An expression occurs in a preceding scene of the same tragedy, which shows how consonant the epithet mocking is, in this case, with the style of thought habitual to our author.

The father of Desdemona asks the Moor whether a fair and happy maid like his daughter, would, unless acted upon by magic, have ever run from her home to his sooty bosom,

"to incur a general mock."

I

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

ALEXAS, an attendant on Cleopatra, describing Antony, from whom he has just come, to his mistress, says:

"So he nodded,

And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,

Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke
Was beastly dumb'd by him."

Act i. sc. 5.

Both the words italicised appear to me to be wholly corrupt. The first of them is allowed by most of the commentators to be spurious, and two emendations have been produced, namely, arm-girt and termagant, while the old reading has its advocates. Without entering into controversy, I have to suggest that we read an arrogant steed. It is true that this epithet is not, any more than termagant, to be found in our author's writings applied to a horse; but it is undoubtedly more of a piece with other epithets of familiar occurrence there, such as hot, fiery, proud, noble, and is more frequently applied by him to human beings than

armgaunt
arrogant,

and it will be seen how easily the mistake might be committed. It is only fair to subjoin that Mr. Dyce, who retains the old reading, mentions in a note that arrogant was proposed by Mr. Boaden, of which fact I was not aware when the substance of my present comment was written, but which I now adduce with pleasure as a corroboration of it.

The second word italicised I consider spurious, because it represents the words intended to be spoken as made dumb, instead of the speaker. We may say of an orator, "he was struck dumb," but we cannot say the same of the oration which has been suddenly brought to an end or prevented. Accordingly, in the only place in which Shakespeare has undoubtedly converted dumb into a verb, it is applied to persons:

"Deep clerks she dumbs."

Pericles v. Gower.

The fault may be remedied, I conceive, by substituting the verb drown'd, which is in fact the usual phrase of our author when he wishes to describe the overpowering of any sound by a louder one.

"When all around the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw."

Again in "Richard III.," where two ladies are pouring forth their lamentations:

"O what cause have I

(Thine being but a moiety of my grief)

To over-go thy plaints, and drown thy cries?"

Act ii. sc. 2.

In the same tragedy there is another striking instance. The same two ladies are heaping their reproaches on the head of the cruel tyrant, when his impatience bursts forth into a peremptory order to the military band in attendance:

"A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord's anointed: Strike, I say.

[Flourish Alarums.]

Either be patient, and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war,
Thus will I drown your exclamations."

Act iv. sc. 4.

It may possibly be objected that what a man was only desirous to say, and what therefore had no existence, could not be drowned; but the same objection, whatever it is worth, lies against the old reading, inasmuch as that which has no existence cannot be silenced, or, in the harsh language of the current text, dumb'd.

the clause, "what he wished to say was drowned in the noise."

With these emendations the passage under comment will stand:

So he nodded,

And soberly did mount an arrogant steed,

Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke
Was beastly drown'd by him.

The short conversation between Antony and Octavia, in Act III., contains an expression on which some difference of opinion has arisen. He says to her:

"The mean time, lady,

I'll raise the preparation of a war
Shall stain your brother."

Act iii. sc. 4.

Here stain in the usual sense of injuring the reputation, is, as Theobald points out, inappropriate to the occasion; but his proposal of strain scarcely mends the matter. And the same may be affirmed of Boswell's "stay."

I have to suggest a small but important change, the addition of an s with an apostrophe to brother, or, in other words, putting that noun into the possessive case, by which the passage will be set right:

I'll raise the preparation of a war
Shall stain your brother's ;