[III.89] [Exeunt ...] Capell | Exeunt. Manet Antony Ff.
[III.90] Scene IV Pope.
[III.91] ll. 257-258: Cf. Antony's eulogy of Brutus, [V, v, 68-75].
[III.92] limbs F3F4 | limbes F1F2.
[III.93] limbs. Thirteen different words ('kind,' 'line,' 'lives,' 'loins,' 'tombs,' 'sons,' 'times,' etc.) have been offered by editors as substitutes for the plain, direct 'limbs' of the Folios. One of Johnson's suggestions was "these lymmes," taking 'lymmes' in the sense of 'lime-hounds,' i.e. 'leash-hounds.' 'Lym' is on the list of dogs in King Lear, III, vi, 72. In defence of the Folio text Dr. Wright quotes Timon's curse on the senators of Athens and says, "Lear's curses were certainly levelled at his daughter's limbs."
[III.94] with: by. So in [III, ii, 196]. See Abbott, § 193.
[III.95] Ate was the Greek goddess of vengeance, discord, and mischief. Shakespeare refers to her in King John, II, i, 63, as "stirring to blood and strife." In Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii, 694, and Much Ado about Nothing, II, i, 263, the references to her are humorous.
[III.96] 'Havoc' was anciently the word of signal for giving no quarter in a battle. It was a high crime for any one to give the signal without authority from the general in chief; hence the peculiar force of 'monarch's voice.'—To 'let slip' a dog was a term of the chase, for releasing the hounds from the 'slip' or leash of leather whereby they were held in hand till it was time to let them pursue the animal.—The 'dogs of war' are fire, sword, and famine. So in King Henry V, First Chorus, 6-8:
at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,