ANT. Then must thou needs find out new hea ven, new earth.7 Enter an Attendant. ATT. News, my good lord, from Rome. ANT.. Grates me:-The fum.8 CLEO. Nay, hear them, Antony: Fulvia, perchance, is angry; Or, who knows ANT. How, my love! Call in the meffengers.-As I am Egypt's queen, Then must thou needs find out new heaven, &c.] Thou must fet the boundary of my love at a greater distance than the prefent visible universe affords. JOHNSON. 8 The fum.] Be brief, fum thy business in a few words. JOHNSON. 9 Nay, hear them,] i. e. the news. This word, in Shakfpeare's time, was confidered as plural. So, in Plutarch's Life of Antony: "Antonius hearing these newes," &c. MALONE. Take in &c.] i. e. fubdue, conquer. See Vol. IX. p. 374, n. 9; and Vol. XVI. p. 27, n. 9. REED. 2 Where's Fulvia's procefs?] Procefs here means fummons. M. MASON. "The writings of our common lawyers fometimes call that the proceffe, by which a man is called into the court and no more." Minfheu's Dict. 1617, in v. Proceffè.-" To serve with proceffe. Vide to cite, to fummon." Ibid. MALONE. Thou blufheft, Antony; and that blood of thine gers. ANT. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch Of the rang'd empire fall!3 Here is my space; Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man: the noblenefs of life Is, to do thus; when fuch a mutual pair, [Embracing. And fuch a twain can do't, in which, I bind On pain of punishment, the world to weet,4 We stand up peerless. CLEO. Excellent falfhood! Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her? Of the rang'd empire fall!] Taken from the Roman custom of raifing triumphal arches to perpetuate their victories. Extremely noble. WARBURTON. I am in doubt whether Shakspeare had any idea but of a fabrick ftanding on pillars. The later editions have all printed the raised empire, for the ranged empire, as it was firft given. JOHNSON, The rang'd empire is certainly right. Shakspeare uses the fame expreffion in Coriolanus rr : bury all which yet diftinctly ranges, "In heaps and piles of ruin." Again, in Much Ado about Nothing, A&t II. fc. ii: "Whatfoever comes athwart his affection, ranges evenly with mine." STEEVENS. The term range feems to have been applied, in a peculiar fenfe, to mafon-work, in our author's time. So, in Spenfer's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. ix: "It was a vault y-built for great difpence, "With many raunges rear'd along the wall." MAlone. What, in ancient mafons' or bricklayers' work, was denominated a range, is now called a courfe. STEEVENS. to weet,] To know. POPE. I'll feem the fool I am not; Antony Will be himself. ANT. But ftirr'd by Cleopatra.5Now, for the love of Love, and her soft hours,6 Let's not confound the time" with conference harsh: There's not a minute of our lives fhould stretch Without fome pleasure now: What fport to-night? CLEO. Hear the ambaffadors. ANT. Fye, wrangling queen! Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, Ant. But ftirr'd by Cleopatra.] But, in this paffage, feems to have the old Saxon fignification of without, unless, except. Antony, fays the queen, will recollect his thoughts. Unless kept, he replies, in commotion by Cleopatra. JOHNSON. What could Cleopatra mean by saying Antony will recollect his thoughts? What thoughts were they, for the recollection of which the was to applaud him? It was not for her purpose that he fhould think, or roufe himself from the lethargy in which the wished to keep him. By Antony will be himfelf, the means to fay, "that Antony will act like the joint fovereign of the world, and follow his own inclinations, without regard to the mandates of Cæfar, or the anger of Fulvia." To which he replies, If but ftirr'd by Cleopatra; that is, if moved to it in the flightest degree by her. M. MASON. Now, for the love of Love, and her foft hours,] For the love of Love, means, for the fake of the queen of love. So, in The Comedy of Errors: "Let Love, being light, be drowned if he fink." Mr. Rowe fubftituted his for her, and this unjuftifiable alteration was adopted by all the fubfequent editors. MALONE. ↑ Let's not ccnfound the time-] i. e. let us not confume the time. So, in Coriolanus: "How could'st thou in a mile confound an hour, "And bring thy news fo late?" MALONE. Whom every thing becomes,] Quicquid enim dicit, feu facit, omne decet." Marullus, Lib. II. STEEVENS. 1 To weep; whofe every paffion fully ftrives1 note 9 Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, To weep;] So, in our author's 150th Sonnet: "Whence haft thou this becoming of things ill, "That in the very refuse of thy deeds "There is fuch ftrength and warrantise of skill, "That in my mind thy worst all beft exceeds ?" MALONE. I -whofe every paffion fully ftrives-] The folio readswho. It was corrected by Mr. Rowe; but " whofe every paffion" was not, I fufpect, the phrafeology of Shakspeare's time. The text however is undoubtedly corrupt. MALONE. Whofe every, is an undoubted phrase of our author. So, in The Tempest: "A fpace, whofe every cubit "Seems to cry out," &c. See Vol. IV. p. 74. Again, in Cymbeline, A& I. fc. vii: 66 this hand, whose touch, Whofe every touch" &c. The fame expreffion occurs again in another play, but I have loft my reference to it. STEEVENS. 2 No meffenger; but thine and all alone, &c.] Cleopatra has faid, "Call in the meffengers ;" and afterwards, "Hear the ambaffadors." Talk not to me, fays Antony, of meffengers; I am now wholly thine, and you and I unattended will to-night wander through the ftreets. The subsequent words which he utters as he goes out, Speak not to us," confirm this interpretation. MALlone. 66 3 To-night, we'll wander through the Streets, &c.] So, in Sir Thomas North's tranflation of The Life of Antonius: -Sometime also when he would goe up and downe the citie difguifed like a flave in the night, and would peere into poore mens' windowes and their fhops, and scold and brawl with them within the house; Cleopatra would be alfo in a chamber maides array, and amble up and down the ftreets with him," &c. STEEVENS. The qualities of people. Come, my queen; [Exeunt ANT. and CLEOP. with their Train. DEM. I'm full forry, That he approves the common liar,4 who Thus fpeaks of him at Rome: But I will hope Of better deeds to-morrow. Reft you happy! [Exeunt. SCENE II. The fame. Another Room. Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothfayer.5 CHAR. Lord Alexas, fweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, almoft most absolute Alexas, where's the + That he approves the common liar,] Fame. That he proves the common liar, fame, in his case to be a true reporter. So, in Hamlet: "He may approve our eyes, and speak to it." MALONE. STEEVENS. 5 Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer.] The old copy reads: "Enter Enobarbus, Lamprius, a Soothsayer, Rannius, Lucilius, Charmian, Iras, Mardian the Eunuch, and Alexas." Plutarch mentions his grandfather Lamprias, as his author for fome of the ftories he relates of the profufeness and luxury of Antony's entertainments at Alexandria. Shakspeare appears to have been very anxious in this play to introduce every inci |