Oh Antony!-Nay, I will take thee too. What should I stay [Applying another asp to her arm. Char. In this wild world'?-So, fare thee well.- Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry"; Enter the Guard, rushing in. 1 Guard. Where is the queen Char. 1 Guard. Cæsar hath sentChar. ? Speak softly; wake her not. Too slow a messenger.— Oh, come! apace; dispatch: I partly feel thee. 1 Guard. Approach, ho! All's not well: Casar's beguil'd. 2 Guard. There's Dolabella sent from Cæsar: call him. 1 Guard. What work is here ?-Charmian, is this well done? Char. It is well done, and fitting for a princess 6 WHAT should I stay-] In the corr. fo. 1632 this imperfect line is thus given: "Why should I stay-." This may have been correct, or the mode in which Cleopatra's last words were, at one time, recited, but we do not feel authorised on this account to vary from what has come down to us in print. 7 In this WILD world?] The epithet is "wild" in all the early editions, and there is not the slightest pretext for altering it to the common-place phrase, "In this vile world," as has been done under the supposition that vile having been of old often misprinted vilde (a form to which the Rev. Mr. Dyce strangely adheres), it was in this place mistaken for "wild." Charmian might well call the world "wild," desert, and savage, after the deaths of Antony, Cleopatra, and others whom she loved. This passage is another proof how the corruption of vild, where vile was intended, makes confusion in the heads of editors, as well as in the texts of dramatists: if vile had not sometimes been misprinted vild, nobody would have thought of amending "wild world" to "vile world." If any change were made, we should prefer here wide to vile; but in truth it is an offence against all just rules of criticism to attempt an emendation where none is required. Rowe properly retained "wild world." 8 Your crown's AWRY;] So Pope, correcting away of the folios, by the narrative in North's Plutarch (p. 1009), which Daniel also here followed in his tragedy of "Cleopatra," 1594:— "And, senseless, in her sinking downe she wryes The diadem, which on her head she wore." 9 and then play-] Charmian is interrupted by the sudden arrival of the Guard, and, like Cleopatra, does not finish her sentence, as is indicated in the old copies by a line. Cæsar, thy thoughts Touch their effects in this: thyself art coming Within. A way there! a way for Cæsar! Enter CESAR, and all his train. Dol. Oh, sir! you are too sure an augurer: That you did fear, is done. Cæs. Bravest at the last: She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal, I do not see them bleed. Dol. Who was last with them? 1 Guard. A simple countryman, that brought her figs: This was his basket. Cæs. 1 Guard. Poison'd, then. Oh Cæsar! This Charmian liv'd but now; she stood, and spake. I found her trimming up the diadem On her dead mistress: tremblingly she stood, And on the sudden dropp'd. Cæs. Oh noble weakness! If they had swallow'd poison, 'twould appear By external swelling; but she looks like sleep, In her strong toil of grace. Dol. Here, on her breast, There is a vent of blood, and something blown': 10 Descended of so many royal kings.] Shakespeare thought he could not do better than use almost the very words he found in North's Plutarch:-"One of the souldiers, seeing her, angrily sayd unto her, is this well done Charmian? Verie well, sayd she againe, and meete for a Princess, descended from the race of so many noble kings. She sayd no more, but fell downe dead hard by the bed.”— Edit. 1579, p. 1009. 1- and something BLOWN:] i. e. Bollen or bolne, meaning puffed or swelled. Richardson, under Boll (he has not "blown "), tells us that Wyckliffe translates The like is on her arm. 1 Guard. This is an aspick's trail'; and these fig leaves Have slime upon them, such as the aspick leaves Upon the caves of Nile. Cæs. Most probable, That so she died; for her physician tells me, She hath pursu'd conclusions infinite' Of easy ways to die.-Take up her bed, Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall, And then to Rome.-Come, Dolabella, see [Exeunt. inflationes, bolnyngs, which Sir Frederick Madden, in his "Glossary to the Wycliffite Versions of the Bible," explains by the word swellings. Respecting the use of bollen, boll'n, or bolne by Shakespeare, see The Merchant of Venice," A. iv. sc. 1, Vol. ii. p. 324. 2 This is an ASPICK'S trail;] So the folio, 1623; but the folio, 1632, misprints the words, "This an aspects trail," so as to make the sentence nonsense. We only refer to the blunder, in order to add that the old annotator on our fo. 1632 sets the matter right by inserting "is," and by amending aspects to "aspick's." 3 She hath pursu'd CONCLUSIONS infinite] Shakespeare often uses conclusions" in the sense of experiments: in “Cymbeline,” A. i. sc. 6, (this Vol. p. 274) the Queen tells Cornelius "That I did amplify my judgment in Other conclusions." It is not necessary to quote other instances, which only make it more evident, that when Cleopatra, on page 232, according to old and modern editions, talks of the "still conclusion" of Octavia, she ought to say, with the old corrector of the fo. 1632, "still condition." See also p. 241, where Cleopatra speaks of "the sober eye of dull Octavia." "The Tragedie of Cymbeline" was first printed in the folio of 1623, where it stands last in the division of "Tragedies," and occupies thirty-one pages; viz. from p. 369 to p. 399, misprinted p. 993. There is another error in the pagination, as p. 379 is marked p. 389. three later folios. These numerical errors are corrected in the |
