Act II Sc. 1
“Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wand lip.”
I see no sense in in ‘wand.’ Some editors read wan’d, taking perhaps the image from the moon. I have read wanton, in the sense of soft, yielding like “the wanton rushes” (1 H. IV. iii. 1), “the wanton air” (L. L. L. iv. 3), which would also suit the metre better. I, however, strongly suspect that the poet’s word may have been tann’d, spelt of course tand, so that a printer’s error was very obvious. She is more than once called gypsy; she has “a tawny front” (i. 1); and she says of herself (i. 5.) that she is “with Phœbus’ amorous kisses black.” In Son. cxv. we have “tan sacred beauty;” and in Son. lxii.,
“But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chopp’d with tann’d antiquity.”
‘Salt’ is wanton, lascivious; perhaps from salax.
Sc. 2
“I should do thus.—Welcome to Rome.—I thank you.”
“Your wife and brother
Made wars upon me, and their contestation
Was theme for you.”
I am not satisfied with this passage. Perhaps for ‘their’ and ‘you’ we should read your and them, as I have done.
“If you’ll patch a quarrel.
As matter whole you have not to make it with.”
The negative was properly inserted by Rowe.
“Go to them; your considerate stone am I.”
“Truths would be tales only,
Where now half-tales be truths.”
Hanmer read ‘but tales’; Steevens ‘as tales’; Capell ‘then be tales.’ We might also read ‘mere tales.’
“Or else he seeks us out.—Where lies he now?—
About the Mount Misenum.—What’s his strength?—
By land great and increasing; but by sea
He is an absolute master.”
I give ‘By land’ to Cæsar. See on As You Like it, ii. 1.
“In her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue).”
With Collier’s folio I read and for ‘of.’ See Final Note to Comus in my Milton.
“The silken tackle
Swell with the touches of the flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office.”
‘Swell’ (sc. with pride, i.e. are elate) no doubt makes good sense; but the words of North’s Plutarch are “Others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of which there came a wonderful sweet savour of perfumes, that perfumed the wharf’s side.” Smell, the reading of Collier’s folio, is therefore probably right. In the last line ‘the’ should, I think, be their.
Sc. 3
“Would I had never come from thence nor you
Come thither.”
“I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue.”
We should probably read notion, i.e. idea, mind.
“But near him thy angel
Becomes a fear.”
Upton read afear’d, and, I think, rightly; a Fear was a source of terror, not an object of it. In the corresponding place of North’s Plutarch the word is afraid.
Sc. 4
“We shall,
As I conceive the journey, be at Mount Misenum.”
“Tawny-finn’d fishes.”
Theobald’s correction of ‘tawny-fine’ of the folio.
“Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
That long time have been barren.”
I adopt without hesitation the excellent correction of Rain for ‘Ram.’ “Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear” (Tim. i. 1). “In measure rain thy joy” (Mer. of Ven. iii. 2).
Sc. 5
“If Antony
Be free and healthful, so tart a favour suits not
To trumpet such good tidings.”
We might also read, as is usually done, ‘why so tart a favour?’
Sc. 6
“Made the all-honour’d honest Roman Brutus.”
The the was properly inserted in the 2nd folio.
Sc. 7
“The third part of the world, man? Seest thou not?”
“The holding every man shall bear as loud
As his strong sides can volley.”
‘Bear’ is, as usual, one of Theobald’s excellent corrections for ‘beat’ of the folio; ‘holding’ is burthen.