I'll raise the preparation of a war

Shall ftain your brother2; Make your foonest hafte;
So your defires are yours.

Óda. Thanks to my lord.

The Jove of power make me moft weak, moft weak, Your reconciler 3! Wars 'twixt you twain would be 4 As if the world fhould cleave, and that flain men Should folder up the rift.

Ant. When it appears to you where this begins,
Turn your difpleasure that way; for our faults
Can never be fo equal, that your love

Can equally move with them. Provide your going;
Choose your own company, and command what coft
Your heart has mind to.

SCENE V.

The fame. Another Room in the fame.

[Exeunt.

Enter ENOBARBUS, and EROS, meeting.

Eno. How now, friend Eros?

Eros. There's strange news come, fir.

Eno. What, man?

Eros. Cæfar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

Eno. This is old; What is the fuccefs?

Eros. Cæfar, having made ufe of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, prefently denied him rivality; would

2 I'll raife the preparation of a war

Shall flain your brother; i. e. fhall shame or disgrace him. JoHNS. I believe a line betwixt thefe two has been loft, the purport of which probably was, unless I am compell'd in my own defence, I will do no act tbat fhall ftain, &c.

After Antony has told Octavia that she fhall be a mediatrix between him and his adverfary, it is furely ftrange to add that he will do an act that fhall difgrace her brother. MALONE.

3 Your reconciler !] The old copy has you. This manifeft error of the prefs, which appears to have arifen from the fame caufe as that noticed above, was corrected in the fecond folio. MALONE.

4-Wars 'twixt you twain would be, &c.] The fenfe is, that war between Cæfar and Antony would engage the world between them, and that the flaughter would be great in fo extenfive a commotion. JOHNS. 5 rivality.] Equal rank. JoHNSON.

not

not let him partake in the glory of the action and not refting here, accufes him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, feizes him: So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

Eno. Then, world, thou haft a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou haft, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?

6 Upon bis own appeal,] To appeal, in Shakspeare, is to accuse; Cæfar feized Lepidus without any other proof than Cæfar's accufation. JoHNS. 7 Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more;

And throw between them all the food thou baft,

They'll grind the one the other] The old copy reads;
Then would thou badft, a pair of chaps, no more;
And throw, &c.

They'll grind the other.

The happy emendation, to which I have paid the refpect that it merit. ed by giving it a place in the text, was fuggefted by Dr. Johnfon. He explains the paffage fo amended, thus: "Cæfar and Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey upon between them." Though in general very reluctant to depart from the old copy, I had not in the prefent inftance any fcruples on that head. The palfage, as it stands in the folio, is nonfenfe, there being nothing to which thou can be referred. World and would were eafily confounded, and the omiffion in the last line, which Dr. Johnfon has fupplied, is one of thofe errors that happen in almoft every sheet that paffes through the prefs, when the fame words are repeated near to each other in the fame fentence. Thus, in a note on Timon of Athens, p. 55, now before me, thefe words ought to have been printed: "Dr. Farmer, however, fufpects a quibble between bonour in its common acceptation and bonour (i. e. the lordship of a place) in its legal fenfe." But the words-“ iz its common acceptation and" were omitted in the proof sheet by the compofitor, by his eye (after he had composed the first bonour,) glancing on the laft, by which the intermediate words were loft. In the paffage before us, I have no doubt that the compofitor's eye in like manner glancing on the second the, after the first had been compofed, the words now recovered were omitted. So, in Troilus and Creffida, the two lines printed in Italicks, were omitted in the folio, from the fame caufe ; "The bearer knows not; but commends itself "To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itfelf

"That moft pure fpirit of jenfe, beheld itself,

"Not going from itself," &c.

I have lately obferved that Sir Thomas Hanmer had made the fame emendation. As, in a former fcene, Shakspeare, with allufien to the triumvirs, called the World three-corner'd, fo he here fuppofes it to have had three chaps. No more does not fignify no longer, but has the fame meaning as if Shakspeare had written and no more. Thou haft now a pair of chaps, and only a pair.

MALONE.

Eros,

Eros. He's walking in the garden-thus; and spurns
The rush that lies before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus!
And threats the throat of that his officer,

That murder'd Pompey.

Eno. Our great navy's rigg'd.
Eros. For Italy, and Cæfar.

More, Domitius;

My lord defires you prefently: my news
I might have told hereafter.

Eno. "Twill be naught:

But let it be. Bring me to Antony.

Eros. Come, fir.

SCENE

VI.

Rome. A Room in Cæfar's Houfe.

[Excunt.

Enter CASAR, AGRIPPA, and MECENAS.

Caf. Contemning Rome, he has done all this: And more; In Alexandria,-here's the manner of it,— I' the market-place, on a tribunal filver'd, Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold Were publickly enthron'd: at the feet, fat Cæfarion, whom they call my father's fon; And all the unlawful iffue, that their luft Since then hath made between them. Unto her He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt; made her Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia',

Abfolute

More, Domitius;] I have fomething more to tell you, which I might have told at first, and delayed my news. Antony requires your prefence. JOHNSON.

9 I the market-place,-] So in the old tranflation of Plutarch. "For he affembled all the people in the show place, where younge men doe exercise them felues, and there vpon a high tribunal filuered, he fet two chayres of gold, the one for him felfe, and the other for Cleopatra, and lower chaires for his children: then he openly published before the affembly, that first of all he did eftablish Cleopatra queene of Egypt, of Cyprvs, of Lydia, and of the lower Syria, and at that time alfo, Cæfarion king of the fame realmes. This Cæfarion was fuppofed to be the fonne of Julius Cæfar, who had left Cleopatra great with child. Secondly, he called the fonnes he had by her, the kings of kings, and gaue Alexander for his portion, Armenia, Media, and Parthia, when he had conquered the contry: and vnto Ptolemy for his portion, Phenicia, Syria, and Cilicia. STEEVENS.

For Lydia, Mr. Upton, from Plutarch, has restored Lybia. JoHNS. In the tranflation from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in

folio,

Abfolute queen.

Mec. This in the publick eye?

Caf. I' the common fhew-place, where they exercife. His fons he there 2 proclaim'd, The kings of kings: Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,

He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he affign'd
Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: She

In the habiliments of the goddess Ifis 3

That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience
As 'tis reported, fo.

Mec. Let Rome be thus

Inform'd.

Agr. Who, queafy with his infolence

Already, will their good thoughts call from him.
Caf. The people know it; and have now receiv'd
His accufations.

Agr. Whom does he accufe?

Caf. Cæfar: and that, having in Sicily
Sextus Pompeius fpoil'd, we had not rated him
His part o' the ifle: then does he fay, he lent me
Some fhipping unreftor'd: laftly, he frets,

That Lepidus of the triumvirate

Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain
All his revenue.

Agr. Sir, this fhould be anfwer'd.

Caf. 'Tis done already, and the meffenger gone. I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel;

folio, 1579, will be feen at once the origin of this mistake.-"Firt of all he did establish Cleopatra queen of Egypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the Lower Syria." FARMER,

be there] The old copy has-bither. The correction was made by

Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

3

the goddefs Ifis] So in the old tranflation of Plutarch: "Now for Cleopatra, he did not onely weare at that time (but at all other times els when the came abroad) the apparell of the goddeffe Ifis, and fo gaue audience vnto all her fubjects, as a new Ifis." STEEVENS, • I find the character of this work pretty early delineated,

"Twas Greek at firft, that Greek was Latin made,
"That Latin French, that French to English ftraid:
"Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference,
"Than i' th' fame Englishman return'd from France."

FARMER.

That

That he his high authority abus'd,

And did deferve his change; for what I have conquer'd,

I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia,

And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I

Demand the like.

Mec. He'll never yield to that.

Caf. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.

Enter OCTAVIA.

Octa. Hail, Cæfar, and my lord! hail, most dear Cæfar! Caj. That ever I fhould call thee, caft-away!

Octa. You have not call'd me fo, nor have you cause. Caf. Why have you ftol'n upon us thus? You come not Like Cæfar's fifter: The wife of Antony

Should have an army for an ufher, and

The neighs of horse to tell of her approach,

Long ere he did appear; the trees by the way,
Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,
Longing for what it had not: nay, the duft
Should have afcended to the roof of heaven,
Rais'd by your populous troops: But you are come
A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented
The oftentation of our love, which, left unshewn
Is often left unlov'd: we should have met you
By fea, and land; fupplying every stage
With an augmented greeting.

Octa. Good my lord,

To come thus was I not confirain'd, but did it
On my free-will. My lord, Mark Antony,
Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted
My grieved ear withal; whereon, I begg'd
His pardon for return.

Cf. Which foon he granted,

Being an obftruct 'tween his luft and him.
Octa. Do not fay so, my lord.

Caf. I have eyes upon

him

4 Being an obstruct-] i. e. "an obstruction, a bar to the profecu tion of his wanton pleasures with Cleopatra." I use the words of Dr. Warburton, by whom the emendation was made. The old copy hasabftrat. MALONE.

And