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Malone places the composition of this play in 1608. No previous edition to that of the folio of 1623 has been hitherto discovered; but there is an entry of A Booke called Antony and Cleopatra,' to Edward Blount, in 1608, on the Stationers' Books.

Shakspeare followed Plutarch, and appears to have been anxious to introduce every incident and every personage he met with in his historian. Plutarch mentions Lamprias his grandfather, as authority for some of the stories he relates of the profuseness and luxury of Antony's entertainments at Alexandria. In the stagedirection of Scene 2, Act i. in the old copy, Lamprias, Ramnus, and Lucilius are made to enter with the rest; but they have no part in the dialogue, nor do their names appear in the list of Dramatis Personæ.

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VARRIUS,

TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Cæsar.

CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony.

SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius's Army.

EUPHRONIUS, an Ambassador from Antony to Cæsar.
ALEXAS, MARDIAN, SELEUCUS, and DIOMEDES,
Attendants on Cleopatra.
A Soothsayer. A Clown.

CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt.

OCTAVIA, Sister to Cæsar, and Wife to Antony.
CHARMIAN, and IRAS, Attendants on Cleopatra.

Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, dispersed in several Parts of the Roman Empire.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's

Palace.

Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO.

Philo.

NAY, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges 1 all temper;
And is become the bellows, and the fan,
To cool a gipsy's lust. Look where they come!

Flourish. Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with their Trains; Eunuchs fanning her.

Take but good note, and you shall see in him

1 i. e. renounces. The metre would be improved by reading reneyes, or reneies, a word used by Chaucer and other of our elder writers: but we have in King Lear, renege, affirm, &c. Stanyhurst, in his version of the second book of the Æneid, has the word:

To live now longer, Troy burnt, he flatly reneageth.'

The triple pillar of the world transform'd

Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much. Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon❜d 3.

Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd. Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth 4.

Enter an Attendant.

Att. News, my good lord, from Rome.

Ant.

Grates me:-The sum5;

Cleo. Nay, hear them", Antony:

Fulvia, perchance, is angry; Or, who knows
If the scarce-bearded Cæsar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you, Do this, or this:
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
Perform't, or else we damn thee.

Ant.

How, my love! Cleo. Perchance,-nay, and most like,

2 Triple is here used for third, or one of three; one of the Triumvirs, one of the three masters of the world. To sustain the pillars of the earth is a scriptural phrase. Triple is used for third in All's Well that Ends Well :-

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Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,

He bade me store up as a triple eye.'

3 So in Romeo and Juliet:

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They are but beggars that can count their worth.'

And in Much Ado about Nothing :

'I were but little happy, if I could say how much.'

'Basia pauca cupit, qui numerare potest.'

Martial, vi. 36.

4. Then must you set the boundary at a distance greater than the present visible universe affords.'

5 Be brief, sum thy business in a few words.'

6 i. e. the news; which was considered plural in Shakspeare's time. See King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4, note 38.

7 Take in, it has before been observed, signifies subdue, conquer.

You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from Cæsar; therefore hear it, Antony.—
Where's Fulvia's process? Cæsar's, I would say?
-Both ?-

Call in the messengers.-As I am Egypt's queen,
Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
Is Cæsar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame,
When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds.-The mes-

sengers.

Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch Of the rang'd9 empire fall! Here is my space; Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life Is, to do thus; when such a mutual pair,

Embracing. And such a twain can do't, in which, I bind, On pain of punishment, the world to weet 10, We stand up peerless.

Cleo.

Excellent Falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?-
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony

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cesse by which a man is called into the court, and no more. To serve with processe is to cite, to summon.'-Minsheu.

9 The rang'd empire is the well arranged, well ordered empire. Shakspeare uses the expression again in Coriolanus:

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bury all which yet distinctly ranges

In heaps and piles of ruins.'

10 To weet is to know.

11 I think that Johnson has entirely mistaken the meaning of this passage, and believe Mason's explanation nearly correct. Cleopatra means to say that Antony will act like himself,' (i. e. nobly), without regard to the mandates of Cæsar or the anger of Fulvia. To which he replies, But stirr'd by Cleopatra,' i. e. Add if moved to it by Cleopatra.' This is a compliment to her. Johnson was wrong in supposing but to be used here in its exceptive sense.

6

Now, for the love of Love 12, and her soft hours, Let's not confound 13 the time with conference harsh: There's not a minute of our lives should stretch Without some pleasure now: What sport to-night? Cleo. Hear the ambassadors.

Ant.

Fye, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes 14, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose 15 every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admir'd!
No messenger; but thine and all alone,

To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and note
The qualities of people 16. Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it:-Speak not to us.

[Exeunt ANT. and CLEO. with their Train.
Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonius priz'd so slight?
Phi. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.

Dem.

I'm full sorry,

That he approves the common liar 17, who
Thus speaks of him at Rome: But I will hope
Of better deeds to-morrow.

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Rest you happy!

[Exeunt.

12 That is, for the sake of the Queen of Love.' See Comedy of Errors, vol. iv. p. 162, note 9.

13 To confound the time, is to consume it, to lose it. See vol. v. p. 139, note 11.

14

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Quicquid enim dicit, seu facit, omne decet.'
Marullus, lib. ii.

See Shakspeare's 150th Sonnet.

15 The folio reads, who every, &c.: corrected by Rowe. 16 Sometime also when he would goe up and down the city disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into poor mens windows and their shops, and scold and brawl with them within the house; Cleopatra would be also in a chambermaid's array, and amble up and down the streets with him.'

Life of Antonius in North's Plutarch.

17 That he proves the common liar, Fame, in his case to be a true reporter. Shakspeare usually uses approve for prove, and approof for proof.

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