f CHAR. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch1. ALEX. You think, none but your sheets are privy to your wishes. CHAR. Nay, come, tell Iras hers. ALEX. We'll know all our fortunes. ENO. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be-drunk to bed. IRAS. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else. CHAR. Even as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine. IRAS. GO, you wild bedfellow, you cannot sooth say. CHAR. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication", I cannot scratch mine ear.-Pr'ythee, tell her but a worky-day fortune. the change being so slight, and so strongly supported by the context. If every one of your wishes, says the Soothsayer, had a womb, and each womb-invested wish were likewise fertile, you then would have a million of children. The merely supposing each of her wishes to have a womb, would not warrant the Soothsayer to pronounce that she should have any children, much less a million; for, like Calphurnia, each of these wombs might be subject to the sterile curse." The word fertile, therefore, is absolutely requisite to the sense. 66 In the instance given by Dr. Johnson, "I should shame you and tell all," I occurs in the former part of the sentence, and therefore may be well omitted afterwards; but here no personal pronoun has been introduced. MALONE. The epithet fertile is applied to womb, in Timon of Athens: Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb." I have received Dr. Warburton's most happy emendation. The reader who wishes for more instruction on this subject, may consult Goulart's Admirable Histories, &c. 4to. 1607, p. 222, where we are told of a Sicilian Woman who was so fertill, as at thirty birthes she had seaventie three children." STEEVENS. I forgive thee for a witch.] From a common proverbial reproach to silly ignorant females: "You'll never be burnt for a witch." STEEVENS. 4 5 Nay, if an oily PALM be not a fruitful prognostication, &c.] So, in Othello: SOOTH. Your fortunes are alike. IRAS. But how, but how? give me particulars. SOOTH. I have said. IRAS. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she? CHAR. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it? IRAS. Not in my husband's nose. CHAR. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,-come, his fortune, his fortune.-O, let him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a worse! and let worse follow worse, till the worst of 66 This hand is moist, my lady :- "This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart." Again, in Venus and Adonis : "With that she seizeth on his sweating palm, "The precedent of pith and livelihood." MALONE. Antonio, in Dryden's Don Sebastian, has the same remark: "I have a moist, sweaty palm; the more's my sin.” STEEVENS. 6 Alexas,―come, his fortune,] [In the old copy, the name of Alexas is prefixed to this speech.] Whose fortune does Alexas call out to have told? But, in short, this I dare pronounce to be so palpable and signal a transposition, that I cannot but wonder it should have slipt the observation of all the editors; especially of the sagacious Mr. Pope, who has made this declaration, "That if, throughout the plays, had all the speeches been printed without the very names of the persons, he believes one might have applied them with certainty to every speaker." But in how many instances has Mr. Pope's want of judgment falsified this opinion? The fact is evidently this: Alexas brings a fortune-teller to Iras and Charmian, and says himself, "We'll know all our fortunes." Well; the Soothsayer begins with the women; and some jokes pass upon the subject of husbands and chastity: after which, the women hoping for the satisfaction of having something to laugh at in Alexas's fortune, call him to hold out his hand, and wish heartily that he may have the prognostication of cuckoldom upon him. The whole speech, therefore, must be placed to Charmian. There needs no stronger proof of this being a true correction, than the observations which Alexas immediately subjoins on their wishes and zeal to hear him abused. THEOBALD. all follow him laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee! IRAS. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! for, as it is a heart-breaking to see a handsome man loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded: Therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly! CHAR. Amen. ALEX. Lo, now! if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they'd do't. ENO. Hush! here comes Antony. CLEO. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden A Roman thought hath struck him.-Enobarbus,ENO. Madam. CLEO. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas? ALEX. Here, at your service.-My lord approaches. 7 SAW you my lord?] Old copy-Save you. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. Saw was formerly written sawe. MALONE. 8 Here, MADAM,] The respect due from Alexas to his mistress, in my opinion, points out the title-Madam, (which is wanting in the old copy,) as a proper cure for the present defect in metre. STEEVENS. Enter ANTONY, with a Messenger and Attendants. CLEO. We will not look upon him: Go with us. [Exeunt CLEOPatra, Enobarbus, Alexas, IRAS, CHARMIAN, Soothsayer, and At tendants. MESS. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. ANT. Against my brother Lucius ? MESS. Ay: But soon that war had end, and the time's state Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Cæsar; Whose better issue in the war, from Italy, Upon the first encounter drave them 9. Well, what worst? ANT. On: Things, that are past, are done, with me.-Tis thus ; Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, MESS. Labienus (This is stiff news 1) hath, with his Parthian force, Extended Asia from Euphrates 2; 9 - DRAVE them.] Drave is the ancient preterite of the verb to drive, and frequently occurs in the Bible. Thus, in Joshua, xxiv. 12: - and drave them out from before you." 66 Again, in Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad: I 66 to chariot he arose, (This is STIFF news)] So, in The Rape of Lucrece : 66 MALONE. 2 Extended Asia from Euphrates;] i. e. widened or extended the bounds of the Lesser Asia. WARBURTON. To extend, is a term used for to seize; I know not whether this be not the sense here. JOHNSON. His conquering banner shook, from Syria Whilst ANT. MESS. Antony, thou would'st say, O, my lord! ANT. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue; Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome : Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my faults With such full licence, as both truth and malice Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds, I believe Dr. Johnson's explanation is right. So, in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, 1594: 66 Ay, though on all the world we make extent, "From the south pole unto the northern bear." Again, in Twelfth-Night: "This uncivil and unjust extent "Against thy peace." Again, in Massinger's New Way to Pay Old Debts, the Extortioner says: "This manor is extended to my use." Mr. Tollet has likewise no doubt but that Dr. Johnson's explanation is just ; "for (says he) Plutarch informs us that Labienus was by the Parthian king made general of his troops, and had over-run Asia from Euphrates and Syria to Lydia and Ionia." To extend is a law term used for to seize lands and tenements. In support of his assertion he adds the following instance: "Those wasteful companions had neither lands to extend nor goods to be seized." Savile's translation of Tacitus, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. And then observes, that "Shakspeare knew the legal signification of the term, as appears from a passage in As You Like It: "And let my officers of such a nature "Make an extent upon his house and lands." See vol. vi. p. 416. Our ancient English writers almost always give us Euphrates instead of Euphrates. Thus, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 21: "That gliding go in state, like swelling Euphrates." See note on Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. III. STEEVENS, |