Act V Sc. 1
“Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks us by
The pauses that he makes.”
I adopt Malone’s excellent addition, which has everything in its favour.
“His taints and honours
Wag’d equal with him.”
We should perhaps read, as has been proposed, Weigh’d for ‘Wag’d.’
“For Cæsar cannot live
To be ungentle.”
‘Live’ is the correction of Southern and Pope of leave in the folio. ‘To be’ is being. See Introd. p. 70.
Sc. 2
“Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung,
The beggar’s nurse and Cæsar’s.”
With Mr. Dyce I would read dug, the correction of Warburton. Of may have been lost in the beginning of the last line. Still ‘dung’ may be right, denoting earth; so I have retained it in my Edition.
“He gives me so much of my own, as I
Will kneel to him in thanks for.”
For ‘as’ Mason would read and.
“If idle talk will once be necessary.”
Hanmer read ‘accessary’; but perhaps without need.
“And he hath sent me for thee.”
“There was no winter in it; an autumn ’twas.”
So Theobald; the folio has Antony.
“His delights
Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above
The element they lived in.”
For ‘his’ we should read their or the.
“By the rebound of yours; a grief that suites
My very heart at root.”
‘Suites’ is shoots (see on L. L. L. iv. 3). Some read smites.
“To one so meek, that my own servant should,” etc.
The poet may have written weak.
“With one that I have bred. The gods! it smites me.”
For ‘The’ we should read Ye, as in Cor. i. 6.
“Of eyes again so royal! your crown’s away;
I’ll mend it, and then play....”
Pope most properly read awry for ‘away,’ which was caused probably by the rime with play.