If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deferv'd of rafhness.

Ant. I am not married, Cæfar: let me hear
Agrippa further speak.

Agr. To hold you in perpetual amity,

To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
With an unflipping knot, take Antony
Octavia to his wife; whofe beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of men;
Whofe virtue, and whofe general graces, fpeak
That which none elfe can utter. By this marriage,
All little jealoufies, which now feem great,

And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,
Where now half tales be truths: her love to both
Would, each to other, and all loves to both
Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;
For 'tis a ftudied, not a prefent thought,
By duty ruminated.

Ant. Will Cæfar speak?

Caf. Not 'till he hears, how Antony is touch'd With what is fpoke already.

Ant. What power is in Agrippa

If I would fay, Agrippa, be it for
To make this good?

Caf. The power of Cæfar, and
His power unto Octavia.

Ant. May I never

Which Mr. Theobald, with his ufual triumph, changes to approof, which he explains, allowance. Dr. Warburton inferted reproof very properly into Hanmer's edition, but forgot it in his own.

JOHNSON. The expreffion means the fame as a reproof of your rafhness. T.T.

To this good purpose, that so fairly fhews,
Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand :
Further this act of grace: and, from this hour,
The heart of brothers govern in our loves,
And fway our great designs!

Caf. There is my hand.

A fifter I bequeath you, whom no brother
Did ever love fo dearly. Let her live

To join our kingdoms, and our hearts; and never
Fly off our loves again!

Lep. Happily, amen.

Ant. I did not think to draw my fword 'gainft
Pompey,

For he hath laid ftrange courtefies and great
Of late upon me:-1 muft thank him only,
Left my remembrance fuffer ill report;

At heel of that, defy him.

Lep. Time calls upon us :

Of us must Pompey presently be fought,
Or else he feeks out us.

Ant. Where lies he?

Caf. About the mount Mifenum.
Art. What is his ftrength by land?
Caf. Great, and increafing: but by fea
He is an abfolute mafter.

Ant. So is the fame.

'Would, we had spoke together! hafte we for it Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we The business we have talk'd of.

Caf. With most gladness;

And do invite you to my fifter's view,
Whither straight I will lead you.

Ant. Let us, Lepidus, not lack your company.

Left my remembrance fuffer ill report;] Left I be thought too willing to forget benefits, I must barely return him thanks, and then I will defy him.

JOHNSON.

Lep.

Lep. Noble Antony, not sickness should detain me. [Flourish. Exeunt.

Manent Enobarbus, Agrippa, Mecanas.

Mec. Welcome from Ægypt, fir.

Eno. Half the heart of Cæfar, worthy Mecenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa!Agr. Good Enobarbus!

Mec. We have cause to be glad, that matters are fo well digested. You ftay'd well by it in Ægypt. Eno. Ay fir, we did fleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.

Mec. Eight wild boars roafted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve perfons there :-Is this true?

Eno. This was but as a fly by an eagle we had much more monftrous matter of feaft, which worthily deferved noting.

Mec. She's a molt triumphant lady, if report be fquare to her.

Eno. When she first met Mark Antony, she purs'd up his heart upon the river of Cydnus.

Agr. There the appear'd, indeed; or my reporter Devis'd well for her.

Eno. I will tell you:

The barge fhe fat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burnt on the water: the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the fails, and fo perfumed, that

The winds were love-fick with 'em: the oars were

filver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept ftroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow fafter,
As amorous of their ftrokes. For her own perfon,
It beggar'd all defcription: fhe did lie

In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tissue)

'O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see

O'er-pi&uring that Venus, where we fee, &c.] Meaning the Venus of Protogenes mentioned by Pliny, 1. 35. c. 10.

L 3

WARE.

The

The fancy out-work nature. On each fide her,-
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like fmiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did feem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

Agr. Oh, rare for Antony!

2

Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids,
So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm,

A feem

▾ And what they undid, did.] It might be read lefs harshly, And what they did, undid.

JOHNSON. • —tended her i' th' eyes.] Perhaps tended her by th' eyes, difco. vered her will by her eyes. JOHNSON.

3 And made their bends ADORNINGS.] This is fenfe indeed, and may be understood thus; her maids bowed with fo good an air, that it added new graces to them. But this is not what Shakefpeare would fay: Cleopatra, in this famous fcene, perfonated Venus juft rifing from the waves: at which time the Mytholo gifts tell us, the Sea-deities furrounded the Goddefs to adore, and pay her homage. Agreeably to this fable Cleopatra had dreffed her maids, the poet tells us, like Nereids. To make the whole therefore conformable to the story reprefented, we may be affured, Shakespeare wrote,

And made their bends ADORINGS.

They did her obfervance in the posture of adoration, as if the had been Venus. WARBURTON.

That Cleopatra perfonated Venus we know; but that Shakefpeare was acquainted with the circumftance of homage being paid her by the Deities of the fea, is by no means as certain. The old reading will probably appear the more elegant of the two to modern readers, who have heard fo much about the line of beauty. The whole paffage is taken from the following in fir Thomas North's tranflation of Plutarch." She difdained to fet "forward otherwife, but to take her barge in the riuer of Cyd

66

nus, the poope whereof was of gold, the failes of purple, and "the owers of filuer, which kept ftroke in rowing after the founde "of the muficke of flutes, howboyes, citherns, violls, and fuch "other inftruments as they played vpon in the barge. And now for the perfon of her felfe: fhe was layed vnder a pauil4 lion of cloth of gold of tiffue, apparelled and attired like the "Goddeffe Venus, commonly drawen in picture: and hard by

her,

A feeming mermaid fteers; the filken tackles
Swell with the touches of those flower-foft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A ftrange invifible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city caft
Her people out upon her and Antony,
Enthron'd i' the market-place, did fit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

Agr. Rare Egyptian !

Eno. Upon her landing, Antony fent to her,
Invited her to fupper: fhe reply'd,

It should be better, he became her gueft;
Which the intreated. Our courteous Antony,
Whom ne'er the word of No woman heard fpeak,
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast;
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart,
For what his eyes eat only.

Agr. Royal wench!

She made great Cæfar lay his fword to bed;

"her, on either hand of her, pretie faire boyes apparelled as "painters do fet forth God Cupide, with litle fannes in their "hands, with the which they fanned wind vpon her. Her la"dies and gentlewomen alfo, the fairest of them were apparelled "like the nymphes Nereides (which are the mermaides of the "waters) and like the Graces, some stearing the helme, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of the which "there came a wonderfull paffing sweete fauor of perfumes, that perfumed the wharfes fide, peftered with innumerable multi"tudes of people. Some of them followed the barge all alongest "the riuers fide: others alfo ranne out of the citie to fee her comming in. So that in thend, there ranne fuch multitudes of "people one after an other to fee her, that Antonius was left "poft alone in the market place, in his imperiall feate to geve "audience;" &c. STEEVENS.

"

Had gone

4-which, but for vacancy,

-3

Alluding to an axiom in the peripatetic philofophy then in vogue,

that Nature abbors a vacuum.

WARBURTON.