Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

though he should survive the battle, he would never submit to be

led in chains to Rome.

Line 123.

-so to prevent

STEEVENS.

The time of life;] To prevent is here used in a French sense-to anticipate. By time is meant the full and complete time; the period. MALONE.

Line 124. -arming myself with patience, &c.] Dr. Warburton thinks, that in this speech something is lost; but there needed only a parenthesis to clear it. The construction is this: I am de termined to act according to that philosophy which directed me to blame the suicide of Cato; arming myself with patience, &c. JOHNSON

:

ACT V. SCENE III.

Line 176. Go, Pindarus,] This dialogue between Cassius and Pindarus is beautifully imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher, in STEEVENS.

their tragedy of Bonduca, Act III. sc. 5.

Line 183.

Sirrah, what news?] Sirrah, as appears from many of our old plays, was the usual address in speaking to serv ants and children. MALONE

ACT V. SCENE IV.

Line 293.-being Cato's son,] i. e. worthy of him. WARB. - 295. Luc. Only I yield to thee:

There is so much, that thou wilt kill me straight;] Dr. Warburton has been much inclined to find lacune, or passages broken by omission, throughout this play. I think he has been always mistaken. The soldier here says, Yield, or thou diest. Lucilius replies, I yield only on this condition, that I may die; here is so much gold as thou seest in my hand, which I offer thee as a reward for speedy death. JOHNSON.

END OF THE ANNOTATIONS ON JULIUS CÆSAR.

1

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

-10.gipsy's lust.] Gipsy is here used both in the ori

ginal meaning for an Ægyptian, and in its accidental sense for a bad woman.

JOHNSON.

Line 12. The triple pillar-] Triple is here used improperly for third, or one of three. One of the triumvirs, one of the three masters of the world. WARBURTON.

Line 18. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, &c.] Thou must set the boundary of my love at a greater distance than the

present visible universe affords.

JOHNSON

Line 21. -The sum.] Be brief, sum thy business in a few

[blocks in formation]

in this passage, seems to have the old Saxon signification of without, unless, except. Antony, says the queen, will recollect his thoughts. Unless kept, he replies, in commotion by Cleopatra.

JOHNSON.

Line 54. Let's not confound the time-] i. e. let us not coRsume the time. MALONE.

Line 62. No messenger; but thine and all alone, &c.] Cleopatra has said, "Call in the messengers;" and afterwards, "Hear the ambassadors." Talk not to me, says Antony, of messengers; I am now wholly thine, and you and I unattended will to-night wander through the streets. The subsequent words which he utters as he goes out, "Speak not to us," confirm this interpretation. MALONE.

Line 72. That he approves the common liar,] Fame. That he proves the common liar, fame, in his case to be a true reporter.

MALONE.

ACT I. SCENE II.

Line 79.- change his horns with garlands!] I am in doubt whether to change is not merely to dress, or to dress with changes of garlands. JOHNSON.

Line 99. I had rather heat my liver &c.] To know why the lady is so averse from heating her liver, it must be remembered, that a heated liver is supposed to make a pimpled face. JOHNS.

Line 103. to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage:] Herod paid homage to the Romans, to procure the grant of the kingdom of Judea. STEEVENS.

Line 114. Then, belike, my children shall have no names:] If I have already had the best of my fortune, then I suppose I shall never name children, that is, I am never to be married. However, tell me the truth, tell me, how many boys and wenches?

Line 117. If every of your wishes had a womb,

JOHNSON.

And fertile every wish, a million.] If every one of your wishes, says the Soothsayer, had a womb, and each wombinvested wish were likewise fertile, you then would have a million of children. MALONE.

Line 131. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostica

tion, &c.] So, in Othello:

"This hand is moist, my lady :

"This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart." MALONE.

Line 195. 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 JOHNSON.

be not the sense here.

Line 207. When our quick winds lie still;] The sense is, that man, not agitated by censure, like soil not ventilated by quick

winds, produces more evil than good.

Line 226. the present pleasure

By revolution lowering does become

JOHNSON.

The opposite of itself:] The allusion is to the sun's diurnal course; which rising in the east, and by revolution lowering, or setting in the west, becomes the opposite of itself.

WARBURTON.

Perhaps, Shakspeare, who was less learned than his commentator, meant only, that our pleasures, as they are revolved in the mind, turn to pain. JOHNSON,

Line 229. The hand could pluck her back, &c.] The verb could has a peculiar signification in this place; it does not denote power

but inclination. The sense is, the hand that drove her off would HEATH.

now willingly pluck her back again.

Line 244. -poorer moment: For less reason; upon meaner JOHNSON.

motives.

Line 250. We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears ;) i, e. "We cannot call the clamorous heavings of her breast, and the copious streams which flow from her eyes, by the ordinary name of sighs and tears; they are greater storms," &c.

Line 266.

MALONE.

it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, &c.] When the deities are pleased to take a man's wife from him, this act of theirs makes them appear to man like the tailors of the earth: affording this comfortable reflection, that the deities have made other women to supply the place of his former wife; as the tailor, when one robe is worn out, supplies him with another.

MALONE.

Line 282. The cause of our expedience-) Expedience for ex

pedition.

Line 284.

WARBURTON.

-more urgent touches,] Things that touch me more sensibly, more pressing motives. JOHNSON.

Line 287. Petition us at home:] Wish us at home; call for us

to reside at home.

JOHNSON.

Line 299.the courser's hair, &c.] Alludes to an old idle notion that the hair of a horse dropt into corrupted water, will turn to an animal.

Line 300. -Say, our pleasure,

To such whose place is under us, requires

POPE.

Our quick remove from hence.] Say to those whose place is under us, i. e. to our attendants, that our pleasure requires us to remove in haste from hence.

MALONE.

ACT I. SCENE III.

Line 307.

I did not send you ;) You must go as if you

came without my order or knowledge.

JOHNSON.

• Line 357. - a race of heaven:] i. e. had a smack or flawour of heaven.

WARBURTON.

Line 367. Remains in use-] The poet seems to allude to the legal distinction between the use and absolute possession.

JOHNSON.

Line 379. should safe my going,] i. e. should render my going not dangerous, not likely to produce any mischief to you.

MALONE.

Line 383. It does from childishness: - Can Fulvia die?] Though age has not exempted me from folly, I am not so childish, as to have apprehensions from a rival that is no more. And is Fulvia dead indeed?" Such, I think, is the meaning.

MALONE.

Line 386. The garboils she awak'd;] Garboil means hurlyburly.

Line 388. O most false love!

Where be the sacred vials thou should'st fill

With sorrowful water?) Alluding to the lachrymatory vials, or bottles of tears, which the Romans sometimes put into the urn of a friend.

JOHNSON

« FöregåendeFortsätt »