ENO. I give it you.

SOLD. Mock not, Enobarbus.

6

I tell you true: Best you saf'd the bringer'
Out of the host; I must attend mine office,
Or would have done't myself.

Continues still a Jove.

Your emperor

[Exit Soldier.

ENO. I am alone the villain of the earth,

And feel I am so most 8. O Antony,

Thou mine of bounty, how would'st thou have paid My better service, when my turpitude

Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart 9:

If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean

5 Mock ME not,] Me was supplied by Mr. Theobald.

STEEVENS.

6 Best THAT] For the insertion of the pronoun-that, to assist the metre, I am answerable. STEEvens.

7-SAF'D the bringer -] I find this verb in Chapman's version of the fourth book of Homer's Odyssey:

and make all his craft

"Sail with his ruin, for his father saf't." STEEVENS. 8 And feel I am so most.] That is, and feel I am so, more than any one else thinks it. M. MASON.

Surely, this explanation cannot be right. "I am alone the villain of the earth," means, "I am pre-eminently the first, the greatest villain of the earth." To stand alone, is still used in that sense, where any one towers above his competitors. "And feel I am so most," must signify, "I feel or know it myself, more than any other person can or does feel it." REED.

This BLOWS my heart:] All the latter editions have :

66

This bows my heart:

I have given the original word again the place from which I think it unjustly excluded. This generosity, (says Enobarbus,) swells my heart, so that it will quickly break, "if thought break it not, a swifter mean. JOHNSON.

That to blow means to puff or swell, the following instance, in the last scene of this play, will sufficiently prove :

66

on her breast

"There is a vent of blood, and something blown."

Again, in King Lear:

"No blown ambition doth our arms excite-."

STEEVENS.

Shall outstrike thought: but thought will do't, I

feel1.

I fight against thee!-No: I will go seek
Some ditch, wherein to die; the foul'st best fits
My latter part of life.

[Exit.

SCENE VII.

Field of Battle between the Camps.

Alarum. Drums and Trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA, and Others.

AGR. Retire, we have engag'd ourselves too far: Cæsar himself has work, and our oppression 2 Exceeds what we expected.

[Exeunt.

Alarum. Enter ANTONY and SCARUS, wounded. SCAR. O my brave emperor, this is fought indeed!

Had we done so at first, we had driven them home With clouts about their heads.

ANT.

Thou bleed'st apace. SCAR. I had a wound here that was like a T, But now 'tis made an H.

ANT.

They do retire.

but THOUGHT will do't, I feel.] Thought, in this passage, as in many others, signifies melancholy. See p. 318, n. 1.

2

MALONE.

and our OPPRESSION-] Oppression, for opposition. WARBURTON.

Sir T. Hanmer has received opposition. Perhaps rightly.

JOHNSON.

Our oppression means, the force by which we are oppressed or overpowered. MALONE.

So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"At thy good heart's oppression." STEEVENS.

SCAR. We'll beat 'em into bench-holes"; I have

yet

Room for six scotches more.

Enter EROS.

EROS. They are beaten, sir; and our advantage

serves

For a fair victory.

SCAR.

Let us score their backs,

And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind;

'Tis sport to maul a runner.

I will reward thee

ANT.
Once for thy spritely comfort, and ten-fold
For thy good valour. Come thee on.

SCAR.

I'll halt after. [ [Exeunt.

SCENE VIII.

Under the Walls of Alexandria.

Alarum. Enter ANTONY, marching; SCARUS, and Forces.

ANT. We have beat him to his camp; Run one before,

And let the queen know of our guests.-To-mor

row,

Before the sun shall see us, we'll spill the blood

3

-bench-holes ;] The hole in a bench, ad levandum alvum. So, in Cecil's Secret Correspondence, published by Lord. Hailes, 1766: " And beside until a man be sure that this embryo is likely to receive life, I will leave it like an abort in a bench-hole."

4 Run one before,

MALONE.

And let the queen know of our guests.] Antony, after his success, intends to bring his officers to sup with Cleopatra, and orders notice to be given of their guests. 2 A

VOL. XII.

JOHNSON.

That has to-day escap'd. I thank you all;
For doughty-handed are you; and have fought
Not as you serv'd the cause, but as it had been
Each man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.
Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends,
Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears
Wash the congealment from your wounds, and kiss
The honour'd gashes whole.--Give me thy hand;
[TO SCARUS.

Enter CLEOPATRA, attended.

To this great fairy' I'll commend thy acts,
Make her thanks bless thee.-O thou day o' the

world,

6

Chain mine arm'd neck; leap thou, attire and all, Through proof of harness to my heart, and there Ride on the pants triumphing".

4

CLIP your wives,] To clip is to embrace. STEEVENS. 5 To this great FAIRY] Mr. Upton has well observed, that fairy, which Dr. Warburton and Sir T. Hanmer explain by Inchantress, comprises the idea of power and beauty. JOHNSON.

Fairy, in former times, did not signify only a diminutive imaginary being, but an inchanter, in which last sense, as has been observed, it is used here. But Mr. Upton's assertion, that it comprizes the idea of beauty as well as power, seems questionable; for Sir W. D'Avenant employs the word in describing the weird sisters, (who certainly were not beautiful,) in the argument prefixed to his alteration of Macbeth, 4to. 1674: "These two, travelling together through a forest, were met by three fairie witches, (weirds the Scotch call them,)" &c. See also vol. iv. p. 224, n. 4. MALONE.

Surely, Mr. Upton's remark is not indefensible. Beauty united with power, was the popular characteristick of Fairies generally considered. Such was that of The Fairy Queen of Spenser, and Titania, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Sir W. D'Avenant's particular use of any word is by no means decisive. That the language of Shakspeare was unfamiliar to him, his own contemptible alterations of it have sufficiently demonstrated.

STEEVENS.

6 -proof of HARNESS] i. e. armour of proof. Harnois, Fr. Arnese, Ital. STEEVENS.

See vol. xi. p. 267, n. 6. MALONE.

CLEO.

Lord of lords!

O infinite virtue! com'st thou smiling from
The world's great snare uncaught?

ANT.

8

We have beat them to their beds.

though grey

My nightingale,
What, girl?

Do something mingle with our younger brown"; yet have we

A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
Get goal for goal of youth'. Behold this man;
Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand ;-
Kiss it, my warrior :-He hath fought to-day,
As if a god, in hate of mankind, had
Destroy'd in such a shape.

CLEO.

I'll give thee, friend, An armour all of gold; it was a king's2.

ANT. He has deserv'd it, were it carbuncled Like holy Phoebus' car.-Give me thy hand;

7 - triumphing.] This word is so accented by Chapman, in his version of the eleventh Iliad:

66

Crept from his covert and triumph'd: Now thou art maim'd, said he." STEEVENS.

8 The world's great SNARE] i. e. the war. So, in the 116th Psalm: "The snares of death compassed me round about." Thus also Statius:

circum undique lethi Vallavere plage. STEEVENS.

9 with our brown ;] Old copy-younger brown: but as this epithet, without improving the idea, spoils the measure, I have not scrupled, with Sir Thomas Hanmer and others, to omit it as an interpolation. See p. 367, n. 7. STEEVENS.

Get goal for goal of youth.] At all plays of barriers, the boundary is called a goal; to win a goal, is to be a superior in a contest of activity. JOHNSON.

2

-

- it was a king's.] So, in Sir T. North's translation of Plutarch: "Then came Antony again to the palace greatly boasting of this victory, and sweetly kissed Cleopatra, armed as he was when he came from the fight, recommending one of his men of arms unto her, that had valiantly fought in this skirmish. Cleopatra, to reward his manliness, gave him an armour and head-piece of clean gold." STEEVENS.