The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool.”
Warburton's conjecture of “stool” is ingenious, and would be a probable reading, if the scene opening had discovered Antony with Cleopatra on his lap. But, represented as he is walking and jesting with her, “fool” must be the word. Warburton's [pg 139] objection is shallow, and implies that he confounded the dramatic with the epic style. The “pillar” of a state is so common a metaphor as to have lost the image in the thing meant to be imaged.
Ib. sc. 2.—
... “Much is breeding;
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison.”
This is so far true to appearance, that a horse-hair, “laid,” as Hollinshed says, “in a pail of water,” will become the supporter of seemingly one worm, though probably of an immense number of small slimy water-lice. The hair will twirl round a finger, and sensibly compress it. It is a common experiment with school boys in Cumberland and Westmoreland.
Act ii. sc. 2. Speech of Enobarbus:—
“Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,