Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

ACT I.

Scene 1. Page 410.

Ant. Let Rome in Tiber melt! and the wide arch
Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.

As range signifies compass, extent, so the verb seems to be used, rather licentiously, in the present instance, in the sense of spread, extended. It may be doubted, at least, whether there be any allusion to a triumphal arch, as Dr. Warburton supposed, or even of a fabric standing on pillars, according to Dr. Johnson. The wide arch may refer to the vast concave of the Roman world, its wide domains covered by the arch of heaven, which has been beautifully styled by some oriental writer "the star-built arch of heaven." See The tales of Inatulla by Dow, vol. i. p. 78.

Scene 3. Page 440.

Cleo. O my oblivion is a very Antony
And I am all forgotten.

She compares her memory to Antony, and says she is treacherously abandoned and neglected by both. Mr. Steevens's explanation of the first line is satisfactory; but one cannot well agree with him or Mason, that "I am all forgotten" can possibly mean, "I forget myself, or every thing."