or policy, and dissimulation or closeness," says Ba- Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave. Which he, to grace his tributary gods, Comus, 24.] 448. He hath left them you. The emphasis is on you. 449. And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. This is the reading of the First Folio: the Second has "all the traitors' houses," which may be right; for the prolongation of fire into a dissyllable, though it will give us the requisite number of syllables (which satisfies both Malone and Steevens), will not make a very musical verse. Yet the harshness and dissonance produced by the irregular fall of the accent, in addition to the diæresis, in the case of the word fire, may be thought to add to the force and expressiveness of the line. Mr. Collier omits the "all." [So Dyce, Hudson, and White.] 453. Take thou what course thou wilt!- How now, fellow?-It is impossible not to suspect that Shakespeare must have written "Take now what course thou wilt." The emphatic pronoun, or even a pronoun at all, is unaccountable here. The abruptness, or unexpectedness, of the appearance of the Servant is vividly expressed by the unusual construction of this verse, in which we have an example of the extreme license, or deviation from the normal form, consisting in the reversal of the regular ac centuation in the last foot. Thus we have in Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 840, Beyond all past example and future; and again, xi. 683, To whom thus Michael: These are the product. At least, future, which is common in his verse, has everywhere else the accent on the first syllable. Product is found nowhere else in Milton, and nowhere in Shakespeare. The stage directions before and after this speech are in the original edition, "Exit Plebeians," and "Enter Servant." 457. He comes upon a wish. - Coincidently with, as it were upon the back of, my wish for him. See 588. - In all the old copies it which Jennens explains 458. I heard them say. is "I heard him say; thus: "Him evidently refers to Octavius, who, as he was coming into Rome, had seen Brutus and Cassius riding like madmen through the gates, and had related the same in the presence of the servant." The conjectural emendation of them, however, which appears to have been first proposed by Capell, had been long generally received, and is confirmed by the authority of Mr. Collier's manuscript annotator. [White calls it "a needless change." Dyce and Hudson also read "him."] 458. Are rid like madmen.—See 373. 459. Belike they had some notice of the people.This now obsolete word belike (probably) is commonly held to be a compound of by and like. But it may perhaps be rather the ancient gelice (in like manner), with a slight change of meaning. See 389.- "Some notice of the people" is some notice respecting the people. SCENE III.460. And things unlikely charge my fantasy. Instead of unlikely the old text has unluckily. Unlikely, which appears for the first time in Mr. Collier's one volume edition, is the restoration of his MS. annotator. It at once, and in the most satisfactory manner, turns nonsense intc sense. [Dyce, Hudson, Staunton, and White give "unlucky," which is quite as satisfactory.] 460. I have no will, etc. Very well illustrated by Steevens in a quotation from The Merchant of Venice, ii. 5, where Shylock says, — I have no mind of feasting forth to-night: But I will go. The only stage direction here in the original edition is before this speech: "Enter Cinna the Poet, and after him the Plebeians." 468. Ay, and truly, you were best. - This is strictly equivalent to "You would be best," and might perhaps be more easily resolved than the more common idiom, "You had best." But all languages have phraseologies coming under the same head with this, which are not to be explained upon strictly logical principles. Witness the various applications of the Greek xa, the French il y a, etc. In the following sentence from As You Like It, i. 1, we have both the idioms that have been referred to: "I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger, and thou wert best look to it." [See on 54.] 469. Wisely, I say, I am a bachelor.Cinna's meaning evidently is, Wisely I am a bachelor. But that is not conveyed by the way in which the passage has hitherto been always pointed-"Wisely I say." 470. You'll bear me a bang for that. You'll get a bang for that (from some one). The me goes for nothing. See 89 and 205. 482. Cin. I am not, etc. This speech was carelessly omitted in the generality of the modern texts, including that of the standard edition of Malone and Boswell, till restored by Mr. Knight. It is given, however, in Jennens's collation (1774), and he does not note its omission by any preceding editor. 483. Turn him going.-Turn him off; let him. go. The expression occurs also in As You Like It, iii. 1: "Do this expediently, and turn him going.” So in Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation of Rabelais, B. i. ch. 35: "Avoid hence, and get thee going."This story of Cinna is told by Plutarch in his Life of Cæsar. He says, the people, falling upon him in their rage, slew him outright in the market-place. The stage direction with which the Act terminates in the original edition is, "Exeunt all the Plebeians." ACT IV. SCENE I. The same. A Room in Antony's House. The original heading is only, "Enter Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus." The Same, meaning at Rome, was supplied by Rowe. It is evident (especially from 491 and 492) that the scene is placed at Rome, although in point of fact the triumvirs held their meeting on a small island in the river Rhenus (now the Reno) near Bononia (Bologna), where, Plutarch says, they remained three days together. 485. These many. — An archaic form for so many, this number. See 351. 485. Their names are pricked. 489. Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony.— This is a mistake. The person meant is Lucius Cæsar, who was Mark Antony's uncle, the brother of his mother. 490. Look, with a spot I damn him. -Note him as condemned, by a mark or stigma (called pricking his name in 485, and pricking him down in 488, and pricking him in 494). 490. Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine. This is the reading of all the old copies, and is properly retained by Mr. Knight. In the Variorum edition we have (and without warning) will substituted for shall. 493. This is a slight unmeritable man. So afterwards in 534, "Away, slight man!" said by Brutus, in momentary anger, to Cassius. See 521.Unmeritable should mean incapable of deserving. 493. Meet to be sent on errands. - Errand is a Saxon word, ærend (perhaps from ær, or ar, before, whence also ere and early). It has no connection with errant, wandering (from the Latin erro, whence also err, and error, and erroneous). 495. To groan and sweat under the business.— Business is commonly only a dissyllable with Shakespeare; and it may be no more here upon the principle explained in the note on "She dreamt to-night she saw my statue" in 246. Theie are a good many more instances of lines concluding with business, in which either it is a trisyllable (although commonly only a dissyllable in the middle of a line) or the verse must be regarded as a hemistich, or truncated verse, of nine syllables. 495. Either led or driven, etc. The three last Folios, and also Rowe, have "print the way." The we of this line, and the our and the we of the next, are all emphatic. There is the common irregularity of a single short superfluous syllable (the er of either). |