I crave, our composition may be written,

And seal'd between us.

CES.

That's the next to do.

POM. We'll feast each other, ere we part; and

let us

Draw lots who shall begin.

ANT.

That will I, Pompey.

POм. No, Antony, take the lot: but, first, Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery

Shall have the fame. I have heard, that Julius Cæsar Grew fat with feasting there.

ANT.

You have heard much.

POм. I have fair meanings, sir.

ANT.

And fair words to them.

POм. Then so much have I heard:And I have heard, Apollodorus carried― ENO. No more of that:-He did so. Ром.

What, I pray you?

ENO. A certain queen to Cæsar in a mattress.5

POM. I know thee now; How far'st thou, soldier? ENO.

And well am like to do; for, I perceive,

Well;

take the lot :] Perhaps (a syllable being here wanting

to the metre) our author wrote:

take we the lot. STEEVENS.

meanings,] Former editions, meaning. REED.

The correction was suggested by Mr. Heath. MALONE.

A certain queen to Cæsar in a mattress.] i. e. To Julius Cæsar. STEEVENS.

This is from the margin of North's Plutarch, 1579: " Cleopatra trussed up in a mattresse, and so brought to Cæsar, upon Apollodorus backe." RITSON.

Four feasts are toward.

Ром.

Let me shake thy hand I never hated thee: I have seen thee fight, When I have envied thy behaviour.

ENO.

Sir,

I never lov'd you much; but I have prais'd you, When you have well deserv'd ten times as much As I have said you did.

Ром.

Enjoy thy plainness,

It nothing ill becomes thee.

Aboard my galley I invite you all: you lead, lords?

Will

CES. ANT. LEP. Show us the way, sir.

Ром.

Come.

[Exeunt POMPEY, CESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, Soldiers, and Attendants.

MEN. Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this treaty.[Aside.You and I have known, sir."

ENO. At sea, I think.

MEN. We have, sir.

ENO. You have done well by water.

MEN. And you by land.

ENO. I will praise any man that will praise me:"

You and I have known, sir.] i. e. been acquainted. So, in Cymbeline: "Sir, we have known together at Orleans."

STEEVENS.

"I will praise any man that will praise me:] The poet's art in delivering this humorous sentiment (which gives so very true and natural a picture of the commerce of the world) can never be sufficiently admired. The confession could come from none but a frank and rough character, like the speaker's: and the moral lesson insinuated under it, that flattery can make its way through the most stubborn manners, deserves our serious reflection. WARBURTON.

though it cannot be denied what I have done by land.

MEN. Nor what I have done by water.

ENO. Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you have been a great thief by sea. MEN. And you by land.

ENO. There I deny my land service. But give me your hand, Menas: If our eyes had authority, here they might take two thieves kissing.

MEN. All men's faces are true, whatsoe'er their hands are.

ENO. But there is never a fair woman has a true face.

MEN. No slander; they steal hearts.

ENO. We came hither to fight with you.

MEN. For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

ENO. If he do, sure, he cannot weep it back again.

MEN. You have said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony here; Pray you, is he married to Cleopatra ?

ENO. Cæsar's sister is call'd Octavia.

MEN. True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.

ENO. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.

MEN. Pray you, sir?

ENO. 'Tis true.

MEN. Then is Cæsar, and he, for ever knit together.

ENO. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not prophecy so.

MEN. I think, the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage, than the love of the parties. ENO. I think so too. But you shall find, the band that seems to tie their friendship together, will be the very strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.

8

MEN. Who would not have his wife so?

ENO. Not he, that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony. He will to his Egyptian dish again: then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Cæsar; and, as I said before, that which is the strength of their amity, shall prove the immediate author of their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is; he married but his occasion here. MEN. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a health for you.

ENO. I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.

MEN. Come; let's away.

[Exeunt.

conversation.] i. e. behaviour, manner of acting in common life. So, in Psalm xxxvii. 14: " to slay such as be of upright conversation." STEEVens.

SCENE VII.

On Board Pompey's Galley, lying near Misenum,

Musick. Enter Two or Three Servants, with a Banquet.9

1 SERV. Here they'll be, man: Some o' their plants' are ill-rooted already, the least wind i' the world will blow them down.

9

2 SERV. Lepidus is high-coloured.

1 SERV. They have made him drink alms-drink." 2 SERV. As they pinch one another by the dispo

with a Banquet.] A banquet, in our author's time, frequently signified what we now call a desert; and from the following dialogue the word must here be understood in that sense. So, in Lord Cromwell, 1602: "Their dinner is our banquet after dinner.”

Again, in Heath's Chronicle of the Civil Wars, 1661: "After dinner, he was served with a banquet, in the conclusion whereof he knighted Alderman Viner." MALONE.

1

Some o' their plants-] Plants, besides its common meaning, is here used for the foot, from the Latin, JOHNSON,

So, in Thomas Lupton's Thyrd Booke of notable Things, 4to. bl. 1: "Grinde mustarde with vineger, and rubbe it well on the plants or soles of the feete" &c.

Again, in Chapman's version of the sixteenth Iliad:

"Even to the low plants of his feete, his forme was altered." STEEVENS.

They have made him drink alms-drink.] A phrase, amongst good fellows, to signify that liquor of another's share which his companion drinks to ease him. But it satirically alludes to Cæsar and Antony's admitting him into the triumvirate, in order to take off from themselves the load of envy.

WARBURTON.