Note 401 — Chapter XI

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. Sc. 5. Weigall, The Life and Times of Cleopatra, pp. 245-6, makes the locus the harbour of Alexandria, not the Nile, and the modus, Antony’s diver affixing fresh fish to his hook. Cleopatra, guessing Antony’s ruse, assembled next day a party of notables to applaud the angler, but instructed a slave to dive from the other side of the vessel and the instant the hook touched the water attach to it a pickled Pontic fish. Cleopatram “ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?”