Truft not to rotten planks: Do you mifdoubt This fword, and thefe my wounds? Let the Egyptians, Have us'd to conquer, ftanding on the earth, Ant. Well, well, away. [Exeunt ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and ENOBARBUS. Sold. By Hercules, I think, I am i' the right. Can. Soldier, thou art: but his whole action grows Sold. You keep by land The legions and the horse whole, do you not? Publicola, and Cælius, are for fea: But we keep whole by land. This fpeed of Cæfar's Sold. While he was yet in Rome, His power went out in fuch distractions', as Can. Who's his lieutenant, hear you? Sold. They fay, one Taurus, Can. Well I know the man. it to paffe that you trust to these vile brittle fhippes? what, doe you miftruft thefe woundes of myne, and this fword? let the Egyptians and Phenicians fight by fea, and fet vs on the maine land, where we vse to conquer, or to be flayne on our feete. Antonius paffed by him, and fayd neuer a word, but only beckoned to him with his hand and head, as though he willed him to be of good corage, although indeede he had no great corage himfelfe." STEEVENS. 9 By Hercules, I think, I am i' the right. Can. Soldier, thou art; but his whole action grows Not in the power on't:] That is, his whole conduct becomes ungoverned by the right, or by reafon. JOHNSON. I think the fenfe is very different, and that Canidius means to fay, His whole conduct in the war is not founded upon that which is his greatest strength, (namely his land force,) but on the caprice of a woman, who wishes that he should fight by fea. Dr. Johnfon refers the word on't to right in the preceding fpeech. I apprehend, it refers to action in the fpeech before us. MALONE. 1-diftractions,-] Detachments; feparate bodies. JOHNSON. The word is thus ufed by fir Paul Rycaut in his Maxims of Turkish Polity: "and not fuffer his affections to wander on other wives, Daves, or diflractions of bis love." STEEVENS, L13 Enter Enter a Meffenger. Mef. The emperor calls Canidius. Can. With news the time's with labour; and throws forth, Each minute, fome. SCENE VIII. A Plain near A&tium. [Exeunt. Enter CESAR, TAURUS, Officers, and Others. Caf. Taurus, Taur. My lord. Caf. Strike not by land; keep whole: provoke not battle, Till we have done at fea. Do not exceed The prescript of this fcrowl: Our fortune lies Upon this jump. Enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS. [Exeunt. Ant. Set we our fquadrons on yon' fide o' the hill, [Exeunt. Enter CANIDIUS, marching with his land army one way over the ftage; and TAURUS, the lieutenant of Cæfar, the other way. After their going in, is heard the noise of a fea-fight. Alarum. Re-enter ENOBARBUS. Ene. Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer : The Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral, With all their fixty, fly, and turn the rudder; To fee't, mine eyes are blafted. Enter SCARUS. Scar. Gods, and goddeffes, All the whole fynod of them! 2 The Antoniad, &c.] which Plutarch fays, was the name of Cleo patra's fhip. POPE. Επο. Eno. What's thy paffion? Scar. The greater cantle 3 of the world is loft With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away Kingdoms and provinces. Eno. How appears the fight? Scar. On our fide like the token'd+ peftilence, Where death is fure. Yon' ribald-rid nag of Egypt', Whom 3 The greater cantle-] A piece or lump. POPE. Cantle is rather a corner. Cæfar in this play mentions the threenook'd world. Of this triangular world every triumvir had a corner. JOHNSON. The word is used by Chaucer in the Knight's Tale, late edit. v. 3010: "Of no partie ne cantel of a thing." STEEVENS, See Vol. V. p. 195, n. 3. MALONE. 4-token'd-] Spotted. JOHNSON, The death of those visited by the plague was certain, when particular eruptions appear'd on the fkin; and thefe were called God's tokens. So, in the comedy of Two wife Men and all the rest Fools, in feven acts, 1619: A will and a tolling bell are as prefent death as God's tokens.” Again, in Herod and Antipater, 1622: "His ficknefs, madam, rageth like a plague, "Once fpotted, never cur’d.” Again, in Love's Labour's Loft: "For the Lord's tokens on you both I fee." STEEVENS. 5 Yon' ribald-rid nag of Egypt,] The word in the old copy is ribaudred. I have adopted the happy emendation proposed by Mr. Steevens. Ribaud was only the old spelling of ribald; and the misprint of red for rid is eafily accounted for.-Whenever by any negligence in writing a dot is omitted over an i, compofitors at the prefs invariably print an e. Of this I have had experience in many fheets of the prefent work, being very often guilty of that negligence which probably produced the error in the paffage before us. By ribald, Scarus, I think, means the lewd Antony in particular, not every lewd fellow," as Mr. Steevens has explained it. MALONE. A ribald is a lewd fellow. So, in Arden of Feverfbam, 1592: that injurious riball that attempts "To vyolate my dear wyve's chastity." Again: "Injurious ftrumpet, and thou ribald knave." Ribaldred, the old reading, is, I believe, no more than a corruption. Shakspeare, who is not always very nice about his verfification, might have written: "Yon' ribald-rid nag of Egypt,➡ i. e. Yon ftrumpet, who is common to every wanton fellow. It ap pears however from Barrett's Alvearie, 1580, that the word was fometimes written ribaudrous, STEEVENS. Whom leprofy o'ertake! i' the midst o' the fight,- Eno. That I beheld: Mine eyes did ficken at the fight, and could not Scar. She once being loof'd, 8 The noble ruin of her magic, Antony, Claps on his fea-wing, and like a doating mallard, Ribaudrous is inferted in Barret's Alvearie as an adje&tive, not as fy. nonymous to ribaud or ribald; which, however it may have been occafionally used in poetry, appears to have been a fubftantive. The article in the Alvearie is: "Aribaudrous and filthie tongue. Os obfcænum." MALONE. I believe we should read-bag. What follows feems to prove it: "The noble ruin of her magic, Antony, "Claps on his fea-wing, TYRWHITT. The bize, or afirum, the fly that ftings cattle, proves that mag is the right word. JOHNSON. • Whom leprofy o'ertake!] Leprosy, an epidemical distemper of the Egyptians; to which Horace probably alludes in the controverted line: "Contan inato cum grege turpium "Morbo virorum." JOHNSON. Leprofy was one of the various names by which the Lues venerea was diftinguished. So, in Greene's Difputation between a He Coneycatcher and a She Coneycatcher, 1592: "Into what jeopardy a man will thrust himself for that he loves, although for his sweete villanie he be brought to loathfome leprofie." STEEVENS. Pliny, who fays, the white leprofy, or elephantiafis, was not seen in Italy before the time of Pompey the Great, adds, it is "a peculiar maladie, and naturall to the Egyptians; but looke when any of their kings fell into it, woe worth the fubjects and poore people: for then were the tubs and bathing veffels wherein they fate in the baine, filled with men's bloud for their cure," Philemon Holland's Tranflation, B. XXVI. c. I. REED. 7 The brize upon ber-] The brize is the gad-fly. So, in Spenfer : a briz, a fcorned little creature, 8 "Through his fair hide his angry fting did threaten." STEEVENS. being loof'd,] To leef is to bring a fhip close to the wind. This expreffion is in the old tranflation of Plutarch. STEEVING. I never I never faw an action of such shame; Eno. Alack, alack! Enter CANIDIUS. Can. Our fortune on the fea is out of breath, And finks moft lamentably. Had our general Been what he knew himself, it had gone well: O, he has given example for our flight, Moft grofsly, by his own. Eno. Ay, are you thereabouts? Why then, good night Indeed. Can. Towards Peloponnefus are they fled. Scar. 'Tis eafy to't; and there I will attend What further comes. Can. To Cæfar will I render My legions, and my horfe; fix kings already Eno. I'll yet follow [afide. The wounded chance of Antony, though my reafon Sits in the wind against me. SCENE IX. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace. Enter ANTONY, and Attendants. [Exeunt. Ant. Hark, the land bids me tread no more upon't, It is afham'd to bear me !-Friends, come hither; • The wounded chance of Antony,] I know not whether the au thour, who loves to draw his images from the fports of the field, might not have written : The wounded chafe of Antony, The allufion is to a deer wounded and chafed, whom all other deer avoid. I will, fays Enobarbus, follow Antony, though chafed and wounded. The common reading, however, may very well stand. JOHNSON. The wounded chance of Antony, is a phrafe nearly of the fame import as the broken fortunes of Antony. The old reading is indifputably the true one. So in the fifth Act: "Or I fhall fhew the cinders of my spirit, I am |