CLEO. Good my lord, ANT. You have been a boggler ever:But when we in our viciousness grow hard, I incline to think Dr. Johnson's interpretation of this passage the true one. Neither of the quotations, in my apprehension, support Mr. Steevens's explication of feeders as synonymous to a servant. So fantastick and pedantick a writer as Ben Jonson, having in one passage made one of his characters call his attendants, his eaters, appears to me a very slender ground for supposing feeders and servants to be synonymous. In Timon of Athens, this word occurs again; 66 So the gods bless me, "When all our offices have been oppress'd "With riotous feeders,――." There also Mr. Steevens supposes feeders to mean servants. But I do not see why "all our offices" may not mean all the apartments in Timon's house; (for certainly the Steward did not mean to lament the excesses of Timon's retinue only, without at all noticing that of his master and his guests;) or, if offices can only mean such parts of a dwelling-house as are assigned to servants, I do not conceive that, because feeders is there descriptive of those menial attendants who were thus fed, the word used by itself, unaccompanied by others that determine its meaning, as in the passage before us, should necessarily signify a servant. It must, however, be acknowledged, that a subsequent passage may be urged in favour of the interpretation which Mr. Steevens has given: "To flatter Cæsar, would mingle eyes "With one that ties his points?" MALONE. you On maturer consideration, Mr. Malone will find that Timon's Steward has not left the excesses of his master, and his guests, unnoticed; for though he first adverts to the luxury of their servants, he immediately afterwards alludes to their own, which he confines to the rooms (not offices) that "blaz'd with lights, and bray'd with minstrelsy." My definition, therefore, of the term— offices, will still maintain its ground. In further support of it, see a note on Macbeth, Vol. X. p. 94, n. 8, where offices occurs, a reading which Mr. Malone has overlooked, and consequently left without remark. Duncan would hardly have " sent forth" largess to Macbeth's offices, had these offices been (as Mr. Malone seems willing to represent them) "all the apartments in the house." STEEVENS. (O misery on't!) the wise gods seel our eyes;1 In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us Adore our errors; laugh at us, while we strut CLEO. O, is it come to this? ANT. I found you as a morsel, cold upon Dead Cæsar's trencher: nay, you were a fragment Of Cneius Pompey's; besides what hotter hours, Unregister'd in vulgar fame, you have Luxuriously pick'd out: 3-For, I am sure, Though you can guess what temperance should be, You know not what it is. CLEO. Wherefore is this? ANT. To let a fellow that will take rewards, And say, God quit you! be familiar with 1 thus: ·seel our eyes; &c.] This passage should be pointed seel our eyes; In our own filth drop our clear judgments. I have adopted this punctuation. Formerly, -seel our eyes In our own filth; &c. STEEVENs. TYRWHITT. In our own filth drop our clear judgments;] If I understand the foregoing allusion, it is such as scarce deserves illustration, which, however, may be caught from a simile in Mr. Pope's Dunciad: "As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes," &c. In King Henry V. Act III. sc. v. we have already met with a conceit of similar indelicacy: "He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear.” STEEVENS. Luxuriously pick'd out:] Luxuriously means wantonly. So, in King Lear: "To't, luxury, pellmell, for I lack soldiers." STEevens. See Vol. VI. p. 414, n. 5; and Vol. V. p. 210, n. 7. MALONE. VOL. XVII. My playfellow, your hand; this kingly seal, The horned herd!5 for I have savage cause; A halter'd neck, which does the hangman thank Re-enter Attendants, with THYREUS. 1 ATT. Soundly, my lord. ANT. Cry'd he? and begg'd he pardon? 1 ATT. He did ask favour. ANT. If that thy father live, let him repent Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry To follow Cæsar in his triumph, since Thou hast been whipp'd for following him: henceforth, The white hand of a lady fever thee, Shake thou to look on't.-Get thee back to Cæsar, Tell him thy entertainment: Look, thou say," the hill of Basan,] This is from Psalm lxviii. 15: "As the hill of Basan, so is God's hill: even an high hill, as the hill of Basan." STEEVENS. The horned herd!] It is not without pity and indignation that the reader of this great poet meets so often with this low jest, which is too much a favourite to be left out of either mirth or fury. Joнnson. The idea of the horned herd was caught from Psalm xxii. 12: "Many oxen are come about me: fat bulls of Basan close me in on every side." STEEVENS. 6 For being yare about him.] i. e. ready, nimble, adroit. So, in a preceding scene: 7 "Their ships are yare, yours heavy." STEEVENS. thou say, &c.] Thus in the old translation of Plutarch: "Whereupon Antonius caused him to be taken and well fauour. He makes me angry with him: for he seems My speech, and what is done; tell him, he has ANT. you 8 Is now eclips'd; and it portends alone The fall of Antony! CLEO. Alack, our terrene moon I must stay his time. ANT. To flatter Cæsar, would you mingle eyes With one that ties his points?? CLEO. Not know me yet? Ah, dear, if I be so, ANT. Cold-hearted toward me? edly whipped, and so sent him vnto Cæsar; and bad him tell him that he made him angrie with him, bicause he showed him self prowde and disdainfull towards him, and now specially when he was easie to be angered, by reason of his present miserie. To be short, if this mislike thee, said he, thou hast Hipparchus one of my infranchised bondmen with thee: hang him if thou wilt, or whippe him at thy pleasure, that we may crie quittaunce." STEEVENS. 8 to quit me:] To repay me this insult; to requite me. JOHNSON. 9 With one that ties his points?] i. e. with a menial attendant. Points were laces with metal tags, with which the old trunkhose were fastened: MALONE. From my cold heart let heaven engender hail, ANT. I will oppose his fate. Our force by land Have knit again, and fleet," threat'ning most sealike. 2 as it determines,] That is, as the hailstone dissolves. So, in King Henry IV. P. II: M. MASON. "Till his friend sickness hath determin'd me." See Vol. XII. p. 202, n. 2. STEEvens. The next Cæsarion smite!] Cæsarion was Cleopatra's son by Julius Cæsar. STEEVENS. The folio has smile. This literal error will serve to corroborate Dr. Farmer's conjecture in King Henry V. Vol. XII. p. 319, n. 9. REED. By the discandying of this pelleted storm,] The old folios read, discandering: from which corruption both Dr. Thirlby and I saw, we must retrieve the word with which I have reformed the text. THEOBALD. Discandy is used in the next Act. MALONE. 4 till the flies and gnats of Nile Have buried them for prey!] We have a kindred thought in Macbeth: 66 our monuments "Shall be the maws of kites." STEevens. and fleet,] Float was a modern emendation, perhaps right. The old reading is and fleet, JOHNSON. |