Shakespeare, it seems clear, imagined Cleopatra as a gipsy. And this, I
would suggest, may be the explanation of a word which has caused much
difficulty. Antony, when 'all is lost,' exclaims (IV. x. 38):
O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,--
Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home,
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,--
Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.
Pope changed 'grave' in the first line into 'gay.' Others conjecture
'great' and 'grand.' Steevens says that 'grave' means 'deadly,' and
that the word 'is often used by Chapman' thus; and one of his two
quotations supports his statement; but certainly in Shakespeare the word
does not elsewhere bear this sense. It could mean 'majestic,' as Johnson
takes it here. But why should it not have its usual meaning? Cleopatra,
we know, was a being of 'infinite variety,' and her eyes may sometimes
have had, like those of some gipsies, a mysterious gravity or solemnity
which would exert a spell more potent than her gaiety. Their colour,
presumably, was what is called 'black'; but surely they were not, like
those of Tennyson's Cleopatra, '_bold_ black eyes.' Readers interested
in seeing what criticism is capable of may like to know that it has been
proposed to read, for the first line of the quotation above, 'O this
false fowl of Egypt! haggard charmer.' [Though I have not cancelled this
note I have modified some phrases in it, as I have not much confidence
in my suggestion, and am inclined to think that Steevens was right.]