heave.

Eno. There I deny my land service. But give will do me no service, as a partizan I could not me your hand, Menas: If our eyes had authority, here they might take two thieves kissing. Men. All men's faces are true, whatsoe'er their hands are.

Eno. But there is never a fair woman has a true

face.

Men. No slander; they steal hearts. Eno. We came hither to fight with you. Men. For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

Eno. If he do, sure he cannot weep it back again. Men. You have said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony here; Pray, you, is he married to Cleopatra ?

Eno. Cæsar's sister is call'd Octavia.

Men. True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Mar

cellus.

Eno. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.

Men. Pray you, sir?

Eno. 'Tis true.

Men. Then is Cæsar, and he, for ever knit together. Eno. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not prophesy so.

Men. I think, the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage, than the love of the parties. Eno. I think so too. But you shall find, the band that seems to tie their friendship together, will be the very strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.1

Men. Who would not hav his wife so?

Eno. Not he, that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony. He will to his Egyptian dish again: then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Cesar; and, as I said before, that which is the strength of their amity, shall prove the immediate author of their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is; he married but his occasion here.

Men. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a health for you.

Eno. I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.

Men. Come; let's away.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII. On board Pompey's Galley, lying near Misenum. Music. Enter two or three Servants, with a Banquet.2

1 Serv. Here they'll be, man: Some o' their plants are ill rooted already, the least wind i' the world will blow them down.

2 Serv. Lepidus is high-coloured.

1 Serv. They have made him drink alms drink.^

1 Serv. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks." A Sennet sounded. Enter CESAR, ANTONY, POM PEY, LEPIDUS, AGRIPPA, MECENAS, ENOBAR BUS, MENAS, with other Captains.

Ant. Thus do they, sir: [To CESAR.] They
take the flow o' the Nile

By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know,
By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth,
Or foizon, follow: The higher Nilus swells,
The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
And shortly comes to harvest.?

Lep. You have strange serpents there.
Ant. Ay, Lepidus.

Lep. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun: so is your crocodile.

2 Serv. As they pinch one another by the dispo-Rise from thy stool. sition, he cries out, no more; reconciles them to

his entreaty, and himself to the drink.

1 Serv. But it raises the greater war between him and his discretion.

2 Serv. Why, this it is to have a name in great men's fellowship: I had as lief have a reed that

1 Conversation is behaviour, manner of acting in common life. 'He useth no virtue or honest conversation at all: Nec habet ullum cum virtute commercium.'-Baret.

2 A banquet here is a refection, similar to our des sert.

3 Plants, besides its common meaning, is used here for the foot, from the Latin. Thus in Chapman's version of the sixteenth Iliad :

"Even to the low plants of his feete his forme was altered. The French still use plante du pied for the sole of the foot.

4 A phrase (says Warburton) among good fellows, to signify that liquor of another's share which his companions drink to ease him. But it satirically alludes to Cæsar and Antony's admitting him into the triumvirate, in order to take off from themselves the load of envy. 5 Warburton explains this phrase as equivalent to one still in use, of Touching one in a sore place.' 6 A partizan was a weapon between a pike and a halberd; not being so long, it was made use of in mounting a breach, &c.

Do as I bid you.-Where's this cup I call'd for?
Men. If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear me,
[Aside.
Pom.
I think, thou'rt mad. The matter?
[Rises, and walks aside.
Men. I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.
Pom. Thou hast serv'd me with much faith:
What's else to say?

Be jolly, lords.

7 To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in it, is a sight as unseemly as the holes where the eyes should be, without the animating pre sence of the eye to fill them. The sphere in which the eye moves is an expression Shakspeare has used more than once :

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted.'
Sonnet 119.

'Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres.'
Hamlet.

8 Foizon is plenty, abundance.

9 Shakspeare seems to have derived his information respecting the Nilometer from Pliny, b. v. c. ix. Hol land's translation. Or from Leo's History of Africa, translated by John Pery, 1600.

10 Pyramis for pyramid was in common use formerly: from this word Shakspeare formed the plural pyra mises, to mark the indistinct pronunciation of a man nearly intoxicated, whose tongue is now beginning' to split what it speaks.' The usual ancient plural was pyramides.

SCENE II.

Ant. These quicksands, Lepidus,

Keep off them, for you sink.

Men. Wilt thou be lord of all the world?
Pom.

What say'st thou?
Men. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world?
That's twice.

Pom. Let's ha't, good soldier.

Ant. Come, let us all take hands ;

Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense In soft and delicate Lethe. Eno. All take hands.Make battery to our ears with the loud music;The while, I'll place you: Then the boy shall sing But entertain it, and, The holding every man shall bear, as loud As his strong sides can volley. Although thou think me poor, I am the man Will give thee all the world.

Pom. How should that be?
Men.

Pom.

Hast thou drunk well?
Men. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
Thou art, if thou dar'st be, the earthly Jove:
Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,1
Is thine, if thou wilt have't.

Pom.

Show me which way.

Men. These three world-sharers, these competi-
tors, 2

Are in thy vessel: Let me cut the cable;
And, when we are put off, fall to their throats:
All there is thine.

Pom.
Ah, this thou should'st have done,
And not have spoke on't! In me, 'tis villany;
In thee, it had been good service. Thou must know,
'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;
Mine honour, it. Repent, that e'er thy tongue
Hath so betray'd thine act: Being done unknown,
I should have found it afterwards well done;
But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.
Men. For this,

[Aside.

I'll never follow thy pall'd' fortunes more,—
Who seeks, and will not take, when once 'tis
offer'd,
Shall never find it more.

Pom.

This health to Lepidus.
Ant. Bear him ashore.-I'll pledge it for him,
Pompey.
Eno. Here's to thee, Menas.
Men.
be hid.
Pom. Fill, till the cup
Eno. There's a strong fellow, Menas.

Men.
Eno.

Enobarbus, welcome.

[Music plays. ENOBARBUS places them

hand in hand.
SONG.

Take heed you fall not.
[Exeunt POMPEY, CESAR, ANTONY, and
Attendants.
Menas, I'll not on shore.
Men.

No, to my cabin.—

[Pointing to the Attendant who carries of These drums!--these trumpets, flutes! what!-
Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
LEPIDUS.
To these great fellows: Sound, and be hang'd,
sound out.

Why?

He bears The third part of the world, man; See'st not? Men. The third part then is drunk: 'Would it were all,

That it might go on wheels!

Eno. Drink thou; increase the reels.4
Men. Come.

Pom. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.
Ant. It ripens towards it.-Strike the vessels," ho!
Here is to Cæsar.

Cas.

I could well forbear it.

It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain,

And its

Ant.

fouler. grows

Be a child o' the time.

Cas. Possess it, I'll make answer: but I had
rather fast

From all, four days, than drink so much in one.
Eno. Ha, my brave emperor! [To ANTONY.
Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals,
And celebrate our drink?

1 i. e. encloses and embraces.

2 i. e. confederates. Sce, in the present play, Act i.

Sc. 4.

3 Palled is vapid, past its time of excellence; palled wine is wine that has lost its sprightliness.

4 Difficulties have been made about this passage, in which I must confess I see none. Menas says, "The third part of the world is drunk (meaning Lepidus, one of the triumvirs ;) would it were all so, that it might go on wheels, i. e. turn round or change." barbus replies, Drink thou; increase the reels,' i. e. increase its giddy course.

8 Pink eyne are small eyes. Some have mighty yies and some be pinkyied. Quidam pergrandis sunt To which Eno-luminibus, quidam peti. Horman's Vulgaria, 1519. The flower called a pink is in French oeillet, or little and peep eye. To pink and wink is to contract the eyes out of the lids. Hence pinky for tipsy, from the peculiar expression of the eyes of persons in liquor. The epithet is therefore well appropriated to the god of

5 i. e. tap them, broach them. So in the last scene of Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas :-Home, Launce, and See strike a fresh piece of wine, the town's ours.' Cotgrave in v. Tapper.

6 The half line omitted in this place may be supplied with words resembling those in Milton's Comus:'Come let us all take hands, and beat the ground, Till,' &c

wine.

9 See note 4 on the previous scene.

10 Struck alludes to darting. Thou, whose darts have often struck others, art struck now thyself.

11 Pacorus was the son of Orodes, king of Parthia.

Shall pass on thy approof-Most noble Antony,
Let not the piece of virtue, which is set
Betwixt us, as the cement of our love,
To keep it builded," be the ram, to batter
The fortress of it: for better might we
Have lov'd without this mean, if on both parts
An-This be not cherish'd.

Agr. What, are the brothers parted?
Eno. They have despatch'd with Pompey; he Octavia?

1 Grants for affords. Thou hast that, Ventidius,
which if thou didst want, there would be no distinction
between thee and thy sword. You would be both equal-time.
ly cutting and senseless.' This was wisdom, or know.
ledge of the world. Ventidius had told him why he did
not pursue his advantages; and his friend, by this
compliment, acknowledges them to be of weight.-
Warburton. There is somewhat the same idea in Co-
riolanus:-"Who sensible outdares his senseless sword.'
2 The Phoenix. So again in Cymbeline:-

'She is alone the Arabian bird, and I
Have lost my wager.'

3 This puerile arrangement of words was much affected in the age of Shakspeare, even by the first writers. Thus in Daniel's 11th Sonnet :

Yet will I weep, vow, pray to cruel shee; Flint, frost, disdaine, weares, melts, and yields we see.' And Sir Philip Sidney's Excellent Sonnet of a Nymph, printed in England's Helicon, is a tissue of this kind. 4 i. e. they are the wings that raise this heavy lump-though she be very deformed of herselfe-thin, leane, ish insect from the ground. So in Macbeth, 'The shard