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INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF ANTONY AND Cleopatra.

'THE Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra' was first printed in the folio collection of 1623. The play is not divided into acts and scenes in the original; but the stage-directions, like those of the other Roman plays, are very full. The text is, upon the whole, remarkably accurate; although the metrical arrangement is, in a few instances, obviously defective. The positive errors are very few. Some obscure passages present themselves; but, with one or two exceptions, they are not such as to render conjectural emendation desirable.

We have already stated our views of the chronology of this tragedy, in the Introductory Notices to Coriolanus and Julius Cæsar.

SUPPOSED SOURCE OF THE PLOT.

THE Life of Antonius, in North's Plutarch, has been followed by Shakspere with very remarkable fidelity; and there is scarcely an incident which belongs to this period of Antony's career which the poet has not engrafted upon his wonderful performance. The poetical power, subjecting the historical minuteness to an all-pervading harmony, is one of the most remarkable efforts of Shakspere's genius. That this may be properly felt we have given very copious extracts from the Life of Antonius, as Illustrations of each Act.

COSTUME.

FOR the costume of the Roman personages of this play, we, of course, refer our readers to the Notice prefixed to that of Julius Cæsar: but for the costume of Egypt during the latter period of Greek domination we have no satisfactory authority. Winkelman describes some figures which he asserts were "made by Egyptian sculptors under the dominion of the Greeks, who introduced into Egypt their gods as well as their arts; while, on the other hand, the Greeks adopted Egyptian usages." But from these mutilated remains of Greco-Egyptian workmanship we are unable to ascertain how far the Egyptians generally adopted the costume of their conquerors, or the conquerors themselves assumed that of the vanquished. In the work on Egyptian Antiquities published in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, the few facts bearing upon this subject have been assembled, and the minutest details of the more ancient Egyptian costume will be found in the admirable works of Sir G. Wilkinson: but it would be worse than useless for us to enter here into a long description of the costume of the Pharaohs, unless we could assert how much, if any part of it, was retained by the Ptolemies.

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SCENE I.-Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace.

Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO.

Phi. Nay, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now
turn,

The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneagues a all temper;
And is become the bellows, and the fan,
To cool a gipsy's lust. Look, where they come!

a Reneagues-renounces. This is sometimes spelt reneges; but Coleridge suggested the orthography we have adopted, which gives us the proper pronunciation, as in league. Steevens proposes to read reneyes, a word used by Chaucer in the

same sense.

Flourish. Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA,
with their Trains; Eunuchs fanning her.
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple a pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much. Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon❜d.

Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd. Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

Enter an Attendant. Att. News, my good lord, from RomeAnt. Grates me: b-The sum.

a Triple is here used in the sense of third, or one of three. So in All's Well that Ends Well we have a triple eye for a third eye. We are not aware that any other authcr uses triple otherwise than in the ordinary sense of threefold.

b Grates me-offends me;-is grating to me.

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