IRAS. Royal queen! CHAR. O Cleopatra! thou art taken, queen!— CLEO. Quick, quick, good hands. PRO. [Drawing a dagger. Hold, worthy lady, hold: [Seizes and disarms her. What, of death too Cleopatra, Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this CLEO. That rids our dogs of languish1? PRO. Do not abuse my master's bounty, by CLEO. PRO. O, temperance, lady! CLEO. Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir; If idle talk will once be necessary, I'll not sleep neither3: This mortal house I'll ruin, This information, it is to be presumed, Cæsar obtained from Gallus. The stage-directions being very imperfect in this scene in the old copy, no exit is here marked; but as Gallus afterwards enters along with Cæsar, it was undoubtedly the author's intention that he should here go out. In the modern editions, this, as well as the preceding speech, is given to Proculeius, though the error in the old copy clearly shows that two speakers were intended. I MALONE. languish ?] So, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. II. : STEEVENS. 2 Worth many babes and beggars!] Why, death, wilt thou not rather seize a queen, than employ thy force upon babes and beggars? JOHNSON. 3 If idle TALK will once be necessary, 2 D Do Cæsar what he can. Know, sir, that I necessary now for once to waste a moment in idle talk of my purpose, I will not sleep neither." In common conversation we often use will be, with as little relation to futurity. As, Now I am going, it will be fit for me to dine first.' JOHNSON. Once may mean sometimes. Of this use of the word I have already given instances, both in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and King Henry VIII. The meaning of Cleopatra seems to be this: If idle talking be sometimes necessary to the prolongation of life, why I will not sleep for fear of talking idly in my sleep. The sense designed, however, may be-If it be necessary, for once, to talk of performing impossibilities, why, I'll not sleep neither. I have little confidence, however, in these attempts, to produce a meaning from the words under consideration. STEEVENS. The explications above given appear to me so unsatisfactory, and so little deducible from the words, that I have no doubt that a line has been lost after the word necessary, in which Cleopatra threatened to observe an obstinate silence. The line probably began with the word I'll, and the compositor's eye glancing on the same words in the line beneath, all that intervened was lost. See p. 289, and p. 388. So, in Othello, quarto, 1622, Act III. Sc. I.: "And needs no other suitor but his likings, In the folio the second line is omitted, by the compositor's eye, after the first word of it was composed, glancing on the same word immediately under it in the subsequent line, and then proceeding with that line instead of the other. This happens frequently at the press. The omitted line in the passage, which has given rise to the present note, might have been of this import : menace. "Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir; "If idle talk will once be necessary, “I'll not so much as syllable a word; "I'll not sleep neither: This mortal house I'll ruin," &c. The words, "I'll not sleep neither," contain a new and distinct I once thought that Shakspeare might have writtenI'll not speak neither; but in p. 414, Cæsar comforting Cleopatra, says, feed, and sleep; " which shows that sleep, in the passage before us, is the true reading. MALONE. 66 I a agree that a line is lost, which I shall attempt to supply : Nor once be chástis'd with the sober eye Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt PRO. You do extend These thoughts of horror further than you shall DOL. Enter DOLAabella. Proculeius, What thou hast done thy master Cæsar knows, PRO. So, Dolabella, It shall content me best: be gentle to her. *First folio, nak'd. "Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir; [I will not speak; If sleep be necessary,] "I'll not sleep neither." The repetition of the word necessary may have occasioned the omission. RITSON. 4 My country's high PYRAMIDES my gibbet,] The poet designed we should read-pyramides, Lat. instead of pyramids, and so the folio reads. The verse will otherwise be defective. Thus, in Doctor Faustus, 1604: "Besides the gates and high pyramides "That Julius Cæsar brought from Africa." Again, in Tamburlaine, 1590: "Like to the shadows of pyramides." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, b. xii. c. lxxiii. : "The theaters, pyramides, the hills of half a mile." Mr. Tollet observes, that Sandys, in his Travels, as well as Drayton, in the 26th Song of his Polyolbion, uses pyramides as a quadrisyllable." STEEVENS. SAS for-] This conjunction is wanting in the first, but is supplied by the second folio. STEEVENS. To Cæsar I will speak what you shall please, If you'll employ me to him. CLEO. [TO CLEOPATRA. Say, I would die. [Exeunt PROCULEIUS, and Soldiers. DOL. Most noble empress, you have heard of me? CLEO. I cannot tell. DOL. Assuredly, you know me. CLEO. No matter, sir, what I have heard, or known. You laugh, when boys, or women, tell their dreams; Is't not your trick? DOL. I understand not, madam. CLEO. I dream'd, there was an emperor An tony ; O, such another sleep, that I might see But such another man! DOL. If it might please you,— CLEO. His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck A sun, and moon; which kept their course, and lighted The little O, the earth". 6 as the HEAVENS; and therein STUCK A SUN,] So, in King Henry IV. Part II.: 66 it stuck upon him, as the sun "In the grey vault of heaven." STEEVENS. 7 The little O, the earth.] Old copy "The little o' the earth. "Dol. Most sovereign creature ! What a blessed limping verse these hemistichs give us ! Had none of the editors an ear to find the hitch in its pace? There is but a syllable wanting, and that, I believe verily, was but of a single letter. I restore: "The little O o' th' earth.” i. e. the little orb or circle. Our poet, in other to express himself thus. THEobald. passages, chooses When two words are repeated near to each other, printers very often omit one of them. The text however may well stand. DOL. Most sovereign creature,— CLEO. His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm Crested the world: his voice was propertied Shakspeare frequently uses O for an orb or circle. So, in King Henry V.: "Within this wooden O the very casques," &c. Again, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Than all yon fiery oes, and eyes of light." MALone. 8 His legs bestrid the ocean : &c.] So, in Julius Cæsar: 9 66 Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, "Like a Colossus." MALone. - his rear'd arm Crested the world :] Alluding to some of the old crests in heraldry, where a raised arm on a wreath was mounted on the helmet. PERCY. I AND that to friends;] Thus the old copy. The modern editors read, with no less obscurity: 2 66 when that to friends." STEEVENS. For his bounty, There was no winter in't; an AUTUMN 'twas, That grew the more by reaping :] Old copy an Antony it was There was certainly a contrast both in the thought and terms, designed here, which is lost in an accidental corruption. How could an Antony grow the more by reaping? I'll venture, by a very easy change, to restore an exquisite fine allusion; which carries its reason with it too, why there was no winter in his bounty: 66 For his bounty, "There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, "That grew the more by reaping." I ought to take notice, that the ingenious Dr. Thirlby likewise started this very emendation, and had marked it in the margin of his book. THEOBALD. The following lines in Shakspeare's 53d Sonnet add support to the emendation: |