.] i. e. readily and dexterously perform the task they undertake. See Vol. IV. p. 5, n. 2. 5 which, but for vacancy, STEEVENS. Had gone-] Alluding to an axiom in the peripatetic philosophy then in vogue, that Nature abhors a vacuum. But for vacancy, means, for fear of a vacuum. WARBURTON. MALONE. For what his eyes eat only.] Thus Martial: STEEVENS. That she did make defect, perfection, MEC. Now Antony must leave her utterly. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 8 Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry, Where most she satisfies. For vilest things Become themselves in her; that the holy priests1 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety:] Such is the praise bestowed by Shakspeare on his heroine; a praise that well deserves the consideration of our female readers. Cleopatra, as appears from the tetradrachms of Antony, was no Venus; and indeed the majority of ladies who most successfully enslaved the hearts of princes, are known to have been less remarkable for personal than mental attractions. The reign of insipid beauty is seldom lasting; but permanent must be the rule of a woman who can diversify the sameness of life by an inexhausted variety of accomplishments. To stale is a verb employed by Heywood, in The Iron Age, 1632: 8 "One that hath stal'd his courtly tricks at home." STEEVENS. Other women Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry, Where most she satisfies.] Almost the same thought, clothed nearly in the same expressions, is found in the old play of Pericles: "Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry, "The more she gives them speech." Again, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety, "But rather famish them amid their plenty." Malone. 9 For vilest things Become themselves in her;] So, in our author's 150th Sonnet: "Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill?” MALONE. Bless her, when she is riggish.2 MEC. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle The heart of Antony, Octavia is A blessed lottery to him.3 1 the holy priests &c.] In this, and the foregoing description of Cleopatra's passage down the Cydnus, Dryden seems to have emulated Shakspeare, and not without success : 66 she's dangerous: "Her eyes have power beyond Thessalian charms, "They bless her wanton eyes. Even I who hate her, "And while I curse desire it." Be it remembered, however, that, in both instances, without a spark from Shakspeare, the blaze of Dryden might not have been enkindled. 2 REED. when she is riggish.] Rigg is an ancient word meaning a strumpet. So, in Whetstone's Castle of Delight, 1576: "Then loath they will both lust and wanton love, "Or else be sure such ryggs my care shall prove." Again: "Immodest rigg, I Ovid's counsel usde." Again, in Churchyard's Dolorous Gentlewoman, 1593: "About the streets was gadding, gentle rigge, "With clothes tuckt up to set bad ware to sale, "For youth good stuffe, and for olde age a stale." STEEVENS. Again, in J. Davies's Scourge of Folly, printed about the year 1611: 3 "When wanton rig, or lecher dissolute, "Do stand at Paules Cross in a-suite." MALONE. Octavia is A blessed lottery to him.] Dr. Warburton says, the poet wrote allottery, but there is no reason for this assertion. The ghost of Andrea, in The Spanish Tragedy, says: "Minos in graven leaves of lottery "Drew forth the manner of my life and death." FARMER. |