[14] From 1833 till 1853 this stanza ran:— “The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat, The temples and the people and the shore, One drew a sharp knife thro’ my tender throat Slowly,—and nothing more”. It is curious that Tennyson should have allowed the last line to stand so long; possibly it may have been to defy Lockhart’s sarcastic commentary: “What touching simplicity, what pathetic resignation—he cut my throat, nothing more!” With Tennyson’s picture should be compared Æschylus, _Agamem._, 225-49, and Lucretius, i., 85-100. For the bold and picturesque substitution of the effect for the cause in the “bright death quiver’d” _cf._ Sophocles, _Electra_, 1395, νεακόνητον αἷμα χειροῖν ἔχων, “with the newly-whetted blood on his hands”. So “vulnus” is frequently used by Virgil, and _cf._ Silius Italicus, _Punica_, ix., 368-9:— Per pectora _sævas_ Exceptat _mortes_. [15] She expresses the same wish in _Iliad_, iii., 73-4. [16] Cleopatra. The skill with which Tennyson has here given us, in quintessence as it were, Shakespeare’s superb creation needs no commentary, but it is somewhat surprising to find an accurate scholar like Tennyson guilty of the absurdity of representing Cleopatra as of gipsy complexion. The daughter of Ptolemy Aulates and a lady of Pontus, she was of Greek descent, and had no taint at all of African intermixtures. See Peacock’s remarks in _Gryll Grange_, p. 206, 7th edit., 1861. [17] After this in 1833 and in 1842 are the following stanzas, afterwards excised:— “By him great Pompey dwarfs and suffers pain, A mortal man before immortal Mars; The glories of great Julius lapse and wane, And shrink from suns to stars. “That man of all the men I ever knew Most touched my fancy. O! what days and nights We had in Egypt, ever reaping new Harvest of ripe delights. “Realm-draining revels! Life was one long feast, What wit! what words! what sweet words, only made Less sweet by the kiss that broke ’em, liking best To be so richly stayed! “What dainty strifes, when fresh from war’s alarms, My Hercules, my gallant Antony, My mailed captain leapt into my arms, Contented there to die! “And in those arms he died: I heard my name Sighed forth with life: then I shook off all fear: Oh, what a little snake stole Caesar’s fame! What else was left? look here!” “With that she tore her robe apart,” etc. [18] This stanza was added in 1843. [19] 1845-1848. Lybian. [20] Added in 1845 as a substitute for “What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit His humours while I crossed them: O the life I led him, and the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strife, which is the reading of 1843. Canopus is a star in Argo, not visible in the West, but a conspicuous feature in the sky when seen from Egypt, as Pliny notices, _Hist. Nat._, vi., xxiv. “Fatentes Canopum noctibus sidus ingens et clarum”. _Cf._ Manilius, _Astron._, i., 216-17,