{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/aac/aac.htm","path":"sks/aac/aac.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/aac/aac.htm","text":"ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nMARK ANTONY |\n|\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR | triumvirs.\n|\nM. AEMILIUS |\nLEPIDUS (LEPIDUS:) |\nSEXTUS POMPEIUS (POMPEY:)\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS |\n|\nVENTIDIUS |\n|\nEROS |\n|\nSCARUS | friends to Antony.\n|\nDERCETAS |\n|\nDEMETRIUS |\n|\nPHILO |\nMECAENAS |\n|\nAGRIPPA |\n|\nDOLABELLA |\n|\nPROCULEIUS | friends to Caesar.\n|\nTHYREUS |\n|\nGALLUS |\n|\nMENAS |\nMENECRATES |\n| friends to Pompey.\nVARRIUS |\nTAURUS lieutenant-general to Caesar.\nCANIDIUS lieutenant-general to Antony.\nSILIUS an officer in Ventidius's army.\nEUPHRONIUS an ambassador from Antony to Caesar.\nALEXAS |\n|\nMARDIAN a Eunuch. |\n| attendants on Cleopatra.\nSELEUCUS |\n|\nDIOMEDES |\nA Soothsayer. (Soothsayer:)\nA Clown. (Clown:)\nCLEOPATRA queen of Egypt.\nOCTAVIA sister to Caesar and wife to Antony.\nCHARMIAN |\n| attendants on Cleopatra.\nIRAS |\nOfficers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.\n(First Officer:)\n(Second Officer:)\n(Third Officer:)\n(Messenger:)\n(Second Messenger:)\n(First Servant:)\n(Second Servant:)\n(Egyptian:)\n(Guard:)\n(First Guard:)\n(Second Guard:)\n(Attendant:)\n(First Attendant:)\n(Second Attendant:)\nSCENE In several parts of the Roman empire.\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT I\nSCENE I Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA's palace.\n[Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO]\nPHILO Nay, but this dotage of our general's\nO'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,\nThat o'er the files and musters of the war\nHave glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,\nThe office and devotion of their view\nUpon a tawny front: his captain's heart,\nWhich in the scuffles of great fights hath burst\nThe buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,\nAnd is become the bellows and the fan\nTo cool a gipsy's lust.\n[Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her Ladies,\nthe Train, with Eunuchs fanning her]\nLook, where they come:\nTake but good note, and you shall see in him.\nThe triple pillar of the world transform'd\nInto a strumpet's fool: behold and see.\nCLEOPATRA If it be love indeed, tell me how much.\nMARK ANTONY There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.\nCLEOPATRA I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.\nMARK ANTONY Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.\n[Enter an Attendant]\nAttendant News, my good lord, from Rome.\nMARK ANTONY Grates me: the sum.\nCLEOPATRA Nay, hear them, Antony:\nFulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows\nIf the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent\nHis powerful mandate to you, 'Do this, or this;\nTake in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;\nPerform 't, or else we damn thee.'\nMARK ANTONY How, my love!\nCLEOPATRA Perchance! nay, and most like:\nYou must not stay here longer, your dismission\nIs come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.\nWhere's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? both?\nCall in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen,\nThou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine\nIs Caesar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame\nWhen shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!\nMARK ANTONY Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch\nOf the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.\nKingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike\nFeeds beast as man: the nobleness of life\nIs to do thus; when such a mutual pair\n[Embracing]\nAnd such a twain can do't, in which I bind,\nOn pain of punishment, the world to weet\nWe stand up peerless.\nCLEOPATRA Excellent falsehood!\nWhy did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?\nI'll seem the fool I am not; Antony\nWill be himself.\nMARK ANTONY But stirr'd by Cleopatra.\nNow, for the love of Love and her soft hours,\nLet's not confound the time with conference harsh:\nThere's not a minute of our lives should stretch\nWithout some pleasure now. What sport tonight?\nCLEOPATRA Hear the ambassadors.\nMARK ANTONY Fie, wrangling queen!\nWhom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,\nTo weep; whose every passion fully strives\nTo make itself, in thee, fair and admired!\nNo messenger, but thine; and all alone\nTo-night we'll wander through the streets and note\nThe qualities of people. Come, my queen;\nLast night you did desire it: speak not to us.\n[Exeunt MARK ANTONY and CLEOPATRA with\ntheir train]\nDEMETRIUS Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?\nPHILO Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,\nHe comes too short of that great property\nWhich still should go with Antony.\nDEMETRIUS I am full sorry\nThat he approves the common liar, who\nThus speaks of him at Rome: but I will hope\nOf better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT I\nSCENE II The same. Another room.\n[Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer]\nCHARMIAN Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas,\nalmost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer\nthat you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew\nthis husband, which, you say, must charge his horns\nwith garlands!\nALEXAS Soothsayer!\nSoothsayer Your will?\nCHARMIAN Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?\nSoothsayer In nature's infinite book of secrecy\nA little I can read.\nALEXAS Show him your hand.\n[Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough\nCleopatra's health to drink.\nCHARMIAN Good sir, give me good fortune.\nSoothsayer I make not, but foresee.\nCHARMIAN Pray, then, foresee me one.\nSoothsayer You shall be yet far fairer than you are.\nCHARMIAN He means in flesh.\nIRAS No, you shall paint when you are old.\nCHARMIAN Wrinkles forbid!\nALEXAS Vex not his prescience; be attentive.\nCHARMIAN Hush!\nSoothsayer You shall be more beloving than beloved.\nCHARMIAN I had rather heat my liver with drinking.\nALEXAS Nay, hear him.\nCHARMIAN Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married\nto three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all:\nlet me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry\nmay do homage: find me to marry me with Octavius\nCaesar, and companion me with my mistress.\nSoothsayer You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.\nCHARMIAN O excellent! I love long life better than figs.\nSoothsayer You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune\nThan that which is to approach.\nCHARMIAN Then belike my children shall have no names:\nprithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?\nSoothsayer If every of your wishes had a womb.\nAnd fertile every wish, a million.\nCHARMIAN Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.\nALEXAS You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.\nCHARMIAN Nay, come, tell Iras hers.\nALEXAS We'll know all our fortunes.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall\nbe--drunk to bed.\nIRAS There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.\nCHARMIAN E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.\nIRAS Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.\nCHARMIAN Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful\nprognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee,\ntell her but a worky-day fortune.\nSoothsayer Your fortunes are alike.\nIRAS But how, but how? give me particulars.\nSoothsayer I have said.\nIRAS Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?\nCHARMIAN Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than\nI, where would you choose it?\nIRAS Not in my husband's nose.\nCHARMIAN Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,--come,\nhis fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman\nthat cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and let\nher die too, and give him a worse! and let worst\nfollow worse, till the worst of all follow him\nlaughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good\nIsis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a\nmatter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!\nIRAS Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people!\nfor, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man\nloose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a\nfoul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep\ndecorum, and fortune him accordingly!\nCHARMIAN Amen.\nALEXAS Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a\ncuckold, they would make themselves whores, but\nthey'ld do't!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Hush! here comes Antony.\nCHARMIAN Not he; the queen.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA]\nCLEOPATRA Saw you my lord?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No, lady.\nCLEOPATRA Was he not here?\nCHARMIAN No, madam.\nCLEOPATRA He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden\nA Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Madam?\nCLEOPATRA Seek him, and bring him hither.\nWhere's Alexas?\nALEXAS Here, at your service. My lord approaches.\nCLEOPATRA We will not look upon him: go with us.\n[Exeunt]\n[Enter MARK ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants]\nMessenger Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.\nMARK ANTONY Against my brother Lucius?\nMessenger Ay:\nBut soon that war had end, and the time's state\nMade friends of them, joining their force 'gainst Caesar;\nWhose better issue in the war, from Italy,\nUpon the first encounter, drave them.\nMARK ANTONY Well, what worst?\nMessenger The nature of bad news infects the teller.\nMARK ANTONY When it concerns the fool or coward. On:\nThings that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:\nWho tells me true, though in his tale lie death,\nI hear him as he flatter'd.\nMessenger Labienus--\nThis is stiff news--hath, with his Parthian force,\nExtended Asia from Euphrates;\nHis conquering banner shook from Syria\nTo Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--\nMARK ANTONY Antony, thou wouldst say,--\nMessenger O, my lord!\nMARK ANTONY Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue:\nName Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;\nRail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my faults\nWith such full licence as both truth and malice\nHave power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,\nWhen our quick minds lie still; and our ills told us\nIs as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.\nMessenger At your noble pleasure.\n[Exit]\nMARK ANTONY From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!\nFirst Attendant The man from Sicyon,--is there such an one?\nSecond Attendant He stays upon your will.\nMARK ANTONY Let him appear.\nThese strong Egyptian fetters I must break,\nOr lose myself in dotage.\n[Enter another Messenger]\nWhat are you?\nSecond Messenger Fulvia thy wife is dead.\nMARK ANTONY Where died she?\nSecond Messenger In Sicyon:\nHer length of sickness, with what else more serious\nImporteth thee to know, this bears.\n[Gives a letter]\nMARK ANTONY Forbear me.\n[Exit Second Messenger]\nThere's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:\nWhat our contempt doth often hurl from us,\nWe wish it ours again; the present pleasure,\nBy revolution lowering, does become\nThe opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;\nThe hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.\nI must from this enchanting queen break off:\nTen thousand harms, more than the ills I know,\nMy idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus!\n[Re-enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What's your pleasure, sir?\nMARK ANTONY I must with haste from hence.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Why, then, we kill all our women:\nwe see how mortal an unkindness is to them;\nif they suffer our departure, death's the word.\nMARK ANTONY I must be gone.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were\npity to cast them away for nothing; though, between\nthem and a great cause, they should be esteemed\nnothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of\nthis, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty\ntimes upon far poorer moment: I do think there is\nmettle in death, which commits some loving act upon\nher, she hath such a celerity in dying.\nMARK ANTONY She is cunning past man's thought.\n[Exit ALEXAS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but\nthe finest part of pure love: we cannot call her\nwinds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater\nstorms and tempests than almanacs can report: this\ncannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a\nshower of rain as well as Jove.\nMARK ANTONY Would I had never seen her.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece\nof work; which not to have been blest withal would\nhave discredited your travel.\nMARK ANTONY Fulvia is dead.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Sir?\nMARK ANTONY Fulvia is dead.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Fulvia!\nMARK ANTONY Dead.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When\nit pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man\nfrom him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth;\ncomforting therein, that when old robes are worn\nout, there are members to make new. If there were\nno more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,\nand the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned\nwith consolation; your old smock brings forth a new\npetticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion\nthat should water this sorrow.\nMARK ANTONY The business she hath broached in the state\nCannot endure my absence.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS And the business you have broached here cannot be\nwithout you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which\nwholly depends on your abode.\nMARK ANTONY No more light answers. Let our officers\nHave notice what we purpose. I shall break\nThe cause of our expedience to the queen,\nAnd get her leave to part. For not alone\nThe death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,\nDo strongly speak to us; but the letters too\nOf many our contriving friends in Rome\nPetition us at home: Sextus Pompeius\nHath given the dare to Caesar, and commands\nThe empire of the sea: our slippery people,\nWhose love is never link'd to the deserver\nTill his deserts are past, begin to throw\nPompey the Great and all his dignities\nUpon his son; who, high in name and power,\nHigher than both in blood and life, stands up\nFor the main soldier: whose quality, going on,\nThe sides o' the world may danger: much is breeding,\nWhich, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,\nAnd not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure,\nTo such whose place is under us, requires\nOur quick remove from hence.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I shall do't.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT I\nSCENE III The same. Another room.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS]\nCLEOPATRA Where is he?\nCHARMIAN I did not see him since.\nCLEOPATRA See where he is, who's with him, what he does:\nI did not send you: if you find him sad,\nSay I am dancing; if in mirth, report\nThat I am sudden sick: quick, and return.\n[Exit ALEXAS]\nCHARMIAN Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,\nYou do not hold the method to enforce\nThe like from him.\nCLEOPATRA What should I do, I do not?\nCHARMIAN In each thing give him way, cross him nothing.\nCLEOPATRA Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him.\nCHARMIAN Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear:\nIn time we hate that which we often fear.\nBut here comes Antony.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY]\nCLEOPATRA I am sick and sullen.\nMARK ANTONY I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose,--\nCLEOPATRA Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall:\nIt cannot be thus long, the sides of nature\nWill not sustain it.\nMARK ANTONY Now, my dearest queen,--\nCLEOPATRA Pray you, stand further from me.\nMARK ANTONY What's the matter?\nCLEOPATRA I know, by that same eye, there's some good news.\nWhat says the married woman? You may go:\nWould she had never given you leave to come!\nLet her not say 'tis I that keep you here:\nI have no power upon you; hers you are.\nMARK ANTONY The gods best know,--\nCLEOPATRA O, never was there queen\nSo mightily betray'd! yet at the first\nI saw the treasons planted.\nMARK ANTONY Cleopatra,--\nCLEOPATRA Why should I think you can be mine and true,\nThough you in swearing shake the throned gods,\nWho have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,\nTo be entangled with those mouth-made vows,\nWhich break themselves in swearing!\nMARK ANTONY Most sweet queen,--\nCLEOPATRA Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going,\nBut bid farewell, and go: when you sued staying,\nThen was the time for words: no going then;\nEternity was in our lips and eyes,\nBliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor,\nBut was a race of heaven: they are so still,\nOr thou, the greatest soldier of the world,\nArt turn'd the greatest liar.\nMARK ANTONY How now, lady!\nCLEOPATRA I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst know\nThere were a heart in Egypt.\nMARK ANTONY Hear me, queen:\nThe strong necessity of time commands\nOur services awhile; but my full heart\nRemains in use with you. Our Italy\nShines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius\nMakes his approaches to the port of Rome:\nEquality of two domestic powers\nBreed scrupulous faction: the hated, grown to strength,\nAre newly grown to love: the condemn'd Pompey,\nRich in his father's honour, creeps apace,\nInto the hearts of such as have not thrived\nUpon the present state, whose numbers threaten;\nAnd quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge\nBy any desperate change: my more particular,\nAnd that which most with you should safe my going,\nIs Fulvia's death.\nCLEOPATRA Though age from folly could not give me freedom,\nIt does from childishness: can Fulvia die?\nMARK ANTONY She's dead, my queen:\nLook here, and at thy sovereign leisure read\nThe garboils she awaked; at the last, best:\nSee when and where she died.\nCLEOPATRA O most false love!\nWhere be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill\nWith sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,\nIn Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be.\nMARK ANTONY Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know\nThe purposes I bear; which are, or cease,\nAs you shall give the advice. By the fire\nThat quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence\nThy soldier, servant; making peace or war\nAs thou affect'st.\nCLEOPATRA Cut my lace, Charmian, come;\nBut let it be: I am quickly ill, and well,\nSo Antony loves.\nMARK ANTONY My precious queen, forbear;\nAnd give true evidence to his love, which stands\nAn honourable trial.\nCLEOPATRA So Fulvia told me.\nI prithee, turn aside and weep for her,\nThen bid adieu to me, and say the tears\nBelong to Egypt: good now, play one scene\nOf excellent dissembling; and let it look\nLife perfect honour.\nMARK ANTONY You'll heat my blood: no more.\nCLEOPATRA You can do better yet; but this is meetly.\nMARK ANTONY Now, by my sword,--\nCLEOPATRA And target. Still he mends;\nBut this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,\nHow this Herculean Roman does become\nThe carriage of his chafe.\nMARK ANTONY I'll leave you, lady.\nCLEOPATRA Courteous lord, one word.\nSir, you and I must part, but that's not it:\nSir, you and I have loved, but there's not it;\nThat you know well: something it is I would,\nO, my oblivion is a very Antony,\nAnd I am all forgotten.\nMARK ANTONY But that your royalty\nHolds idleness your subject, I should take you\nFor idleness itself.\nCLEOPATRA 'Tis sweating labour\nTo bear such idleness so near the heart\nAs Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;\nSince my becomings kill me, when they do not\nEye well to you: your honour calls you hence;\nTherefore be deaf to my unpitied folly.\nAnd all the gods go with you! upon your sword\nSit laurel victory! and smooth success\nBe strew'd before your feet!\nMARK ANTONY Let us go. Come;\nOur separation so abides, and flies,\nThat thou, residing here, go'st yet with me,\nAnd I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee. Away!\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT I\nSCENE IV Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter, LEPIDUS,\nand their Train]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,\nIt is not Caesar's natural vice to hate\nOur great competitor: from Alexandria\nThis is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes\nThe lamps of night in revel; is not more man-like\nThan Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy\nMore womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or\nVouchsafed to think he had partners: you shall find there\nA man who is the abstract of all faults\nThat all men follow.\nLEPIDUS I must not think there are\nEvils enow to darken all his goodness:\nHis faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,\nMore fiery by night's blackness; hereditary,\nRather than purchased; what he cannot change,\nThan what he chooses.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR You are too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not\nAmiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;\nTo give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit\nAnd keep the turn of tippling with a slave;\nTo reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet\nWith knaves that smell of sweat: say this\nbecomes him,--\nAs his composure must be rare indeed\nWhom these things cannot blemish,--yet must Antony\nNo way excuse his soils, when we do bear\nSo great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd\nHis vacancy with his voluptuousness,\nFull surfeits, and the dryness of his bones,\nCall on him for't: but to confound such time,\nThat drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud\nAs his own state and ours,--'tis to be chid\nAs we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,\nPawn their experience to their present pleasure,\nAnd so rebel to judgment.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nLEPIDUS Here's more news.\nMessenger Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,\nMost noble Caesar, shalt thou have report\nHow 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;\nAnd it appears he is beloved of those\nThat only have fear'd Caesar: to the ports\nThe discontents repair, and men's reports\nGive him much wrong'd.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I should have known no less.\nIt hath been taught us from the primal state,\nThat he which is was wish'd until he were;\nAnd the ebb'd man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love,\nComes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,\nLike to a vagabond flag upon the stream,\nGoes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,\nTo rot itself with motion.\nMessenger Caesar, I bring thee word,\nMenecrates and Menas, famous pirates,\nMake the sea serve them, which they ear and wound\nWith keels of every kind: many hot inroads\nThey make in Italy; the borders maritime\nLack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt:\nNo vessel can peep forth, but 'tis as soon\nTaken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more\nThan could his war resisted.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Antony,\nLeave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once\nWast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st\nHirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel\nDid famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,\nThough daintily brought up, with patience more\nThan savages could suffer: thou didst drink\nThe stale of horses, and the gilded puddle\nWhich beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign\nThe roughest berry on the rudest hedge;\nYea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,\nThe barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps\nIt is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,\nWhich some did die to look on: and all this--\nIt wounds thine honour that I speak it now--\nWas borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek\nSo much as lank'd not.\nLEPIDUS 'Tis pity of him.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Let his shames quickly\nDrive him to Rome: 'tis time we twain\nDid show ourselves i' the field; and to that end\nAssemble we immediate council: Pompey\nThrives in our idleness.\nLEPIDUS To-morrow, Caesar,\nI shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly\nBoth what by sea and land I can be able\nTo front this present time.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Till which encounter,\nIt is my business too. Farewell.\nLEPIDUS Farewell, my lord: what you shall know meantime\nOf stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,\nTo let me be partaker.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Doubt not, sir;\nI knew it for my bond.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT I\nSCENE V Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN]\nCLEOPATRA Charmian!\nCHARMIAN Madam?\nCLEOPATRA Ha, ha!\nGive me to drink mandragora.\nCHARMIAN Why, madam?\nCLEOPATRA That I might sleep out this great gap of time\nMy Antony is away.\nCHARMIAN You think of him too much.\nCLEOPATRA O, 'tis treason!\nCHARMIAN Madam, I trust, not so.\nCLEOPATRA Thou, eunuch Mardian!\nMARDIAN What's your highness' pleasure?\nCLEOPATRA Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure\nIn aught an eunuch has: 'tis well for thee,\nThat, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts\nMay not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?\nMARDIAN Yes, gracious madam.\nCLEOPATRA Indeed!\nMARDIAN Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing\nBut what indeed is honest to be done:\nYet have I fierce affections, and think\nWhat Venus did with Mars.\nCLEOPATRA O Charmian,\nWhere think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?\nOr does he walk? or is he on his horse?\nO happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!\nDo bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou movest?\nThe demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm\nAnd burgonet of men. He's speaking now,\nOr murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'\nFor so he calls me: now I feed myself\nWith most delicious poison. Think on me,\nThat am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,\nAnd wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,\nWhen thou wast here above the ground, I was\nA morsel for a monarch: and great Pompey\nWould stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;\nThere would he anchor his aspect and die\nWith looking on his life.\n[Enter ALEXAS, from OCTAVIUS CAESAR]\nALEXAS Sovereign of Egypt, hail!\nCLEOPATRA How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!\nYet, coming from him, that great medicine hath\nWith his tinct gilded thee.\nHow goes it with my brave Mark Antony?\nALEXAS Last thing he did, dear queen,\nHe kiss'd,--the last of many doubled kisses,--\nThis orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.\nCLEOPATRA Mine ear must pluck it thence.\nALEXAS 'Good friend,' quoth he,\n'Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends\nThis treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,\nTo mend the petty present, I will piece\nHer opulent throne with kingdoms; all the east,\nSay thou, shall call her mistress.' So he nodded,\nAnd soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,\nWho neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke\nWas beastly dumb'd by him.\nCLEOPATRA What, was he sad or merry?\nALEXAS Like to the time o' the year between the extremes\nOf hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.\nCLEOPATRA O well-divided disposition! Note him,\nNote him good Charmian, 'tis the man; but note him:\nHe was not sad, for he would shine on those\nThat make their looks by his; he was not merry,\nWhich seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay\nIn Egypt with his joy; but between both:\nO heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,\nThe violence of either thee becomes,\nSo does it no man else. Met'st thou my posts?\nALEXAS Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:\nWhy do you send so thick?\nCLEOPATRA Who's born that day\nWhen I forget to send to Antony,\nShall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.\nWelcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,\nEver love Caesar so?\nCHARMIAN O that brave Caesar!\nCLEOPATRA Be choked with such another emphasis!\nSay, the brave Antony.\nCHARMIAN The valiant Caesar!\nCLEOPATRA By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,\nIf thou with Caesar paragon again\nMy man of men.\nCHARMIAN By your most gracious pardon,\nI sing but after you.\nCLEOPATRA My salad days,\nWhen I was green in judgment: cold in blood,\nTo say as I said then! But, come, away;\nGet me ink and paper:\nHe shall have every day a several greeting,\nOr I'll unpeople Egypt.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT II\nSCENE I Messina. POMPEY's house.\n[Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS, in\nwarlike manner]\nPOMPEY If the great gods be just, they shall assist\nThe deeds of justest men.\nMENECRATES Know, worthy Pompey,\nThat what they do delay, they not deny.\nPOMPEY Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays\nThe thing we sue for.\nMENECRATES We, ignorant of ourselves,\nBeg often our own harms, which the wise powers\nDeny us for our good; so find we profit\nBy losing of our prayers.\nPOMPEY I shall do well:\nThe people love me, and the sea is mine;\nMy powers are crescent, and my auguring hope\nSays it will come to the full. Mark Antony\nIn Egypt sits at dinner, and will make\nNo wars without doors: Caesar gets money where\nHe loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,\nOf both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,\nNor either cares for him.\nMENAS Caesar and Lepidus\nAre in the field: a mighty strength they carry.\nPOMPEY Where have you this? 'tis false.\nMENAS From Silvius, sir.\nPOMPEY He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,\nLooking for Antony. But all the charms of love,\nSalt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!\nLet witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!\nTie up the libertine in a field of feasts,\nKeep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks\nSharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite;\nThat sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour\nEven till a Lethe'd dulness!\n[Enter VARRIUS]\nHow now, Varrius!\nVARRIUS This is most certain that I shall deliver:\nMark Antony is every hour in Rome\nExpected: since he went from Egypt 'tis\nA space for further travel.\nPOMPEY I could have given less matter\nA better ear. Menas, I did not think\nThis amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm\nFor such a petty war: his soldiership\nIs twice the other twain: but let us rear\nThe higher our opinion, that our stirring\nCan from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck\nThe ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.\nMENAS I cannot hope\nCaesar and Antony shall well greet together:\nHis wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;\nHis brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,\nNot moved by Antony.\nPOMPEY I know not, Menas,\nHow lesser enmities may give way to greater.\nWere't not that we stand up against them all,\n'Twere pregnant they should square between\nthemselves;\nFor they have entertained cause enough\nTo draw their swords: but how the fear of us\nMay cement their divisions and bind up\nThe petty difference, we yet not know.\nBe't as our gods will have't! It only stands\nOur lives upon to use our strongest hands.\nCome, Menas.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT II\nSCENE II Rome. The house of LEPIDUS.\n[Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS]\nLEPIDUS Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,\nAnd shall become you well, to entreat your captain\nTo soft and gentle speech.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I shall entreat him\nTo answer like himself: if Caesar move him,\nLet Antony look over Caesar's head\nAnd speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,\nWere I the wearer of Antonius' beard,\nI would not shave't to-day.\nLEPIDUS 'Tis not a time\nFor private stomaching.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Every time\nServes for the matter that is then born in't.\nLEPIDUS But small to greater matters must give way.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Not if the small come first.\nLEPIDUS Your speech is passion:\nBut, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes\nThe noble Antony.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and VENTIDIUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS And yonder, Caesar.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MECAENAS, and AGRIPPA]\nMARK ANTONY If we compose well here, to Parthia:\nHark, Ventidius.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I do not know,\nMecaenas; ask Agrippa.\nLEPIDUS Noble friends,\nThat which combined us was most great, and let not\nA leaner action rend us. What's amiss,\nMay it be gently heard: when we debate\nOur trivial difference loud, we do commit\nMurder in healing wounds: then, noble partners,\nThe rather, for I earnestly beseech,\nTouch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,\nNor curstness grow to the matter.\nMARK ANTONY 'Tis spoken well.\nWere we before our armies, and to fight.\nI should do thus.\n[Flourish]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Welcome to Rome.\nMARK ANTONY Thank you.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Sit.\nMARK ANTONY Sit, sir.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Nay, then.\nMARK ANTONY I learn, you take things ill which are not so,\nOr being, concern you not.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I must be laugh'd at,\nIf, or for nothing or a little, I\nShould say myself offended, and with you\nChiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at, that I should\nOnce name you derogately, when to sound your name\nIt not concern'd me.\nMARK ANTONY My being in Egypt, Caesar,\nWhat was't to you?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR No more than my residing here at Rome\nMight be to you in Egypt: yet, if you there\nDid practise on my state, your being in Egypt\nMight be my question.\nMARK ANTONY How intend you, practised?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR You may be pleased to catch at mine intent\nBy what did here befal me. Your wife and brother\nMade wars upon me; and their contestation\nWas theme for you, you were the word of war.\nMARK ANTONY You do mistake your business; my brother never\nDid urge me in his act: I did inquire it;\nAnd have my learning from some true reports,\nThat drew their swords with you. Did he not rather\nDiscredit my authority with yours;\nAnd make the wars alike against my stomach,\nHaving alike your cause? Of this my letters\nBefore did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,\nAs matter whole you have not to make it with,\nIt must not be with this.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR You praise yourself\nBy laying defects of judgment to me; but\nYou patch'd up your excuses.\nMARK ANTONY Not so, not so;\nI know you could not lack, I am certain on't,\nVery necessity of this thought, that I,\nYour partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,\nCould not with graceful eyes attend those wars\nWhich fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,\nI would you had her spirit in such another:\nThe third o' the world is yours; which with a snaffle\nYou may pace easy, but not such a wife.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Would we had all such wives, that the men might go\nto wars with the women!\nMARK ANTONY So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar\nMade out of her impatience, which not wanted\nShrewdness of policy too, I grieving grant\nDid you too much disquiet: for that you must\nBut say, I could not help it.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I wrote to you\nWhen rioting in Alexandria; you\nDid pocket up my letters, and with taunts\nDid gibe my missive out of audience.\nMARK ANTONY Sir,\nHe fell upon me ere admitted: then\nThree kings I had newly feasted, and did want\nOf what I was i' the morning: but next day\nI told him of myself; which was as much\nAs to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow\nBe nothing of our strife; if we contend,\nOut of our question wipe him.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR You have broken\nThe article of your oath; which you shall never\nHave tongue to charge me with.\nLEPIDUS Soft, Caesar!\nMARK ANTONY No,\nLepidus, let him speak:\nThe honour is sacred which he talks on now,\nSupposing that I lack'd it. But, on, Caesar;\nThe article of my oath.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR To lend me arms and aid when I required them;\nThe which you both denied.\nMARK ANTONY Neglected, rather;\nAnd then when poison'd hours had bound me up\nFrom mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,\nI'll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty\nShall not make poor my greatness, nor my power\nWork without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,\nTo have me out of Egypt, made wars here;\nFor which myself, the ignorant motive, do\nSo far ask pardon as befits mine honour\nTo stoop in such a case.\nLEPIDUS 'Tis noble spoken.\nMECAENAS If it might please you, to enforce no further\nThe griefs between ye: to forget them quite\nWere to remember that the present need\nSpeaks to atone you.\nLEPIDUS Worthily spoken, Mecaenas.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Or, if you borrow one another's love for the\ninstant, you may, when you hear no more words of\nPompey, return it again: you shall have time to\nwrangle in when you have nothing else to do.\nMARK ANTONY Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.\nMARK ANTONY You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Go to, then; your considerate stone.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I do not much dislike the matter, but\nThe manner of his speech; for't cannot be\nWe shall remain in friendship, our conditions\nSo differing in their acts. Yet if I knew\nWhat hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge\nO' the world I would pursue it.\nAGRIPPA Give me leave, Caesar,--\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Speak, Agrippa.\nAGRIPPA Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,\nAdmired Octavia: great Mark Antony\nIs now a widower.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Say not so, Agrippa:\nIf Cleopatra heard you, your reproof\nWere well deserved of rashness.\nMARK ANTONY I am not married, Caesar: let me hear\nAgrippa further speak.\nAGRIPPA To hold you in perpetual amity,\nTo make you brothers, and to knit your hearts\nWith an unslipping knot, take Antony\nOctavia to his wife; whose beauty claims\nNo worse a husband than the best of men;\nWhose virtue and whose general graces speak\nThat which none else can utter. By this marriage,\nAll little jealousies, which now seem great,\nAnd all great fears, which now import their dangers,\nWould then be nothing: truths would be tales,\nWhere now half tales be truths: her love to both\nWould, each to other and all loves to both,\nDraw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;\nFor 'tis a studied, not a present thought,\nBy duty ruminated.\nMARK ANTONY Will Caesar speak?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd\nWith what is spoke already.\nMARK ANTONY What power is in Agrippa,\nIf I would say, 'Agrippa, be it so,'\nTo make this good?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR The power of Caesar, and\nHis power unto Octavia.\nMARK ANTONY May I never\nTo this good purpose, that so fairly shows,\nDream of impediment! Let me have thy hand:\nFurther this act of grace: and from this hour\nThe heart of brothers govern in our loves\nAnd sway our great designs!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR There is my hand.\nA sister I bequeath you, whom no brother\nDid ever love so dearly: let her live\nTo join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never\nFly off our loves again!\nLEPIDUS Happily, amen!\nMARK ANTONY I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;\nFor he hath laid strange courtesies and great\nOf late upon me: I must thank him only,\nLest my remembrance suffer ill report;\nAt heel of that, defy him.\nLEPIDUS Time calls upon's:\nOf us must Pompey presently be sought,\nOr else he seeks out us.\nMARK ANTONY Where lies he?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR About the mount Misenum.\nMARK ANTONY What is his strength by land?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Great and increasing: but by sea\nHe is an absolute master.\nMARK ANTONY So is the fame.\nWould we had spoke together! Haste we for it:\nYet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we\nThe business we have talk'd of.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR With most gladness:\nAnd do invite you to my sister's view,\nWhither straight I'll lead you.\nMARK ANTONY Let us, Lepidus,\nNot lack your company.\nLEPIDUS Noble Antony,\nNot sickness should detain me.\n[Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY,\nand LEPIDUS]\nMECAENAS Welcome from Egypt, sir.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas! My\nhonourable friend, Agrippa!\nAGRIPPA Good Enobarbus!\nMECAENAS We have cause to be glad that matters are so well\ndigested. You stayed well by 't in Egypt.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and\nmade the night light with drinking.\nMECAENAS Eight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and\nbut twelve persons there; is this true?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more\nmonstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.\nMECAENAS She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to\nher.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up\nhis heart, upon the river of Cydnus.\nAGRIPPA There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised\nwell for her.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I will tell you.\nThe barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,\nBurn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;\nPurple the sails, and so perfumed that\nThe winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,\nWhich to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made\nThe water which they beat to follow faster,\nAs amorous of their strokes. For her own person,\nIt beggar'd all description: she did lie\nIn her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--\nO'er-picturing that Venus where we see\nThe fancy outwork nature: on each side her\nStood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,\nWith divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem\nTo glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,\nAnd what they undid did.\nAGRIPPA O, rare for Antony!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,\nSo many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,\nAnd made their bends adornings: at the helm\nA seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle\nSwell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,\nThat yarely frame the office. From the barge\nA strange invisible perfume hits the sense\nOf the adjacent wharfs. The city cast\nHer people out upon her; and Antony,\nEnthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,\nWhistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,\nHad gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,\nAnd made a gap in nature.\nAGRIPPA Rare Egyptian!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,\nInvited her to supper: she replied,\nIt should be better he became her guest;\nWhich she entreated: our courteous Antony,\nWhom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,\nBeing barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,\nAnd for his ordinary pays his heart\nFor what his eyes eat only.\nAGRIPPA Royal wench!\nShe made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:\nHe plough'd her, and she cropp'd.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I saw her once\nHop forty paces through the public street;\nAnd having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,\nThat she did make defect perfection,\nAnd, breathless, power breathe forth.\nMECAENAS Now Antony must leave her utterly.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Never; he will not:\nAge cannot wither her, nor custom stale\nHer infinite variety: other women cloy\nThe appetites they feed: but she makes hungry\nWhere most she satisfies; for vilest things\nBecome themselves in her: that the holy priests\nBless her when she is riggish.\nMECAENAS If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle\nThe heart of Antony, Octavia is\nA blessed lottery to him.\nAGRIPPA Let us go.\nGood Enobarbus, make yourself my guest\nWhilst you abide here.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Humbly, sir, I thank you.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT II\nSCENE III The same. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY, OCTAVIUS CAESAR, OCTAVIA between\nthem, and Attendants]\nMARK ANTONY The world and my great office will sometimes\nDivide me from your bosom.\nOCTAVIA All which time\nBefore the gods my knee shall bow my prayers\nTo them for you.\nMARK ANTONY Good night, sir. My Octavia,\nRead not my blemishes in the world's report:\nI have not kept my square; but that to come\nShall all be done by the rule. Good night, dear lady.\nGood night, sir.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Good night.\n[Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR and OCTAVIA]\n[Enter Soothsayer]\nMARK ANTONY Now, sirrah; you do wish yourself in Egypt?\nSoothsayer Would I had never come from thence, nor you Thither!\nMARK ANTONY If you can, your reason?\nSoothsayer I see it in\nMy motion, have it not in my tongue: but yet\nHie you to Egypt again.\nMARK ANTONY Say to me,\nWhose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine?\nSoothsayer Caesar's.\nTherefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:\nThy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is\nNoble, courageous high, unmatchable,\nWhere Caesar's is not; but, near him, thy angel\nBecomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd: therefore\nMake space enough between you.\nMARK ANTONY Speak this no more.\nSoothsayer To none but thee; no more, but when to thee.\nIf thou dost play with him at any game,\nThou art sure to lose; and, of that natural luck,\nHe beats thee 'gainst the odds: thy lustre thickens,\nWhen he shines by: I say again, thy spirit\nIs all afraid to govern thee near him;\nBut, he away, 'tis noble.\nMARK ANTONY Get thee gone:\nSay to Ventidius I would speak with him:\n[Exit Soothsayer]\nHe shall to Parthia. Be it art or hap,\nHe hath spoken true: the very dice obey him;\nAnd in our sports my better cunning faints\nUnder his chance: if we draw lots, he speeds;\nHis cocks do win the battle still of mine,\nWhen it is all to nought; and his quails ever\nBeat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt:\nAnd though I make this marriage for my peace,\nI' the east my pleasure lies.\n[Enter VENTIDIUS]\nO, come, Ventidius,\nYou must to Parthia: your commission's ready;\nFollow me, and receive't.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT II\nSCENE IV The same. A street.\n[Enter LEPIDUS, MECAENAS, and AGRIPPA]\nLEPIDUS Trouble yourselves no further: pray you, hasten\nYour generals after.\nAGRIPPA Sir, Mark Antony\nWill e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.\nLEPIDUS Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,\nWhich will become you both, farewell.\nMECAENAS We shall,\nAs I conceive the journey, be at the Mount\nBefore you, Lepidus.\nLEPIDUS Your way is shorter;\nMy purposes do draw me much about:\nYou'll win two days upon me.\nMECAENAS |\n| Sir, good success!\nAGRIPPA |\nLEPIDUS Farewell.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT II\nSCENE V Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS]\nCLEOPATRA Give me some music; music, moody food\nOf us that trade in love.\nAttendants The music, ho!\n[Enter MARDIAN]\nCLEOPATRA Let it alone; let's to billiards: come, Charmian.\nCHARMIAN My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.\nCLEOPATRA As well a woman with an eunuch play'd\nAs with a woman. Come, you'll play with me, sir?\nMARDIAN As well as I can, madam.\nCLEOPATRA And when good will is show'd, though't come\ntoo short,\nThe actor may plead pardon. I'll none now:\nGive me mine angle; we'll to the river: there,\nMy music playing far off, I will betray\nTawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce\nTheir slimy jaws; and, as I draw them up,\nI'll think them every one an Antony,\nAnd say 'Ah, ha! you're caught.'\nCHARMIAN 'Twas merry when\nYou wager'd on your angling; when your diver\nDid hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he\nWith fervency drew up.\nCLEOPATRA That time,--O times!--\nI laugh'd him out of patience; and that night\nI laugh'd him into patience; and next morn,\nEre the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed;\nThen put my tires and mantles on him, whilst\nI wore his sword Philippan.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nO, from Italy\nRam thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,\nThat long time have been barren.\nMessenger Madam, madam,--\nCLEOPATRA Antonius dead!--If thou say so, villain,\nThou kill'st thy mistress: but well and free,\nIf thou so yield him, there is gold, and here\nMy bluest veins to kiss; a hand that kings\nHave lipp'd, and trembled kissing.\nMessenger First, madam, he is well.\nCLEOPATRA Why, there's more gold.\nBut, sirrah, mark, we use\nTo say the dead are well: bring it to that,\nThe gold I give thee will I melt and pour\nDown thy ill-uttering throat.\nMessenger Good madam, hear me.\nCLEOPATRA Well, go to, I will;\nBut there's no goodness in thy face: if Antony\nBe free and healthful,--so tart a favour\nTo trumpet such good tidings! If not well,\nThou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,\nNot like a formal man.\nMessenger Will't please you hear me?\nCLEOPATRA I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st:\nYet if thou say Antony lives, is well,\nOr friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,\nI'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail\nRich pearls upon thee.\nMessenger Madam, he's well.\nCLEOPATRA Well said.\nMessenger And friends with Caesar.\nCLEOPATRA Thou'rt an honest man.\nMessenger Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.\nCLEOPATRA Make thee a fortune from me.\nMessenger But yet, madam,--\nCLEOPATRA I do not like 'But yet,' it does allay\nThe good precedence; fie upon 'But yet'!\n'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth\nSome monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,\nPour out the pack of matter to mine ear,\nThe good and bad together: he's friends with Caesar:\nIn state of health thou say'st; and thou say'st free.\nMessenger Free, madam! no; I made no such report:\nHe's bound unto Octavia.\nCLEOPATRA For what good turn?\nMessenger For the best turn i' the bed.\nCLEOPATRA I am pale, Charmian.\nMessenger Madam, he's married to Octavia.\nCLEOPATRA The most infectious pestilence upon thee!\n[Strikes him down]\nMessenger Good madam, patience.\nCLEOPATRA What say you? Hence,\n[Strikes him again]\nHorrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes\nLike balls before me; I'll unhair thy head:\n[She hales him up and down]\nThou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,\nSmarting in lingering pickle.\nMessenger Gracious madam,\nI that do bring the news made not the match.\nCLEOPATRA Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,\nAnd make thy fortunes proud: the blow thou hadst\nShall make thy peace for moving me to rage;\nAnd I will boot thee with what gift beside\nThy modesty can beg.\nMessenger He's married, madam.\nCLEOPATRA Rogue, thou hast lived too long.\n[Draws a knife]\nMessenger Nay, then I'll run.\nWhat mean you, madam? I have made no fault.\n[Exit]\nCHARMIAN Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:\nThe man is innocent.\nCLEOPATRA Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.\nMelt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures\nTurn all to serpents! Call the slave again:\nThough I am mad, I will not bite him: call.\nCHARMIAN He is afeard to come.\nCLEOPATRA I will not hurt him.\n[Exit CHARMIAN]\nThese hands do lack nobility, that they strike\nA meaner than myself; since I myself\nHave given myself the cause.\n[Re-enter CHARMIAN and Messenger]\nCome hither, sir.\nThough it be honest, it is never good\nTo bring bad news: give to a gracious message.\nAn host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell\nThemselves when they be felt.\nMessenger I have done my duty.\nCLEOPATRA Is he married?\nI cannot hate thee worser than I do,\nIf thou again say 'Yes.'\nMessenger He's married, madam.\nCLEOPATRA The gods confound thee! dost thou hold there still?\nMessenger Should I lie, madam?\nCLEOPATRA O, I would thou didst,\nSo half my Egypt were submerged and made\nA cistern for scaled snakes! Go, get thee hence:\nHadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me\nThou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?\nMessenger I crave your highness' pardon.\nCLEOPATRA He is married?\nMessenger Take no offence that I would not offend you:\nTo punish me for what you make me do.\nSeems much unequal: he's married to Octavia.\nCLEOPATRA O, that his fault should make a knave of thee,\nThat art not what thou'rt sure of! Get thee hence:\nThe merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome\nAre all too dear for me: lie they upon thy hand,\nAnd be undone by 'em!\n[Exit Messenger]\nCHARMIAN Good your highness, patience.\nCLEOPATRA In praising Antony, I have dispraised Caesar.\nCHARMIAN Many times, madam.\nCLEOPATRA I am paid for't now.\nLead me from hence:\nI faint: O Iras, Charmian! 'tis no matter.\nGo to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him\nReport the feature of Octavia, her years,\nHer inclination, let him not leave out\nThe colour of her hair: bring me word quickly.\n[Exit ALEXAS]\nLet him for ever go:--let him not--Charmian,\nThough he be painted one way like a Gorgon,\nThe other way's a Mars. Bid you Alexas\n[To MARDIAN]\nBring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian,\nBut do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT II\nSCENE VI Near Misenum.\n[Flourish. Enter POMPEY and MENAS at one door,\nwith drum and trumpet: at another, OCTAVIUS CAESAR,\nMARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MECAENAS,\nwith Soldiers marching]\nPOMPEY Your hostages I have, so have you mine;\nAnd we shall talk before we fight.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Most meet\nThat first we come to words; and therefore have we\nOur written purposes before us sent;\nWhich, if thou hast consider'd, let us know\nIf 'twill tie up thy discontented sword,\nAnd carry back to Sicily much tall youth\nThat else must perish here.\nPOMPEY To you all three,\nThe senators alone of this great world,\nChief factors for the gods, I do not know\nWherefore my father should revengers want,\nHaving a son and friends; since Julius Caesar,\nWho at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,\nThere saw you labouring for him. What was't\nThat moved pale Cassius to conspire; and what\nMade the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus,\nWith the arm'd rest, courtiers and beauteous freedom,\nTo drench the Capitol; but that they would\nHave one man but a man? And that is it\nHath made me rig my navy; at whose burthen\nThe anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant\nTo scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome\nCast on my noble father.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Take your time.\nMARK ANTONY Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;\nWe'll speak with thee at sea: at land, thou know'st\nHow much we do o'er-count thee.\nPOMPEY At land, indeed,\nThou dost o'er-count me of my father's house:\nBut, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,\nRemain in't as thou mayst.\nLEPIDUS Be pleased to tell us--\nFor this is from the present--how you take\nThe offers we have sent you.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR There's the point.\nMARK ANTONY Which do not be entreated to, but weigh\nWhat it is worth embraced.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR And what may follow,\nTo try a larger fortune.\nPOMPEY You have made me offer\nOf Sicily, Sardinia; and I must\nRid all the sea of pirates; then, to send\nMeasures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon\nTo part with unhack'd edges, and bear back\nOur targes undinted.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR |\n|\nMARK ANTONY | That's our offer.\n|\nLEPIDUS |\nPOMPEY Know, then,\nI came before you here a man prepared\nTo take this offer: but Mark Antony\nPut me to some impatience: though I lose\nThe praise of it by telling, you must know,\nWhen Caesar and your brother were at blows,\nYour mother came to Sicily and did find\nHer welcome friendly.\nMARK ANTONY I have heard it, Pompey;\nAnd am well studied for a liberal thanks\nWhich I do owe you.\nPOMPEY Let me have your hand:\nI did not think, sir, to have met you here.\nMARK ANTONY The beds i' the east are soft; and thanks to you,\nThat call'd me timelier than my purpose hither;\nFor I have gain'd by 't.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Since I saw you last,\nThere is a change upon you.\nPOMPEY Well, I know not\nWhat counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;\nBut in my bosom shall she never come,\nTo make my heart her vassal.\nLEPIDUS Well met here.\nPOMPEY I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed:\nI crave our composition may be written,\nAnd seal'd between us.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR That's the next to do.\nPOMPEY We'll feast each other ere we part; and let's\nDraw lots who shall begin.\nMARK ANTONY That will I, Pompey.\nPOMPEY No, Antony, take the lot: but, first\nOr last, your fine Egyptian cookery\nShall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar\nGrew fat with feasting there.\nMARK ANTONY You have heard much.\nPOMPEY I have fair meanings, sir.\nMARK ANTONY And fair words to them.\nPOMPEY Then so much have I heard:\nAnd I have heard, Apollodorus carried--\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No more of that: he did so.\nPOMPEY What, I pray you?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.\nPOMPEY I know thee now: how farest thou, soldier?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Well;\nAnd well am like to do; for, I perceive,\nFour feasts are toward.\nPOMPEY Let me shake thy hand;\nI never hated thee: I have seen thee fight,\nWhen I have envied thy behavior.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Sir,\nI never loved you much; but I ha' praised ye,\nWhen you have well deserved ten times as much\nAs I have said you did.\nPOMPEY Enjoy thy plainness,\nIt nothing ill becomes thee.\nAboard my galley I invite you all:\nWill you lead, lords?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR |\n|\nMARK ANTONY | Show us the way, sir.\n|\nLEPIDUS |\nPOMPEY Come.\n[Exeunt all but MENAS and ENOBARBUS]\nMENAS [Aside] Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have\nmade this treaty.--You and I have known, sir.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS At sea, I think.\nMENAS We have, sir.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS You have done well by water.\nMENAS And you by land.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I will praise any man that will praise me; though it\ncannot be denied what I have done by land.\nMENAS Nor what I have done by water.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Yes, something you can deny for your own\nsafety: you have been a great thief by sea.\nMENAS And you by land.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS There I deny my land service. But give me your\nhand, Menas: if our eyes had authority, here they\nmight take two thieves kissing.\nMENAS All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But there is never a fair woman has a true face.\nMENAS No slander; they steal hearts.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS We came hither to fight with you.\nMENAS For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking.\nPompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS If he do, sure, he cannot weep't back again.\nMENAS You've said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony\nhere: pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Caesar's sister is called Octavia.\nMENAS True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.\nMENAS Pray ye, sir?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS 'Tis true.\nMENAS Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would\nnot prophesy so.\nMENAS I think the policy of that purpose made more in the\nmarriage than the love of the parties.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I think so too. But you shall find, the band that\nseems to tie their friendship together will be the\nvery strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a\nholy, cold, and still conversation.\nMENAS Who would not have his wife so?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony.\nHe will to his Egyptian dish again: then shall the\nsighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar; and, as\nI said before, that which is the strength of their\namity shall prove the immediate author of their\nvariance. Antony will use his affection where it is:\nhe married but his occasion here.\nMENAS And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard?\nI have a health for you.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.\nMENAS Come, let's away.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT II\nSCENE VII On board POMPEY's galley, off Misenum.\n[Music plays. Enter two or three Servants with\na banquet]\nFirst Servant Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are\nill-rooted already: the least wind i' the world\nwill blow them down.\nSecond Servant Lepidus is high-coloured.\nFirst Servant They have made him drink alms-drink.\nSecond Servant As they pinch one another by the disposition, he\ncries out 'No more;' reconciles them to his\nentreaty, and himself to the drink.\nFirst Servant But it raises the greater war between him and\nhis discretion.\nSecond Servant Why, this is to have a name in great men's\nfellowship: I had as lief have a reed that will do\nme no service as a partisan I could not heave.\nFirst Servant To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen\nto move in't, are the holes where eyes should be,\nwhich pitifully disaster the cheeks.\n[A sennet sounded. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK\nANTONY, LEPIDUS, POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MECAENAS,\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MENAS, with other captains]\nMARK ANTONY [To OCTAVIUS CAESAR] Thus do they, sir: they take\nthe flow o' the Nile\nBy certain scales i' the pyramid; they know,\nBy the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth\nOr foison follow: the higher Nilus swells,\nThe more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman\nUpon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,\nAnd shortly comes to harvest.\nLEPIDUS You've strange serpents there.\nMARK ANTONY Ay, Lepidus.\nLEPIDUS Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the\noperation of your sun: so is your crocodile.\nMARK ANTONY They are so.\nPOMPEY Sit,--and some wine! A health to Lepidus!\nLEPIDUS I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Not till you have slept; I fear me you'll be in till then.\nLEPIDUS Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies'\npyramises are very goodly things; without\ncontradiction, I have heard that.\nMENAS [Aside to POMPEY] Pompey, a word.\nPOMPEY [Aside to MENAS] Say in mine ear:\nwhat is't?\nMENAS [Aside to POMPEY] Forsake thy seat, I do beseech\nthee, captain,\nAnd hear me speak a word.\nPOMPEY [Aside to MENAS] Forbear me till anon.\nThis wine for Lepidus!\nLEPIDUS What manner o' thing is your crocodile?\nMARK ANTONY It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad\nas it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is,\nand moves with its own organs: it lives by that\nwhich nourisheth it; and the elements once out of\nit, it transmigrates.\nLEPIDUS What colour is it of?\nMARK ANTONY Of it own colour too.\nLEPIDUS 'Tis a strange serpent.\nMARK ANTONY 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Will this description satisfy him?\nMARK ANTONY With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a\nvery epicure.\nPOMPEY [Aside to MENAS] Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of\nthat? away!\nDo as I bid you. Where's this cup I call'd for?\nMENAS [Aside to POMPEY] If for the sake of merit thou\nwilt hear me,\nRise from thy stool.\nPOMPEY [Aside to MENAS] I think thou'rt mad.\nThe matter?\n[Rises, and walks aside]\nMENAS I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.\nPOMPEY Thou hast served me with much faith. What's else to say?\nBe jolly, lords.\nMARK ANTONY These quick-sands, Lepidus,\nKeep off them, for you sink.\nMENAS Wilt thou be lord of all the world?\nPOMPEY What say'st thou?\nMENAS Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That's twice.\nPOMPEY How should that be?\nMENAS But entertain it,\nAnd, though thou think me poor, I am the man\nWill give thee all the world.\nPOMPEY Hast thou drunk well?\nMENAS Now, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.\nThou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove:\nWhate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,\nIs thine, if thou wilt ha't.\nPOMPEY Show me which way.\nMENAS These three world-sharers, these competitors,\nAre in thy vessel: let me cut the cable;\nAnd, when we are put off, fall to their throats:\nAll there is thine.\nPOMPEY Ah, this thou shouldst have done,\nAnd not have spoke on't! In me 'tis villany;\nIn thee't had been good service. Thou must know,\n'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;\nMine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue\nHath so betray'd thine act: being done unknown,\nI should have found it afterwards well done;\nBut must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.\nMENAS [Aside] For this,\nI'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.\nWho seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,\nShall never find it more.\nPOMPEY This health to Lepidus!\nMARK ANTONY Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Here's to thee, Menas!\nMENAS Enobarbus, welcome!\nPOMPEY Fill till the cup be hid.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS There's a strong fellow, Menas.\n[Pointing to the Attendant who carries off LEPIDUS]\nMENAS Why?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS A' bears the third part of the world, man; see'st\nnot?\nMENAS The third part, then, is drunk: would it were all,\nThat it might go on wheels!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Drink thou; increase the reels.\nMENAS Come.\nPOMPEY This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.\nMARK ANTONY It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho?\nHere is to Caesar!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I could well forbear't.\nIt's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain,\nAnd it grows fouler.\nMARK ANTONY Be a child o' the time.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Possess it, I'll make answer:\nBut I had rather fast from all four days\nThan drink so much in one.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Ha, my brave emperor!\n[To MARK ANTONY]\nShall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals,\nAnd celebrate our drink?\nPOMPEY Let's ha't, good soldier.\nMARK ANTONY Come, let's all take hands,\nTill that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense\nIn soft and delicate Lethe.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS All take hands.\nMake battery to our ears with the loud music:\nThe while I'll place you: then the boy shall sing;\nThe holding every man shall bear as loud\nAs his strong sides can volley.\n[Music plays. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS places them\nhand in hand]\nTHE SONG.\nCome, thou monarch of the vine,\nPlumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!\nIn thy fats our cares be drown'd,\nWith thy grapes our hairs be crown'd:\nCup us, till the world go round,\nCup us, till the world go round!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,\nLet me request you off: our graver business\nFrowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;\nYou see we have burnt our cheeks: strong Enobarb\nIs weaker than the wine; and mine own tongue\nSplits what it speaks: the wild disguise hath almost\nAntick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.\nGood Antony, your hand.\nPOMPEY I'll try you on the shore.\nMARK ANTONY And shall, sir; give's your hand.\nPOMPEY O Antony,\nYou have my father's house,--But, what? we are friends.\nCome, down into the boat.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Take heed you fall not.\n[Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and MENAS]\nMenas, I'll not on shore.\nMENAS No, to my cabin.\nThese drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!\nLet Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell\nTo these great fellows: sound and be hang'd, sound out!\n[Sound a flourish, with drums]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Ho! says a' There's my cap.\nMENAS Ho! Noble captain, come.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE I A plain in Syria.\n[Enter VENTIDIUS as it were in triumph, with SILIUS,\nand other Romans, Officers, and Soldiers; the dead\nbody of PACORUS borne before him]\nVENTIDIUS Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck; and now\nPleased fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death\nMake me revenger. Bear the king's son's body\nBefore our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,\nPays this for Marcus Crassus.\nSILIUS Noble Ventidius,\nWhilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm,\nThe fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,\nMesopotamia, and the shelters whither\nThe routed fly: so thy grand captain Antony\nShall set thee on triumphant chariots and\nPut garlands on thy head.\nVENTIDIUS O Silius, Silius,\nI have done enough; a lower place, note well,\nMay make too great an act: for learn this, Silius;\nBetter to leave undone, than by our deed\nAcquire too high a fame when him we serve's away.\nCaesar and Antony have ever won\nMore in their officer than person: Sossius,\nOne of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,\nFor quick accumulation of renown,\nWhich he achieved by the minute, lost his favour.\nWho does i' the wars more than his captain can\nBecomes his captain's captain: and ambition,\nThe soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss,\nThan gain which darkens him.\nI could do more to do Antonius good,\nBut 'twould offend him; and in his offence\nShould my performance perish.\nSILIUS Thou hast, Ventidius,\nthat\nWithout the which a soldier, and his sword,\nGrants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony!\nVENTIDIUS I'll humbly signify what in his name,\nThat magical word of war, we have effected;\nHow, with his banners and his well-paid ranks,\nThe ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia\nWe have jaded out o' the field.\nSILIUS Where is he now?\nVENTIDIUS He purposeth to Athens: whither, with what haste\nThe weight we must convey with's will permit,\nWe shall appear before him. On there; pass along!\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE II Rome. An ante-chamber in OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.\n[Enter AGRIPPA at one door, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS\nat another]\nAGRIPPA What, are the brothers parted?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS They have dispatch'd with Pompey, he is gone;\nThe other three are sealing. Octavia weeps\nTo part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,\nSince Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled\nWith the green sickness.\nAGRIPPA 'Tis a noble Lepidus.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS A very fine one: O, how he loves Caesar!\nAGRIPPA Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Caesar? Why, he's the Jupiter of men.\nAGRIPPA What's Antony? The god of Jupiter.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Spake you of Caesar? How! the non-pareil!\nAGRIPPA O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar:' go no further.\nAGRIPPA Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But he loves Caesar best; yet he loves Antony:\nHo! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards,\npoets, cannot\nThink, speak, cast, write, sing, number, ho!\nHis love to Antony. But as for Caesar,\nKneel down, kneel down, and wonder.\nAGRIPPA Both he loves.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS They are his shards, and he their beetle.\n[Trumpets within]\nSo;\nThis is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.\nAGRIPPA Good fortune, worthy soldier; and farewell.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, and OCTAVIA]\nMARK ANTONY No further, sir.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR You take from me a great part of myself;\nUse me well in 't. Sister, prove such a wife\nAs my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band\nShall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,\nLet not the piece of virtue, which is set\nBetwixt us as the cement of our love,\nTo keep it builded, be the ram to batter\nThe fortress of it; for better might we\nHave loved without this mean, if on both parts\nThis be not cherish'd.\nMARK ANTONY Make me not offended\nIn your distrust.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I have said.\nMARK ANTONY You shall not find,\nThough you be therein curious, the least cause\nFor what you seem to fear: so, the gods keep you,\nAnd make the hearts of Romans serve your ends!\nWe will here part.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well:\nThe elements be kind to thee, and make\nThy spirits all of comfort! fare thee well.\nOCTAVIA My noble brother!\nMARK ANTONY The April 's in her eyes: it is love's spring,\nAnd these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.\nOCTAVIA Sir, look well to my husband's house; and--\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR What, Octavia?\nOCTAVIA I'll tell you in your ear.\nMARK ANTONY Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can\nHer heart inform her tongue,--the swan's\ndown-feather,\nThat stands upon the swell at full of tide,\nAnd neither way inclines.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside to AGRIPPA] Will Caesar weep?\nAGRIPPA [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS] He has a cloud in 's face.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside to AGRIPPA] He were the worse for that,\nwere he a horse;\nSo is he, being a man.\nAGRIPPA [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS] Why, Enobarbus,\nWhen Antony found Julius Caesar dead,\nHe cried almost to roaring; and he wept\nWhen at Philippi he found Brutus slain.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside to AGRIPPA] That year, indeed, he was\ntroubled with a rheum;\nWhat willingly he did confound he wail'd,\nBelieve't, till I wept too.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR No, sweet Octavia,\nYou shall hear from me still; the time shall not\nOut-go my thinking on you.\nMARK ANTONY Come, sir, come;\nI'll wrestle with you in my strength of love:\nLook, here I have you; thus I let you go,\nAnd give you to the gods.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Adieu; be happy!\nLEPIDUS Let all the number of the stars give light\nTo thy fair way!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Farewell, farewell!\n[Kisses OCTAVIA]\nMARK ANTONY Farewell!\n[Trumpets sound. Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE III Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS]\nCLEOPATRA Where is the fellow?\nALEXAS Half afeard to come.\nCLEOPATRA Go to, go to.\n[Enter the Messenger as before]\nCome hither, sir.\nALEXAS Good majesty,\nHerod of Jewry dare not look upon you\nBut when you are well pleased.\nCLEOPATRA That Herod's head\nI'll have: but how, when Antony is gone\nThrough whom I might command it? Come thou near.\nMessenger Most gracious majesty,--\nCLEOPATRA Didst thou behold Octavia?\nMessenger Ay, dread queen.\nCLEOPATRA Where?\nMessenger Madam, in Rome;\nI look'd her in the face, and saw her led\nBetween her brother and Mark Antony.\nCLEOPATRA Is she as tall as me?\nMessenger She is not, madam.\nCLEOPATRA Didst hear her speak? is she shrill-tongued or low?\nMessenger Madam, I heard her speak; she is low-voiced.\nCLEOPATRA That's not so good: he cannot like her long.\nCHARMIAN Like her! O Isis! 'tis impossible.\nCLEOPATRA I think so, Charmian: dull of tongue, and dwarfish!\nWhat majesty is in her gait? Remember,\nIf e'er thou look'dst on majesty.\nMessenger She creeps:\nHer motion and her station are as one;\nShe shows a body rather than a life,\nA statue than a breather.\nCLEOPATRA Is this certain?\nMessenger Or I have no observance.\nCHARMIAN Three in Egypt\nCannot make better note.\nCLEOPATRA He's very knowing;\nI do perceive't: there's nothing in her yet:\nThe fellow has good judgment.\nCHARMIAN Excellent.\nCLEOPATRA Guess at her years, I prithee.\nMessenger Madam,\nShe was a widow,--\nCLEOPATRA Widow! Charmian, hark.\nMessenger And I do think she's thirty.\nCLEOPATRA Bear'st thou her face in mind? is't long or round?\nMessenger Round even to faultiness.\nCLEOPATRA For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.\nHer hair, what colour?\nMessenger Brown, madam: and her forehead\nAs low as she would wish it.\nCLEOPATRA There's gold for thee.\nThou must not take my former sharpness ill:\nI will employ thee back again; I find thee\nMost fit for business: go make thee ready;\nOur letters are prepared.\n[Exit Messenger]\nCHARMIAN A proper man.\nCLEOPATRA Indeed, he is so: I repent me much\nThat so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him,\nThis creature's no such thing.\nCHARMIAN Nothing, madam.\nCLEOPATRA The man hath seen some majesty, and should know.\nCHARMIAN Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,\nAnd serving you so long!\nCLEOPATRA I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian:\nBut 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me\nWhere I will write. All may be well enough.\nCHARMIAN I warrant you, madam.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE IV Athens. A room in MARK ANTONY's house.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and OCTAVIA]\nMARK ANTONY Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that,--\nThat were excusable, that, and thousands more\nOf semblable import,--but he hath waged\nNew wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it\nTo public ear:\nSpoke scantly of me: when perforce he could not\nBut pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly\nHe vented them; most narrow measure lent me:\nWhen the best hint was given him, he not took't,\nOr did it from his teeth.\nOCTAVIA O my good lord,\nBelieve not all; or, if you must believe,\nStomach not all. A more unhappy lady,\nIf this division chance, ne'er stood between,\nPraying for both parts:\nThe good gods me presently,\nWhen I shall pray, 'O bless my lord and husband!'\nUndo that prayer, by crying out as loud,\n'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother,\nPrays, and destroys the prayer; no midway\n'Twixt these extremes at all.\nMARK ANTONY Gentle Octavia,\nLet your best love draw to that point, which seeks\nBest to preserve it: if I lose mine honour,\nI lose myself: better I were not yours\nThan yours so branchless. But, as you requested,\nYourself shall go between 's: the mean time, lady,\nI'll raise the preparation of a war\nShall stain your brother: make your soonest haste;\nSo your desires are yours.\nOCTAVIA Thanks to my lord.\nThe Jove of power make me most weak, most weak,\nYour reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be\nAs if the world should cleave, and that slain men\nShould solder up the rift.\nMARK ANTONY When it appears to you where this begins,\nTurn your displeasure that way: for our faults\nCan never be so equal, that your love\nCan equally move with them. Provide your going;\nChoose your own company, and command what cost\nYour heart has mind to.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE V The same. Another room.\n[Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS How now, friend Eros!\nEROS There's strange news come, sir.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What, man?\nEROS Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS This is old: what is the success?\nEROS Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst\nPompey, presently denied him rivality; would not let\nhim partake in the glory of the action: and not\nresting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly\nwrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him: so\nthe poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more;\nAnd throw between them all the food thou hast,\nThey'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?\nEROS He's walking in the garden--thus; and spurns\nThe rush that lies before him; cries, 'Fool Lepidus!'\nAnd threats the throat of that his officer\nThat murder'd Pompey.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Our great navy's rigg'd.\nEROS For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius;\nMy lord desires you presently: my news\nI might have told hereafter.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS 'Twill be naught:\nBut let it be. Bring me to Antony.\nEROS Come, sir.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE VI Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECAENAS]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Contemning Rome, he has done all this, and more,\nIn Alexandria: here's the manner of 't:\nI' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,\nCleopatra and himself in chairs of gold\nWere publicly enthroned: at the feet sat\nCaesarion, whom they call my father's son,\nAnd all the unlawful issue that their lust\nSince then hath made between them. Unto her\nHe gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her\nOf lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,\nAbsolute queen.\nMECAENAS This in the public eye?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I' the common show-place, where they exercise.\nHis sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:\nGreat Media, Parthia, and Armenia.\nHe gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd\nSyria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: she\nIn the habiliments of the goddess Isis\nThat day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,\nAs 'tis reported, so.\nMECAENAS Let Rome be thus Inform'd.\nAGRIPPA Who, queasy with his insolence\nAlready, will their good thoughts call from him.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR The people know it; and have now received\nHis accusations.\nAGRIPPA Who does he accuse?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Caesar: and that, having in Sicily\nSextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him\nHis part o' the isle: then does he say, he lent me\nSome shipping unrestored: lastly, he frets\nThat Lepidus of the triumvirate\nShould be deposed; and, being, that we detain\nAll his revenue.\nAGRIPPA Sir, this should be answer'd.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR 'Tis done already, and the messenger gone.\nI have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel;\nThat he his high authority abused,\nAnd did deserve his change: for what I have conquer'd,\nI grant him part; but then, in his Armenia,\nAnd other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I\nDemand the like.\nMECAENAS He'll never yield to that.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Nor must not then be yielded to in this.\n[Enter OCTAVIA with her train]\nOCTAVIA Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR That ever I should call thee castaway!\nOCTAVIA You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Why have you stol'n upon us thus! You come not\nLike Caesar's sister: the wife of Antony\nShould have an army for an usher, and\nThe neighs of horse to tell of her approach\nLong ere she did appear; the trees by the way\nShould have borne men; and expectation fainted,\nLonging for what it had not; nay, the dust\nShould have ascended to the roof of heaven,\nRaised by your populous troops: but you are come\nA market-maid to Rome; and have prevented\nThe ostentation of our love, which, left unshown,\nIs often left unloved; we should have met you\nBy sea and land; supplying every stage\nWith an augmented greeting.\nOCTAVIA Good my lord,\nTo come thus was I not constrain'd, but did\nOn my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,\nHearing that you prepared for war, acquainted\nMy grieved ear withal; whereon, I begg'd\nHis pardon for return.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Which soon he granted,\nBeing an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.\nOCTAVIA Do not say so, my lord.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR I have eyes upon him,\nAnd his affairs come to me on the wind.\nWhere is he now?\nOCTAVIA My lord, in Athens.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra\nHath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire\nUp to a whore; who now are levying\nThe kings o' the earth for war; he hath assembled\nBocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus,\nOf Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king\nOf Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;\nKing Malchus of Arabia; King of Pont;\nHerod of Jewry; Mithridates, king\nOf Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,\nThe kings of Mede and Lycaonia,\nWith a more larger list of sceptres.\nOCTAVIA Ay me, most wretched,\nThat have my heart parted betwixt two friends\nThat do afflict each other!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Welcome hither:\nYour letters did withhold our breaking forth;\nTill we perceived, both how you were wrong led,\nAnd we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart;\nBe you not troubled with the time, which drives\nO'er your content these strong necessities;\nBut let determined things to destiny\nHold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;\nNothing more dear to me. You are abused\nBeyond the mark of thought: and the high gods,\nTo do you justice, make them ministers\nOf us and those that love you. Best of comfort;\nAnd ever welcome to us.\nAGRIPPA Welcome, lady.\nMECAENAS Welcome, dear madam.\nEach heart in Rome does love and pity you:\nOnly the adulterous Antony, most large\nIn his abominations, turns you off;\nAnd gives his potent regiment to a trull,\nThat noises it against us.\nOCTAVIA Is it so, sir?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Most certain. Sister, welcome: pray you,\nBe ever known to patience: my dear'st sister!\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE VII Near Actium. MARK ANTONY's camp.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nCLEOPATRA I will be even with thee, doubt it not.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But why, why, why?\nCLEOPATRA Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,\nAnd say'st it is not fit.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Well, is it, is it?\nCLEOPATRA If not denounced against us, why should not we\nBe there in person?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside] Well, I could reply:\nIf we should serve with horse and mares together,\nThe horse were merely lost; the mares would bear\nA soldier and his horse.\nCLEOPATRA What is't you say?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;\nTake from his heart, take from his brain,\nfrom's time,\nWhat should not then be spared. He is already\nTraduced for levity; and 'tis said in Rome\nThat Photinus an eunuch and your maids\nManage this war.\nCLEOPATRA Sink Rome, and their tongues rot\nThat speak against us! A charge we bear i' the war,\nAnd, as the president of my kingdom, will\nAppear there for a man. Speak not against it:\nI will not stay behind.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Nay, I have done.\nHere comes the emperor.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and CANIDIUS]\nMARK ANTONY Is it not strange, Canidius,\nThat from Tarentum and Brundusium\nHe could so quickly cut the Ionian sea,\nAnd take in Toryne? You have heard on't, sweet?\nCLEOPATRA Celerity is never more admired\nThan by the negligent.\nMARK ANTONY A good rebuke,\nWhich might have well becomed the best of men,\nTo taunt at slackness. Canidius, we\nWill fight with him by sea.\nCLEOPATRA By sea! what else?\nCANIDIUS Why will my lord do so?\nMARK ANTONY For that he dares us to't.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS So hath my lord dared him to single fight.\nCANIDIUS Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia.\nWhere Caesar fought with Pompey: but these offers,\nWhich serve not for his vantage, be shakes off;\nAnd so should you.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Your ships are not well mann'd;\nYour mariners are muleters, reapers, people\nIngross'd by swift impress; in Caesar's fleet\nAre those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought:\nTheir ships are yare; yours, heavy: no disgrace\nShall fall you for refusing him at sea,\nBeing prepared for land.\nMARK ANTONY By sea, by sea.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Most worthy sir, you therein throw away\nThe absolute soldiership you have by land;\nDistract your army, which doth most consist\nOf war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted\nYour own renowned knowledge; quite forego\nThe way which promises assurance; and\nGive up yourself merely to chance and hazard,\nFrom firm security.\nMARK ANTONY I'll fight at sea.\nCLEOPATRA I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.\nMARK ANTONY Our overplus of shipping will we burn;\nAnd, with the rest full-mann'd, from the head of Actium\nBeat the approaching Caesar. But if we fail,\nWe then can do't at land.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nThy business?\nMessenger The news is true, my lord; he is descried;\nCaesar has taken Toryne.\nMARK ANTONY Can he be there in person? 'tis impossible;\nStrange that power should be. Canidius,\nOur nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,\nAnd our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship:\nAway, my Thetis!\n[Enter a Soldier]\nHow now, worthy soldier?\nSoldier O noble emperor, do not fight by sea;\nTrust not to rotten planks: do you misdoubt\nThis sword and these my wounds? Let the Egyptians\nAnd the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we\nHave used to conquer, standing on the earth,\nAnd fighting foot to foot.\nMARK ANTONY Well, well: away!\n[Exeunt MARK ANTONY, QUEEN CLEOPATRA, and DOMITIUS\nENOBARBUS]\nSoldier By Hercules, I think I am i' the right.\nCANIDIUS Soldier, thou art: but his whole action grows\nNot in the power on't: so our leader's led,\nAnd we are women's men.\nSoldier You keep by land\nThe legions and the horse whole, do you not?\nCANIDIUS Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,\nPublicola, and Caelius, are for sea:\nBut we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's\nCarries beyond belief.\nSoldier While he was yet in Rome,\nHis power went out in such distractions as\nBeguiled all spies.\nCANIDIUS Who's his lieutenant, hear you?\nSoldier They say, one Taurus.\nCANIDIUS Well I know the man.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nMessenger The emperor calls Canidius.\nCANIDIUS With news the time's with labour, and throes forth,\nEach minute, some.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE VIII A plain near Actium.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, and TAURUS, with his army, marching]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Taurus!\nTAURUS My lord?\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Strike not by land; keep whole: provoke not battle,\nTill we have done at sea. Do not exceed\nThe prescript of this scroll: our fortune lies\nUpon this jump.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE IX Another part of the plain.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nMARK ANTONY Set we our squadrons on yond side o' the hill,\nIn eye of Caesar's battle; from which place\nWe may the number of the ships behold,\nAnd so proceed accordingly.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE X Another part of the plain.\n[CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way over\nthe stage; and TAURUS, the lieutenant of OCTAVIUS\nCAESAR, the other way. After their going in, is\nheard the noise of a sea-fight]\n[Alarum. Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Naught, naught all, naught! I can behold no longer:\nThe Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,\nWith all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder:\nTo see't mine eyes are blasted.\n[Enter SCARUS]\nSCARUS Gods and goddesses,\nAll the whole synod of them!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What's thy passion!\nSCARUS The greater cantle of the world is lost\nWith very ignorance; we have kiss'd away\nKingdoms and provinces.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS How appears the fight?\nSCARUS On our side like the token'd pestilence,\nWhere death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,--\nWhom leprosy o'ertake!--i' the midst o' the fight,\nWhen vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,\nBoth as the same, or rather ours the elder,\nThe breese upon her, like a cow in June,\nHoists sails and flies.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS That I beheld:\nMine eyes did sicken at the sight, and could not\nEndure a further view.\nSCARUS She once being loof'd,\nThe noble ruin of her magic, Antony,\nClaps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,\nLeaving the fight in height, flies after her:\nI never saw an action of such shame;\nExperience, manhood, honour, ne'er before\nDid violate so itself.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Alack, alack!\n[Enter CANIDIUS]\nCANIDIUS Our fortune on the sea is out of breath,\nAnd sinks most lamentably. Had our general\nBeen what he knew himself, it had gone well:\nO, he has given example for our flight,\nMost grossly, by his own!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Ay, are you thereabouts?\nWhy, then, good night indeed.\nCANIDIUS Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.\nSCARUS 'Tis easy to't; and there I will attend\nWhat further comes.\nCANIDIUS To Caesar will I render\nMy legions and my horse: six kings already\nShow me the way of yielding.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I'll yet follow\nThe wounded chance of Antony, though my reason\nSits in the wind against me.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE XI Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY with Attendants]\nMARK ANTONY Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;\nIt is ashamed to bear me! Friends, come hither:\nI am so lated in the world, that I\nHave lost my way for ever: I have a ship\nLaden with gold; take that, divide it; fly,\nAnd make your peace with Caesar.\nAll Fly! not we.\nMARK ANTONY I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards\nTo run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;\nI have myself resolved upon a course\nWhich has no need of you; be gone:\nMy treasure's in the harbour, take it. O,\nI follow'd that I blush to look upon:\nMy very hairs do mutiny; for the white\nReprove the brown for rashness, and they them\nFor fear and doting. Friends, be gone: you shall\nHave letters from me to some friends that will\nSweep your way for you. Pray you, look not sad,\nNor make replies of loathness: take the hint\nWhich my despair proclaims; let that be left\nWhich leaves itself: to the sea-side straightway:\nI will possess you of that ship and treasure.\nLeave me, I pray, a little: pray you now:\nNay, do so; for, indeed, I have lost command,\nTherefore I pray you: I'll see you by and by.\n[Sits down]\n[Enter CLEOPATRA led by CHARMIAN and IRAS; EROS\nfollowing]\nEROS Nay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him.\nIRAS Do, most dear queen.\nCHARMIAN Do! why: what else?\nCLEOPATRA Let me sit down. O Juno!\nMARK ANTONY No, no, no, no, no.\nEROS See you here, sir?\nMARK ANTONY O fie, fie, fie!\nCHARMIAN Madam!\nIRAS Madam, O good empress!\nEROS Sir, sir,--\nMARK ANTONY Yes, my lord, yes; he at Philippi kept\nHis sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck\nThe lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I\nThat the mad Brutus ended: he alone\nDealt on lieutenantry, and no practise had\nIn the brave squares of war: yet now--No matter.\nCLEOPATRA Ah, stand by.\nEROS The queen, my lord, the queen.\nIRAS Go to him, madam, speak to him:\nHe is unqualitied with very shame.\nCLEOPATRA Well then, sustain him: O!\nEROS Most noble sir, arise; the queen approaches:\nHer head's declined, and death will seize her, but\nYour comfort makes the rescue.\nMARK ANTONY I have offended reputation,\nA most unnoble swerving.\nEROS Sir, the queen.\nMARK ANTONY O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See,\nHow I convey my shame out of thine eyes\nBy looking back what I have left behind\n'Stroy'd in dishonour.\nCLEOPATRA O my lord, my lord,\nForgive my fearful sails! I little thought\nYou would have follow'd.\nMARK ANTONY Egypt, thou knew'st too well\nMy heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,\nAnd thou shouldst tow me after: o'er my spirit\nThy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that\nThy beck might from the bidding of the gods\nCommand me.\nCLEOPATRA O, my pardon!\nMARK ANTONY Now I must\nTo the young man send humble treaties, dodge\nAnd palter in the shifts of lowness; who\nWith half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleased,\nMaking and marring fortunes. You did know\nHow much you were my conqueror; and that\nMy sword, made weak by my affection, would\nObey it on all cause.\nCLEOPATRA Pardon, pardon!\nMARK ANTONY Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates\nAll that is won and lost: give me a kiss;\nEven this repays me. We sent our schoolmaster;\nIs he come back? Love, I am full of lead.\nSome wine, within there, and our viands! Fortune knows\nWe scorn her most when most she offers blows.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE XII Egypt. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, with others]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Let him appear that's come from Antony.\nKnow you him?\nDOLABELLA Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:\nAn argument that he is pluck'd, when hither\nHe sends so poor a pinion off his wing,\nWhich had superfluous kings for messengers\nNot many moons gone by.\n[Enter EUPHRONIUS, ambassador from MARK ANTONY]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Approach, and speak.\nEUPHRONIUS Such as I am, I come from Antony:\nI was of late as petty to his ends\nAs is the morn-dew on the myrtle-leaf\nTo his grand sea.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Be't so: declare thine office.\nEUPHRONIUS Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and\nRequires to live in Egypt: which not granted,\nHe lessens his requests; and to thee sues\nTo let him breathe between the heavens and earth,\nA private man in Athens: this for him.\nNext, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness;\nSubmits her to thy might; and of thee craves\nThe circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,\nNow hazarded to thy grace.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR For Antony,\nI have no ears to his request. The queen\nOf audience nor desire shall fail, so she\nFrom Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,\nOr take his life there: this if she perform,\nShe shall not sue unheard. So to them both.\nEUPHRONIUS Fortune pursue thee!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Bring him through the bands.\n[Exit EUPHRONIUS]\n[To THYREUS] To try eloquence, now 'tis time: dispatch;\nFrom Antony win Cleopatra: promise,\nAnd in our name, what she requires; add more,\nFrom thine invention, offers: women are not\nIn their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure\nThe ne'er touch'd vestal: try thy cunning, Thyreus;\nMake thine own edict for thy pains, which we\nWill answer as a law.\nTHYREUS Caesar, I go.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,\nAnd what thou think'st his very action speaks\nIn every power that moves.\nTHYREUS Caesar, I shall.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT III\nSCENE XIII Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS]\nCLEOPATRA What shall we do, Enobarbus?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Think, and die.\nCLEOPATRA Is Antony or we in fault for this?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Antony only, that would make his will\nLord of his reason. What though you fled\nFrom that great face of war, whose several ranges\nFrighted each other? why should he follow?\nThe itch of his affection should not then\nHave nick'd his captainship; at such a point,\nWhen half to half the world opposed, he being\nThe meered question: 'twas a shame no less\nThan was his loss, to course your flying flags,\nAnd leave his navy gazing.\nCLEOPATRA Prithee, peace.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY with EUPHRONIUS, the Ambassador]\nMARK ANTONY Is that his answer?\nEUPHRONIUS Ay, my lord.\nMARK ANTONY The queen shall then have courtesy, so she\nWill yield us up.\nEUPHRONIUS He says so.\nMARK ANTONY Let her know't.\nTo the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,\nAnd he will fill thy wishes to the brim\nWith principalities.\nCLEOPATRA That head, my lord?\nMARK ANTONY To him again: tell him he wears the rose\nOf youth upon him; from which the world should note\nSomething particular: his coin, ships, legions,\nMay be a coward's; whose ministers would prevail\nUnder the service of a child as soon\nAs i' the command of Caesar: I dare him therefore\nTo lay his gay comparisons apart,\nAnd answer me declined, sword against sword,\nOurselves alone. I'll write it: follow me.\n[Exeunt MARK ANTONY and EUPHRONIUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside] Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will\nUnstate his happiness, and be staged to the show,\nAgainst a sworder! I see men's judgments are\nA parcel of their fortunes; and things outward\nDo draw the inward quality after them,\nTo suffer all alike. That he should dream,\nKnowing all measures, the full Caesar will\nAnswer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdued\nHis judgment too.\n[Enter an Attendant]\nAttendant A messenger from CAESAR.\nCLEOPATRA What, no more ceremony? See, my women!\nAgainst the blown rose may they stop their nose\nThat kneel'd unto the buds. Admit him, sir.\n[Exit Attendant]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside] Mine honesty and I begin to square.\nThe loyalty well held to fools does make\nOur faith mere folly: yet he that can endure\nTo follow with allegiance a fall'n lord\nDoes conquer him that did his master conquer\nAnd earns a place i' the story.\n[Enter THYREUS]\nCLEOPATRA Caesar's will?\nTHYREUS Hear it apart.\nCLEOPATRA None but friends: say boldly.\nTHYREUS So, haply, are they friends to Antony.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has;\nOr needs not us. If Caesar please, our master\nWill leap to be his friend: for us, you know,\nWhose he is we are, and that is, Caesar's.\nTHYREUS So.\nThus then, thou most renown'd: Caesar entreats,\nNot to consider in what case thou stand'st,\nFurther than he is Caesar.\nCLEOPATRA Go on: right royal.\nTHYREUS He knows that you embrace not Antony\nAs you did love, but as you fear'd him.\nCLEOPATRA O!\nTHYREUS The scars upon your honour, therefore, he\nDoes pity, as constrained blemishes,\nNot as deserved.\nCLEOPATRA He is a god, and knows\nWhat is most right: mine honour was not yielded,\nBut conquer'd merely.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside] To be sure of that,\nI will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky,\nThat we must leave thee to thy sinking, for\nThy dearest quit thee.\n[Exit]\nTHYREUS Shall I say to Caesar\nWhat you require of him? for he partly begs\nTo be desired to give. It much would please him,\nThat of his fortunes you should make a staff\nTo lean upon: but it would warm his spirits,\nTo hear from me you had left Antony,\nAnd put yourself under his shrowd,\nThe universal landlord.\nCLEOPATRA What's your name?\nTHYREUS My name is Thyreus.\nCLEOPATRA Most kind messenger,\nSay to great Caesar this: in deputation\nI kiss his conquering hand: tell him, I am prompt\nTo lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel:\nTell him from his all-obeying breath I hear\nThe doom of Egypt.\nTHYREUS 'Tis your noblest course.\nWisdom and fortune combating together,\nIf that the former dare but what it can,\nNo chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay\nMy duty on your hand.\nCLEOPATRA Your Caesar's father oft,\nWhen he hath mused of taking kingdoms in,\nBestow'd his lips on that unworthy place,\nAs it rain'd kisses.\n[Re-enter MARK ANTONY and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nMARK ANTONY Favours, by Jove that thunders!\nWhat art thou, fellow?\nTHYREUS One that but performs\nThe bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest\nTo have command obey'd.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside] You will be whipp'd.\nMARK ANTONY Approach, there! Ah, you kite! Now, gods\nand devils!\nAuthority melts from me: of late, when I cried 'Ho!'\nLike boys unto a muss, kings would start forth,\nAnd cry 'Your will?' Have you no ears? I am\nAntony yet.\n[Enter Attendants]\nTake hence this Jack, and whip him.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside] 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp\nThan with an old one dying.\nMARK ANTONY Moon and stars!\nWhip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries\nThat do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them\nSo saucy with the hand of she here,--what's her name,\nSince she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,\nTill, like a boy, you see him cringe his face,\nAnd whine aloud for mercy: take him hence.\nTHYREUS Mark Antony!\nMARK ANTONY Tug him away: being whipp'd,\nBring him again: this Jack of Caesar's shall\nBear us an errand to him.\n[Exeunt Attendants with THYREUS]\nYou were half blasted ere I knew you: ha!\nHave I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome,\nForborne the getting of a lawful race,\nAnd by a gem of women, to be abused\nBy one that looks on feeders?\nCLEOPATRA Good my lord,--\nMARK ANTONY You have been a boggler ever:\nBut when we in our viciousness grow hard--\nO misery on't!--the wise gods seel our eyes;\nIn our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us\nAdore our errors; laugh at's, while we strut\nTo our confusion.\nCLEOPATRA O, is't come to this?\nMARK ANTONY I found you as a morsel cold upon\nDead Caesar's trencher; nay, you were a fragment\nOf Cneius Pompey's; besides what hotter hours,\nUnregister'd in vulgar fame, you have\nLuxuriously pick'd out: for, I am sure,\nThough you can guess what temperance should be,\nYou know not what it is.\nCLEOPATRA Wherefore is this?\nMARK ANTONY To let a fellow that will take rewards\nAnd say 'God quit you!' be familiar with\nMy playfellow, your hand; this kingly seal\nAnd plighter of high hearts! O, that I were\nUpon the hill of Basan, to outroar\nThe horned herd! for I have savage cause;\nAnd to proclaim it civilly, were like\nA halter'd neck which does the hangman thank\nFor being yare about him.\n[Re-enter Attendants with THYREUS]\nIs he whipp'd?\nFirst Attendant Soundly, my lord.\nMARK ANTONY Cried he? and begg'd a' pardon?\nFirst Attendant He did ask favour.\nMARK ANTONY If that thy father live, let him repent\nThou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry\nTo follow Caesar in his triumph, since\nThou hast been whipp'd for following him: henceforth\nThe white hand of a lady fever thee,\nShake thou to look on 't. Get thee back to Caesar,\nTell him thy entertainment: look, thou say\nHe makes me angry with him; for he seems\nProud and disdainful, harping on what I am,\nNot what he knew I was: he makes me angry;\nAnd at this time most easy 'tis to do't,\nWhen my good stars, that were my former guides,\nHave empty left their orbs, and shot their fires\nInto the abysm of hell. If he mislike\nMy speech and what is done, tell him he has\nHipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom\nHe may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture,\nAs he shall like, to quit me: urge it thou:\nHence with thy stripes, begone!\n[Exit THYREUS]\nCLEOPATRA Have you done yet?\nMARK ANTONY Alack, our terrene moon\nIs now eclipsed; and it portends alone\nThe fall of Antony!\nCLEOPATRA I must stay his time.\nMARK ANTONY To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes\nWith one that ties his points?\nCLEOPATRA Not know me yet?\nMARK ANTONY Cold-hearted toward me?\nCLEOPATRA Ah, dear, if I be so,\nFrom my cold heart let heaven engender hail,\nAnd poison it in the source; and the first stone\nDrop in my neck: as it determines, so\nDissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!\nTill by degrees the memory of my womb,\nTogether with my brave Egyptians all,\nBy the discandying of this pelleted storm,\nLie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile\nHave buried them for prey!\nMARK ANTONY I am satisfied.\nCaesar sits down in Alexandria; where\nI will oppose his fate. Our force by land\nHath nobly held; our sever'd navy too\nHave knit again, and fleet, threatening most sea-like.\nWhere hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?\nIf from the field I shall return once more\nTo kiss these lips, I will appear in blood;\nI and my sword will earn our chronicle:\nThere's hope in't yet.\nCLEOPATRA That's my brave lord!\nMARK ANTONY I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breathed,\nAnd fight maliciously: for when mine hours\nWere nice and lucky, men did ransom lives\nOf me for jests; but now I'll set my teeth,\nAnd send to darkness all that stop me. Come,\nLet's have one other gaudy night: call to me\nAll my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;\nLet's mock the midnight bell.\nCLEOPATRA It is my birth-day:\nI had thought to have held it poor: but, since my lord\nIs Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.\nMARK ANTONY We will yet do well.\nCLEOPATRA Call all his noble captains to my lord.\nMARK ANTONY Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force\nThe wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen;\nThere's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight,\nI'll make death love me; for I will contend\nEven with his pestilent scythe.\n[Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious,\nIs to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood\nThe dove will peck the estridge; and I see still,\nA diminution in our captain's brain\nRestores his heart: when valour preys on reason,\nIt eats the sword it fights with. I will seek\nSome way to leave him.\n[Exit]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE I Before Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECAENAS, with\nhis Army; OCTAVIUS CAESAR reading a letter]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR He calls me boy; and chides, as he had power\nTo beat me out of Egypt; my messenger\nHe hath whipp'd with rods; dares me to personal combat,\nCaesar to Antony: let the old ruffian know\nI have many other ways to die; meantime\nLaugh at his challenge.\nMECAENAS Caesar must think,\nWhen one so great begins to rage, he's hunted\nEven to falling. Give him no breath, but now\nMake boot of his distraction: never anger\nMade good guard for itself.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Let our best heads\nKnow, that to-morrow the last of many battles\nWe mean to fight: within our files there are,\nOf those that served Mark Antony but late,\nEnough to fetch him in. See it done:\nAnd feast the army; we have store to do't,\nAnd they have earn'd the waste. Poor Antony!\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE II Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS,\nCHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, with others]\nMARK ANTONY He will not fight with me, Domitius.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No.\nMARK ANTONY Why should he not?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,\nHe is twenty men to one.\nMARK ANTONY To-morrow, soldier,\nBy sea and land I'll fight: or I will live,\nOr bathe my dying honour in the blood\nShall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.'\nMARK ANTONY Well said; come on.\nCall forth my household servants: let's to-night\nBe bounteous at our meal.\n[Enter three or four Servitors]\nGive me thy hand,\nThou hast been rightly honest;--so hast thou;--\nThou,--and thou,--and thou:--you have served me well,\nAnd kings have been your fellows.\nCLEOPATRA [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS] What means this?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside to CLEOPATRA] 'Tis one of those odd\ntricks which sorrow shoots\nOut of the mind.\nMARK ANTONY And thou art honest too.\nI wish I could be made so many men,\nAnd all of you clapp'd up together in\nAn Antony, that I might do you service\nSo good as you have done.\nAll The gods forbid!\nMARK ANTONY Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night:\nScant not my cups; and make as much of me\nAs when mine empire was your fellow too,\nAnd suffer'd my command.\nCLEOPATRA [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS] What does he mean?\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS [Aside to CLEOPATRA] To make his followers weep.\nMARK ANTONY Tend me to-night;\nMay be it is the period of your duty:\nHaply you shall not see me more; or if,\nA mangled shadow: perchance to-morrow\nYou'll serve another master. I look on you\nAs one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,\nI turn you not away; but, like a master\nMarried to your good service, stay till death:\nTend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,\nAnd the gods yield you for't!\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS What mean you, sir,\nTo give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;\nAnd I, an ass, am onion-eyed: for shame,\nTransform us not to women.\nMARK ANTONY Ho, ho, ho!\nNow the witch take me, if I meant it thus!\nGrace grow where those drops fall!\nMy hearty friends,\nYou take me in too dolorous a sense;\nFor I spake to you for your comfort; did desire you\nTo burn this night with torches: know, my hearts,\nI hope well of to-morrow; and will lead you\nWhere rather I'll expect victorious life\nThan death and honour. Let's to supper, come,\nAnd drown consideration.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE III The same. Before the palace.\n[Enter two Soldiers to their guard]\nFirst Soldier Brother, good night: to-morrow is the day.\nSecond Soldier It will determine one way: fare you well.\nHeard you of nothing strange about the streets?\nFirst Soldier Nothing. What news?\nSecond Soldier Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you.\nFirst Soldier Well, sir, good night.\n[Enter two other Soldiers]\nSecond Soldier Soldiers, have careful watch.\nThird Soldier And you. Good night, good night.\n[They place themselves in every corner of the stage]\nFourth Soldier Here we: and if to-morrow\nOur navy thrive, I have an absolute hope\nOur landmen will stand up.\nThird Soldier 'Tis a brave army,\nAnd full of purpose.\n[Music of the hautboys as under the stage]\nFourth Soldier Peace! what noise?\nFirst Soldier List, list!\nSecond Soldier Hark!\nFirst Soldier Music i' the air.\nThird Soldier Under the earth.\nFourth Soldier It signs well, does it not?\nThird Soldier No.\nFirst Soldier Peace, I say!\nWhat should this mean?\nSecond Soldier 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved,\nNow leaves him.\nFirst Soldier Walk; let's see if other watchmen\nDo hear what we do?\n[They advance to another post]\nSecond Soldier How now, masters!\nAll [Speaking together] How now!\nHow now! do you hear this?\nFirst Soldier Ay; is't not strange?\nThird Soldier Do you hear, masters? do you hear?\nFirst Soldier Follow the noise so far as we have quarter;\nLet's see how it will give off.\nAll Content. 'Tis strange.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE IV The same. A room in the palace.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and\nothers attending]\nMARK ANTONY Eros! mine armour, Eros!\nCLEOPATRA Sleep a little.\nMARK ANTONY No, my chuck. Eros, come; mine armour, Eros!\n[Enter EROS with armour]\nCome good fellow, put mine iron on:\nIf fortune be not ours to-day, it is\nBecause we brave her: come.\nCLEOPATRA Nay, I'll help too.\nWhat's this for?\nMARK ANTONY Ah, let be, let be! thou art\nThe armourer of my heart: false, false; this, this.\nCLEOPATRA Sooth, la, I'll help: thus it must be.\nMARK ANTONY Well, well;\nWe shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow?\nGo put on thy defences.\nEROS Briefly, sir.\nCLEOPATRA Is not this buckled well?\nMARK ANTONY Rarely, rarely:\nHe that unbuckles this, till we do please\nTo daff't for our repose, shall hear a storm.\nThou fumblest, Eros; and my queen's a squire\nMore tight at this than thou: dispatch. O love,\nThat thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st\nThe royal occupation! thou shouldst see\nA workman in't.\n[Enter an armed Soldier]\nGood morrow to thee; welcome:\nThou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge:\nTo business that we love we rise betime,\nAnd go to't with delight.\nSoldier A thousand, sir,\nEarly though't be, have on their riveted trim,\nAnd at the port expect you.\n[Shout. Trumpets flourish]\n[Enter Captains and Soldiers]\nCaptain The morn is fair. Good morrow, general.\nAll Good morrow, general.\nMARK ANTONY 'Tis well blown, lads:\nThis morning, like the spirit of a youth\nThat means to be of note, begins betimes.\nSo, so; come, give me that: this way; well said.\nFare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me:\nThis is a soldier's kiss: rebukeable\n[Kisses her]\nAnd worthy shameful cheque it were, to stand\nOn more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee\nNow, like a man of steel. You that will fight,\nFollow me close; I'll bring you to't. Adieu.\n[Exeunt MARK ANTONY, EROS, Captains, and Soldiers]\nCHARMIAN Please you, retire to your chamber.\nCLEOPATRA Lead me.\nHe goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might\nDetermine this great war in single fight!\nThen Antony,--but now--Well, on.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE V Alexandria. MARK ANTONY's camp.\n[Trumpets sound. Enter MARK ANTONY and EROS; a\nSoldier meeting them]\nSoldier The gods make this a happy day to Antony!\nMARK ANTONY Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd\nTo make me fight at land!\nSoldier Hadst thou done so,\nThe kings that have revolted, and the soldier\nThat has this morning left thee, would have still\nFollow'd thy heels.\nMARK ANTONY Who's gone this morning?\nSoldier Who!\nOne ever near thee: call for Enobarbus,\nHe shall not hear thee; or from Caesar's camp\nSay 'I am none of thine.'\nMARK ANTONY What say'st thou?\nSoldier Sir,\nHe is with Caesar.\nEROS Sir, his chests and treasure\nHe has not with him.\nMARK ANTONY Is he gone?\nSoldier Most certain.\nMARK ANTONY Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;\nDetain no jot, I charge thee: write to him--\nI will subscribe--gentle adieus and greetings;\nSay that I wish he never find more cause\nTo change a master. O, my fortunes have\nCorrupted honest men! Dispatch.--Enobarbus!\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE VI Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.\n[Flourish. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, with\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, and others]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight:\nOur will is Antony be took alive;\nMake it so known.\nAGRIPPA Caesar, I shall.\n[Exit]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR The time of universal peace is near:\nProve this a prosperous day, the three-nook'd world\nShall bear the olive freely.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nMessenger Antony\nIs come into the field.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Go charge Agrippa\nPlant those that have revolted in the van,\nThat Antony may seem to spend his fury\nUpon himself.\n[Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Alexas did revolt; and went to Jewry on\nAffairs of Antony; there did persuade\nGreat Herod to incline himself to Caesar,\nAnd leave his master Antony: for this pains\nCaesar hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest\nThat fell away have entertainment, but\nNo honourable trust. I have done ill;\nOf which I do accuse myself so sorely,\nThat I will joy no more.\n[Enter a Soldier of CAESAR's]\nSoldier Enobarbus, Antony\nHath after thee sent all thy treasure, with\nHis bounty overplus: the messenger\nCame on my guard; and at thy tent is now\nUnloading of his mules.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I give it you.\nSoldier Mock not, Enobarbus.\nI tell you true: best you safed the bringer\nOut of the host; I must attend mine office,\nOr would have done't myself. Your emperor\nContinues still a Jove.\n[Exit]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I am alone the villain of the earth,\nAnd feel I am so most. O Antony,\nThou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid\nMy better service, when my turpitude\nThou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart:\nIf swift thought break it not, a swifter mean\nShall outstrike thought: but thought will do't, I feel.\nI fight against thee! No: I will go seek\nSome ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits\nMy latter part of life.\n[Exit]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE VII Field of battle between the camps.\n[Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA\nand others]\nAGRIPPA Retire, we have engaged ourselves too far:\nCaesar himself has work, and our oppression\nExceeds what we expected.\n[Exeunt]\n[Alarums. Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS wounded]\nSCARUS O my brave emperor, this is fought indeed!\nHad we done so at first, we had droven them home\nWith clouts about their heads.\nMARK ANTONY Thou bleed'st apace.\nSCARUS I had a wound here that was like a T,\nBut now 'tis made an H.\nMARK ANTONY They do retire.\nSCARUS We'll beat 'em into bench-holes: I have yet\nRoom for six scotches more.\n[Enter EROS]\nEROS They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves\nFor a fair victory.\nSCARUS Let us score their backs,\nAnd snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind:\n'Tis sport to maul a runner.\nMARK ANTONY I will reward thee\nOnce for thy spritely comfort, and ten-fold\nFor thy good valour. Come thee on.\nSCARUS I'll halt after.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE VIII Under the walls of Alexandria.\n[Alarum. Enter MARK ANTONY, in a march; SCARUS,\nwith others]\nMARK ANTONY We have beat him to his camp: run one before,\nAnd let the queen know of our gests. To-morrow,\nBefore the sun shall see 's, we'll spill the blood\nThat has to-day escaped. I thank you all;\nFor doughty-handed are you, and have fought\nNot as you served the cause, but as 't had been\nEach man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.\nEnter the city, clip your wives, your friends,\nTell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears\nWash the congealment from your wounds, and kiss\nThe honour'd gashes whole.\n[To SCARUS]\nGive me thy hand\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, attended]\nTo this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,\nMake her thanks bless thee.\n[To CLEOPATRA]\nO thou day o' the world,\nChain mine arm'd neck; leap thou, attire and all,\nThrough proof of harness to my heart, and there\nRide on the pants triumphing!\nCLEOPATRA Lord of lords!\nO infinite virtue, comest thou smiling from\nThe world's great snare uncaught?\nMARK ANTONY My nightingale,\nWe have beat them to their beds. What, girl!\nthough grey\nDo something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we\nA brain that nourishes our nerves, and can\nGet goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;\nCommend unto his lips thy favouring hand:\nKiss it, my warrior: he hath fought to-day\nAs if a god, in hate of mankind, had\nDestroy'd in such a shape.\nCLEOPATRA I'll give thee, friend,\nAn armour all of gold; it was a king's.\nMARK ANTONY He has deserved it, were it carbuncled\nLike holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand:\nThrough Alexandria make a jolly march;\nBear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them:\nHad our great palace the capacity\nTo camp this host, we all would sup together,\nAnd drink carouses to the next day's fate,\nWhich promises royal peril. Trumpeters,\nWith brazen din blast you the city's ear;\nMake mingle with rattling tabourines;\nThat heaven and earth may strike their sounds together,\nApplauding our approach.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE IX OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.\n[Sentinels at their post]\nFirst Soldier If we be not relieved within this hour,\nWe must return to the court of guard: the night\nIs shiny; and they say we shall embattle\nBy the second hour i' the morn.\nSecond Soldier This last day was\nA shrewd one to's.\n[Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS O, bear me witness, night,--\nThird Soldier What man is this?\nSecond Soldier Stand close, and list him.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,\nWhen men revolted shall upon record\nBear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did\nBefore thy face repent!\nFirst Soldier Enobarbus!\nThird Soldier Peace!\nHark further.\nDOMITIUS ENOBARBUS O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,\nThe poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,\nThat life, a very rebel to my will,\nMay hang no longer on me: throw my heart\nAgainst the flint and hardness of my fault:\nWhich, being dried with grief, will break to powder,\nAnd finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,\nNobler than my revolt is infamous,\nForgive me in thine own particular;\nBut let the world rank me in register\nA master-leaver and a fugitive:\nO Antony! O Antony!\n[Dies]\nSecond Soldier Let's speak To him.\nFirst Soldier Let's hear him, for the things he speaks\nMay concern Caesar.\nThird Soldier Let's do so. But he sleeps.\nFirst Soldier Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his\nWas never yet for sleep.\nSecond Soldier Go we to him.\nThird Soldier Awake, sir, awake; speak to us.\nSecond Soldier Hear you, sir?\nFirst Soldier The hand of death hath raught him.\n[Drums afar off]\nHark! the drums\nDemurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him\nTo the court of guard; he is of note: our hour\nIs fully out.\nThird Soldier Come on, then;\nHe may recover yet.\n[Exeunt with the body]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE X Between the two camps.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS, with their Army]\nMARK ANTONY Their preparation is to-day by sea;\nWe please them not by land.\nSCARUS For both, my lord.\nMARK ANTONY I would they'ld fight i' the fire or i' the air;\nWe'ld fight there too. But this it is; our foot\nUpon the hills adjoining to the city\nShall stay with us: order for sea is given;\nThey have put forth the haven [ ]\nWhere their appointment we may best discover,\nAnd look on their endeavour.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE XI Another part of the same.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, and his Army]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR But being charged, we will be still by land,\nWhich, as I take't, we shall; for his best force\nIs forth to man his galleys. To the vales,\nAnd hold our best advantage.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE XII Another part of the same.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS]\nMARK ANTONY Yet they are not join'd: where yond pine\ndoes stand,\nI shall discover all: I'll bring thee word\nStraight, how 'tis like to go.\n[Exit]\nSCARUS Swallows have built\nIn Cleopatra's sails their nests: the augurers\nSay they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly,\nAnd dare not speak their knowledge. Antony\nIs valiant, and dejected; and, by starts,\nHis fretted fortunes give him hope, and fear,\nOf what he has, and has not.\n[Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight]\n[Re-enter MARK ANTONY]\nMARK ANTONY All is lost;\nThis foul Egyptian hath betrayed me:\nMy fleet hath yielded to the foe; and yonder\nThey cast their caps up and carouse together\nLike friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore!\n'tis thou\nHast sold me to this novice; and my heart\nMakes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;\nFor when I am revenged upon my charm,\nI have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.\n[Exit SCARUS]\nO sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:\nFortune and Antony part here; even here\nDo we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts\nThat spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave\nTheir wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets\nOn blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd,\nThat overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am:\nO this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,--\nWhose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home;\nWhose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,--\nLike a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,\nBeguiled me to the very heart of loss.\nWhat, Eros, Eros!\n[Enter CLEOPATRA]\nAh, thou spell! Avaunt!\nCLEOPATRA Why is my lord enraged against his love?\nMARK ANTONY Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving,\nAnd blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee,\nAnd hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians:\nFollow his chariot, like the greatest spot\nOf all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown\nFor poor'st diminutives, for doits; and let\nPatient Octavia plough thy visage up\nWith her prepared nails.\n[Exit CLEOPATRA]\n'Tis well thou'rt gone,\nIf it be well to live; but better 'twere\nThou fell'st into my fury, for one death\nMight have prevented many. Eros, ho!\nThe shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me,\nAlcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage:\nLet me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the moon;\nAnd with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club,\nSubdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die:\nTo the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall\nUnder this plot; she dies for't. Eros, ho!\n[Exit]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE XIII Alexandria. Cleopatra's palace.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN]\nCLEOPATRA Help me, my women! O, he is more mad\nThan Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly\nWas never so emboss'd.\nCHARMIAN To the monument!\nThere lock yourself, and send him word you are dead.\nThe soul and body rive not more in parting\nThan greatness going off.\nCLEOPATRA To the monument!\nMardian, go tell him I have slain myself;\nSay, that the last I spoke was 'Antony,'\nAnd word it, prithee, piteously: hence, Mardian,\nAnd bring me how he takes my death.\nTo the monument!\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE XIV The same. Another room.\n[Enter MARK ANTONY and EROS]\nMARK ANTONY Eros, thou yet behold'st me?\nEROS Ay, noble lord.\nMARK ANTONY Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish;\nA vapour sometime like a bear or lion,\nA tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,\nA forked mountain, or blue promontory\nWith trees upon't, that nod unto the world,\nAnd mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen\nthese signs;\nThey are black vesper's pageants.\nEROS Ay, my lord,\nMARK ANTONY That which is now a horse, even with a thought\nThe rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,\nAs water is in water.\nEROS It does, my lord.\nMARK ANTONY My good knave Eros, now thy captain is\nEven such a body: here I am Antony:\nYet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.\nI made these wars for Egypt: and the queen,--\nWhose heart I thought I had, for she had mine;\nWhich whilst it was mine had annex'd unto't\nA million more, now lost,--she, Eros, has\nPack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory\nUnto an enemy's triumph.\nNay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us\nOurselves to end ourselves.\n[Enter MARDIAN]\nO! thy vile lady!\nShe has robb'd me of my sword.\nMARDIAN No, Antony;\nMy mistress loved thee, and her fortunes mingled\nWith thine entirely.\nMARK ANTONY Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!\nShe hath betray'd me and shall die the death.\nMARDIAN Death of one person can be paid but once,\nAnd that she has discharged: what thou wouldst do\nIs done unto thy hand: the last she spake\nWas 'Antony! most noble Antony!'\nThen in the midst a tearing groan did break\nThe name of Antony; it was divided\nBetween her heart and lips: she render'd life,\nThy name so buried in her.\nMARK ANTONY Dead, then?\nMARDIAN Dead.\nMARK ANTONY Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,\nAnd we must sleep.\n[To MARDIAN]\nThat thou depart'st hence safe,\nDoes pay thy labour richly; go.\n[Exit MARDIAN]\nOff, pluck off:\nThe seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep\nThe battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!\nHeart, once be stronger than thy continent,\nCrack thy frail case! Apace, Eros, apace.\nNo more a soldier: bruised pieces, go;\nYou have been nobly borne. From me awhile.\n[Exit EROS]\nI will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and\nWeep for my pardon. So it must be, for now\nAll length is torture: since the torch is out,\nLie down, and stray no farther: now all labour\nMars what it does; yea, very force entangles\nItself with strength: seal then, and all is done.\nEros!--I come, my queen:--Eros!--Stay for me:\nWhere souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,\nAnd with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:\nDido and her AEneas shall want troops,\nAnd all the haunt be ours. Come, Eros, Eros!\n[Re-enter EROS]\nEROS What would my lord?\nMARK ANTONY Since Cleopatra died,\nI have lived in such dishonour, that the gods\nDetest my baseness. I, that with my sword\nQuarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back\nWith ships made cities, condemn myself to lack\nThe courage of a woman; less noble mind\nThan she which by her death our Caesar tells\n'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,\nThat, when the exigent should come, which now\nIs come indeed, when I should see behind me\nThe inevitable prosecution of\nDisgrace and horror, that, on my command,\nThou then wouldst kill me: do't; the time is come:\nThou strikest not me, 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.\nPut colour in thy cheek.\nEROS The gods withhold me!\nShall I do that which all the Parthian darts,\nThough enemy, lost aim, and could not?\nMARK ANTONY Eros,\nWouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see\nThy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down\nHis corrigible neck, his face subdued\nTo penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat\nOf fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded\nHis baseness that ensued?\nEROS I would not see't.\nMARK ANTONY Come, then; for with a wound I must be cured.\nDraw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn\nMost useful for thy country.\nEROS O, sir, pardon me!\nMARK ANTONY When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then\nTo do this when I bade thee? Do it at once;\nOr thy precedent services are all\nBut accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come.\nEROS Turn from me, then, that noble countenance,\nWherein the worship of the whole world lies.\nMARK ANTONY Lo thee!\n[Turning from him]\nEROS My sword is drawn.\nMARK ANTONY Then let it do at once\nThe thing why thou hast drawn it.\nEROS My dear master,\nMy captain, and my emperor, let me say,\nBefore I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.\nMARK ANTONY 'Tis said, man; and farewell.\nEROS Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?\nMARK ANTONY Now, Eros.\nEROS Why, there then: thus I do escape the sorrow\nOf Antony's death.\n[Kills himself]\nMARK ANTONY Thrice-nobler than myself!\nThou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what\nI should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros\nHave by their brave instruction got upon me\nA nobleness in record: but I will be\nA bridegroom in my death, and run into't\nAs to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,\nThy master dies thy scholar: to do thus\n[Falling on his sword]\nI learn'd of thee. How! not dead? not dead?\nThe guard, ho! O, dispatch me!\n[Enter DERCETAS and Guard]\nFirst Guard What's the noise?\nMARK ANTONY I have done my work in, friends: O, make an end\nOf what I have begun.\nSecond Guard The star is fall'n.\nFirst Guard And time is at his period.\nAll Alas, and woe!\nMARK ANTONY Let him that loves me strike me dead.\nFirst Guard Not I.\nSecond Guard Nor I.\nThird Guard Nor any one.\n[Exeunt Guard]\nDERCETAS Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.\nThis sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,\nShall enter me with him.\n[Enter DIOMEDES]\nDIOMEDES Where's Antony?\nDERCETAS There, Diomed there.\nDIOMEDES Lives he?\nWilt thou not answer, man?\n[Exit DERCETAS]\nMARK ANTONY Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword, and give me\nSufficing strokes for death.\nDIOMEDES Most absolute lord,\nMy mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.\nMARK ANTONY When did she send thee?\nDIOMEDES Now, my lord.\nMARK ANTONY Where is she?\nDIOMEDES Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear\nOf what hath come to pass: for when she saw--\nWhich never shall be found--you did suspect\nShe had disposed with Caesar, and that your rage\nWould not be purged, she sent you word she was dead;\nBut, fearing since how it might work, hath sent\nMe to proclaim the truth; and I am come,\nI dread, too late.\nMARK ANTONY Too late, good Diomed: call my guard, I prithee.\nDIOMEDES What, ho, the emperor's guard! The guard, what, ho!\nCome, your lord calls!\n[Enter four or five of the Guard of MARK ANTONY]\nMARK ANTONY Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;\n'Tis the last service that I shall command you.\nFirst Guard Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear\nAll your true followers out.\nAll Most heavy day!\nMARK ANTONY Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate\nTo grace it with your sorrows: bid that welcome\nWhich comes to punish us, and we punish it\nSeeming to bear it lightly. Take me up:\nI have led you oft: carry me now, good friends,\nAnd have my thanks for all.\n[Exeunt, bearing MARK ANTONY]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT IV\nSCENE XV The same. A monument.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA and her maids aloft, with\nCHARMIAN and IRAS]\nCLEOPATRA O Charmian, I will never go from hence.\nCHARMIAN Be comforted, dear madam.\nCLEOPATRA No, I will not:\nAll strange and terrible events are welcome,\nBut comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,\nProportion'd to our cause, must be as great\nAs that which makes it.\n[Enter, below, DIOMEDES]\nHow now! is he dead?\nDIOMEDES His death's upon him, but not dead.\nLook out o' the other side your monument;\nHis guard have brought him thither.\n[Enter, below, MARK ANTONY, borne by the Guard]\nCLEOPATRA O sun,\nBurn the great sphere thou movest in!\ndarkling stand\nThe varying shore o' the world. O Antony,\nAntony, Antony! Help, Charmian, help, Iras, help;\nHelp, friends below; let's draw him hither.\nMARK ANTONY Peace!\nNot Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,\nBut Antony's hath triumph'd on itself.\nCLEOPATRA So it should be, that none but Antony\nShould conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so!\nMARK ANTONY I am dying, Egypt, dying; only\nI here importune death awhile, until\nOf many thousand kisses the poor last\nI lay up thy lips.\nCLEOPATRA I dare not, dear,--\nDear my lord, pardon,--I dare not,\nLest I be taken: not the imperious show\nOf the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall\nBe brooch'd with me; if knife, drugs,\nserpents, have\nEdge, sting, or operation, I am safe:\nYour wife Octavia, with her modest eyes\nAnd still conclusion, shall acquire no honour\nDemuring upon me. But come, come, Antony,--\nHelp me, my women,--we must draw thee up:\nAssist, good friends.\nMARK ANTONY O, quick, or I am gone.\nCLEOPATRA Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!\nOur strength is all gone into heaviness,\nThat makes the weight: had I great Juno's power,\nThe strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,\nAnd set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little,--\nWishes were ever fools,--O, come, come, come;\n[They heave MARK ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA]\nAnd welcome, welcome! die where thou hast lived:\nQuicken with kissing: had my lips that power,\nThus would I wear them out.\nAll A heavy sight!\nMARK ANTONY I am dying, Egypt, dying:\nGive me some wine, and let me speak a little.\nCLEOPATRA No, let me speak; and let me rail so high,\nThat the false housewife Fortune break her wheel,\nProvoked by my offence.\nMARK ANTONY One word, sweet queen:\nOf Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!\nCLEOPATRA They do not go together.\nMARK ANTONY Gentle, hear me:\nNone about Caesar trust but Proculeius.\nCLEOPATRA My resolution and my hands I'll trust;\nNone about Caesar.\nMARK ANTONY The miserable change now at my end\nLament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts\nIn feeding them with those my former fortunes\nWherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world,\nThe noblest; and do now not basely die,\nNot cowardly put off my helmet to\nMy countryman,--a Roman by a Roman\nValiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going;\nI can no more.\nCLEOPATRA Noblest of men, woo't die?\nHast thou no care of me? shall I abide\nIn this dull world, which in thy absence is\nNo better than a sty? O, see, my women,\n[MARK ANTONY dies]\nThe crown o' the earth doth melt. My lord!\nO, wither'd is the garland of the war,\nThe soldier's pole is fall'n: young boys and girls\nAre level now with men; the odds is gone,\nAnd there is nothing left remarkable\nBeneath the visiting moon.\n[Faints]\nCHARMIAN O, quietness, lady!\nIRAS She is dead too, our sovereign.\nCHARMIAN Lady!\nIRAS Madam!\nCHARMIAN O madam, madam, madam!\nIRAS Royal Egypt, Empress!\nCHARMIAN Peace, peace, Iras!\nCLEOPATRA No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded\nBy such poor passion as the maid that milks\nAnd does the meanest chares. It were for me\nTo throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;\nTo tell them that this world did equal theirs\nTill they had stol'n our jewel. All's but naught;\nPatience is scottish, and impatience does\nBecome a dog that's mad: then is it sin\nTo rush into the secret house of death,\nEre death dare come to us? How do you, women?\nWhat, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!\nMy noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,\nOur lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart:\nWe'll bury him; and then, what's brave,\nwhat's noble,\nLet's do it after the high Roman fashion,\nAnd make death proud to take us. Come, away:\nThis case of that huge spirit now is cold:\nAh, women, women! come; we have no friend\nBut resolution, and the briefest end.\n[Exeunt; those above bearing off MARK ANTONY's body]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT V\nSCENE I Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MECAENAS,\nGALLUS, PROCULEIUS, and others, his council of war]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;\nBeing so frustrate, tell him he mocks\nThe pauses that he makes.\nDOLABELLA Caesar, I shall.\n[Exit]\n[Enter DERCETAS, with the sword of MARK ANTONY]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Wherefore is that? and what art thou that darest\nAppear thus to us?\nDERCETAS I am call'd Dercetas;\nMark Antony I served, who best was worthy\nBest to be served: whilst he stood up and spoke,\nHe was my master; and I wore my life\nTo spend upon his haters. If thou please\nTo take me to thee, as I was to him\nI'll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,\nI yield thee up my life.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR What is't thou say'st?\nDERCETAS I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR The breaking of so great a thing should make\nA greater crack: the round world\nShould have shook lions into civil streets,\nAnd citizens to their dens: the death of Antony\nIs not a single doom; in the name lay\nA moiety of the world.\nDERCETAS He is dead, Caesar:\nNot by a public minister of justice,\nNor by a hired knife; but that self hand,\nWhich writ his honour in the acts it did,\nHath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,\nSplitted the heart. This is his sword;\nI robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd\nWith his most noble blood.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Look you sad, friends?\nThe gods rebuke me, but it is tidings\nTo wash the eyes of kings.\nAGRIPPA And strange it is,\nThat nature must compel us to lament\nOur most persisted deeds.\nMECAENAS His taints and honours\nWaged equal with him.\nAGRIPPA A rarer spirit never\nDid steer humanity: but you, gods, will give us\nSome faults to make us men. Caesar is touch'd.\nMECAENAS When such a spacious mirror's set before him,\nHe needs must see himself.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR O Antony!\nI have follow'd thee to this; but we do lance\nDiseases in our bodies: I must perforce\nHave shown to thee such a declining day,\nOr look on thine; we could not stall together\nIn the whole world: but yet let me lament,\nWith tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,\nThat thou, my brother, my competitor\nIn top of all design, my mate in empire,\nFriend and companion in the front of war,\nThe arm of mine own body, and the heart\nWhere mine his thoughts did kindle,--that our stars,\nUnreconciliable, should divide\nOur equalness to this. Hear me, good friends--\nBut I will tell you at some meeter season:\n[Enter an Egyptian]\nThe business of this man looks out of him;\nWe'll hear him what he says. Whence are you?\nEgyptian A poor Egyptian yet. The queen my mistress,\nConfined in all she has, her monument,\nOf thy intents desires instruction,\nThat she preparedly may frame herself\nTo the way she's forced to.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Bid her have good heart:\nShe soon shall know of us, by some of ours,\nHow honourable and how kindly we\nDetermine for her; for Caesar cannot live\nTo be ungentle.\nEgyptian So the gods preserve thee!\n[Exit]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say,\nWe purpose her no shame: give her what comforts\nThe quality of her passion shall require,\nLest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke\nShe do defeat us; for her life in Rome\nWould be eternal in our triumph: go,\nAnd with your speediest bring us what she says,\nAnd how you find of her.\nPROCULEIUS Caesar, I shall.\n[Exit]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Gallus, go you along.\n[Exit GALLUS]\nWhere's Dolabella,\nTo second Proculeius?\nAll Dolabella!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Let him alone, for I remember now\nHow he's employ'd: he shall in time be ready.\nGo with me to my tent; where you shall see\nHow hardly I was drawn into this war;\nHow calm and gentle I proceeded still\nIn all my writings: go with me, and see\nWhat I can show in this.\n[Exeunt]\nANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\nACT V\nSCENE II Alexandria. A room in the monument.\n[Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and IRAS]\nCLEOPATRA My desolation does begin to make\nA better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar;\nNot being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,\nA minister of her will: and it is great\nTo do that thing that ends all other deeds;\nWhich shackles accidents and bolts up change;\nWhich sleeps, and never palates more the dug,\nThe beggar's nurse and Caesar's.\n[Enter, to the gates of the monument, PROCULEIUS,\nGALLUS and Soldiers]\nPROCULEIUS Caesar sends greeting to the Queen of Egypt;\nAnd bids thee study on what fair demands\nThou mean'st to have him grant thee.\nCLEOPATRA What's thy name?\nPROCULEIUS My name is Proculeius.\nCLEOPATRA Antony\nDid tell me of you, bade me trust you; but\nI do not greatly care to be deceived,\nThat have no use for trusting. If your master\nWould have a queen his beggar, you must tell him,\nThat majesty, to keep decorum, must\nNo less beg than a kingdom: if he please\nTo give me conquer'd Egypt for my son,\nHe gives me so much of mine own, as I\nWill kneel to him with thanks.\nPROCULEIUS Be of good cheer;\nYou're fall'n into a princely hand, fear nothing:\nMake your full reference freely to my lord,\nWho is so full of grace, that it flows over\nOn all that need: let me report to him\nYour sweet dependency; and you shall find\nA conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness,\nWhere he for grace is kneel'd to.\nCLEOPATRA Pray you, tell him\nI am his fortune's vassal, and I send him\nThe greatness he has got. I hourly learn\nA doctrine of obedience; and would gladly\nLook him i' the face.\nPROCULEIUS This I'll report, dear lady.\nHave comfort, for I know your plight is pitied\nOf him that caused it.\nGALLUS You see how easily she may be surprised:\n[Here PROCULEIUS and two of the Guard ascend the\nmonument by a ladder placed against a window, and,\nhaving descended, come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of\nthe Guard unbar and open the gates]\n[To PROCULEIUS and the Guard]\nGuard her till Caesar come.\n[Exit]\nIRAS Royal queen!\nCHARMIAN O Cleopatra! thou art taken, queen:\nCLEOPATRA Quick, quick, good hands.\n[Drawing a dagger]\nPROCULEIUS Hold, worthy lady, hold:\n[Seizes and disarms her]\nDo not yourself such wrong, who are in this\nRelieved, but not betray'd.\nCLEOPATRA What, of death too,\nThat rids our dogs of languish?\nPROCULEIUS Cleopatra,\nDo not abuse my master's bounty by\nThe undoing of yourself: let the world see\nHis nobleness well acted, which your death\nWill never let come forth.\nCLEOPATRA Where art thou, death?\nCome hither, come! come, come, and take a queen\nWorthy many babes and beggars!\nPROCULEIUS O, temperance, lady!\nCLEOPATRA Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir;\nIf idle talk will once be necessary,\nI'll not sleep neither: this mortal house I'll ruin,\nDo Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I\nWill not wait pinion'd at your master's court;\nNor once be chastised with the sober eye\nOf dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up\nAnd show me to the shouting varletry\nOf censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt\nBe gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud\nLay me stark naked, and let the water-flies\nBlow me into abhorring! rather make\nMy country's high pyramides my gibbet,\nAnd hang me up in chains!\nPROCULEIUS You do extend\nThese thoughts of horror further than you shall\nFind cause in Caesar.\n[Enter DOLABELLA]\nDOLABELLA Proculeius,\nWhat thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,\nAnd he hath sent for thee: for the queen,\nI'll take her to my guard.\nPROCULEIUS So, Dolabella,\nIt shall content me best: be gentle to her.\n[To CLEOPATRA]\nTo Caesar I will speak what you shall please,\nIf you'll employ me to him.\nCLEOPATRA Say, I would die.\n[Exeunt PROCULEIUS and Soldiers]\nDOLABELLA Most noble empress, you have heard of me?\nCLEOPATRA I cannot tell.\nDOLABELLA Assuredly you know me.\nCLEOPATRA No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.\nYou laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;\nIs't not your trick?\nDOLABELLA I understand not, madam.\nCLEOPATRA I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony:\nO, such another sleep, that I might see\nBut such another man!\nDOLABELLA If it might please ye,--\nCLEOPATRA His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck\nA sun and moon, which kept their course,\nand lighted\nThe little O, the earth.\nDOLABELLA Most sovereign creature,--\nCLEOPATRA His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm\nCrested the world: his voice was propertied\nAs all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;\nBut when he meant to quail and shake the orb,\nHe was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,\nThere was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas\nThat grew the more by reaping: his delights\nWere dolphin-like; they show'd his back above\nThe element they lived in: in his livery\nWalk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were\nAs plates dropp'd from his pocket.\nDOLABELLA Cleopatra!\nCLEOPATRA Think you there was, or might be, such a man\nAs this I dream'd of?\nDOLABELLA Gentle madam, no.\nCLEOPATRA You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.\nBut, if there be, or ever were, one such,\nIt's past the size of dreaming: nature wants stuff\nTo vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine\nAnd Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,\nCondemning shadows quite.\nDOLABELLA Hear me, good madam.\nYour loss is as yourself, great; and you bear it\nAs answering to the weight: would I might never\nO'ertake pursued success, but I do feel,\nBy the rebound of yours, a grief that smites\nMy very heart at root.\nCLEOPATRA I thank you, sir,\nKnow you what Caesar means to do with me?\nDOLABELLA I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.\nCLEOPATRA Nay, pray you, sir,--\nDOLABELLA Though he be honourable,--\nCLEOPATRA He'll lead me, then, in triumph?\nDOLABELLA Madam, he will; I know't.\n[Flourish, and shout within, 'Make way there:\nOctavius Caesar!']\n[Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS,\nMECAENAS, SELEUCUS, and others of his Train]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Which is the Queen of Egypt?\nDOLABELLA It is the emperor, madam.\n[CLEOPATRA kneels]\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Arise, you shall not kneel:\nI pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.\nCLEOPATRA Sir, the gods\nWill have it thus; my master and my lord\nI must obey.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Take to you no hard thoughts:\nThe record of what injuries you did us,\nThough written in our flesh, we shall remember\nAs things but done by chance.\nCLEOPATRA Sole sir o' the world,\nI cannot project mine own cause so well\nTo make it clear; but do confess I have\nBeen laden with like frailties which before\nHave often shamed our sex.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Cleopatra, know,\nWe will extenuate rather than enforce:\nIf you apply yourself to our intents,\nWhich towards you are most gentle, you shall find\nA benefit in this change; but if you seek\nTo lay on me a cruelty, by taking\nAntony's course, you shall bereave yourself\nOf my good purposes, and put your children\nTo that destruction which I'll guard them from,\nIf thereon you rely. I'll take my leave.\nCLEOPATRA And may, through all the world: 'tis yours; and we,\nYour scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall\nHang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.\nCLEOPATRA This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,\nI am possess'd of: 'tis exactly valued;\nNot petty things admitted. Where's Seleucus?\nSELEUCUS Here, madam.\nCLEOPATRA This is my treasurer: let him speak, my lord,\nUpon his peril, that I have reserved\nTo myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.\nSELEUCUS Madam,\nI had rather seal my lips, than, to my peril,\nSpeak that which is not.\nCLEOPATRA What have I kept back?\nSELEUCUS Enough to purchase what you have made known.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve\nYour wisdom in the deed.\nCLEOPATRA See, Caesar! O, behold,\nHow pomp is follow'd! mine will now be yours;\nAnd, should we shift estates, yours would be mine.\nThe ingratitude of this Seleucus does\nEven make me wild: O slave, of no more trust\nThan love that's hired! What, goest thou back? thou shalt\nGo back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes,\nThough they had wings: slave, soulless villain, dog!\nO rarely base!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Good queen, let us entreat you.\nCLEOPATRA O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,\nThat thou, vouchsafing here to visit me,\nDoing the honour of thy lordliness\nTo one so meek, that mine own servant should\nParcel the sum of my disgraces by\nAddition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,\nThat I some lady trifles have reserved,\nImmoment toys, things of such dignity\nAs we greet modern friends withal; and say,\nSome nobler token I have kept apart\nFor Livia and Octavia, to induce\nTheir mediation; must I be unfolded\nWith one that I have bred? The gods! it smites me\nBeneath the fall I have.\n[To SELEUCUS]\nPrithee, go hence;\nOr I shall show the cinders of my spirits\nThrough the ashes of my chance: wert thou a man,\nThou wouldst have mercy on me.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Forbear, Seleucus.\n[Exit SELEUCUS]\nCLEOPATRA Be it known, that we, the greatest, are misthought\nFor things that others do; and, when we fall,\nWe answer others' merits in our name,\nAre therefore to be pitied.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Cleopatra,\nNot what you have reserved, nor what acknowledged,\nPut we i' the roll of conquest: still be't yours,\nBestow it at your pleasure; and believe,\nCaesar's no merchant, to make prize with you\nOf things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd;\nMake not your thoughts your prisons: no, dear queen;\nFor we intend so to dispose you as\nYourself shall give us counsel. Feed, and sleep:\nOur care and pity is so much upon you,\nThat we remain your friend; and so, adieu.\nCLEOPATRA My master, and my lord!\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Not so. Adieu.\n[Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR and his train]\nCLEOPATRA He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not\nBe noble to myself: but, hark thee, Charmian.\n[Whispers CHARMIAN]\nIRAS Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,\nAnd we are for the dark.\nCLEOPATRA Hie thee again:\nI have spoke already, and it is provided;\nGo put it to the haste.\nCHARMIAN Madam, I will.\n[Re-enter DOLABELLA]\nDOLABELLA Where is the queen?\nCHARMIAN Behold, sir.\n[Exit]\nCLEOPATRA Dolabella!\nDOLABELLA Madam, as thereto sworn by your command,\nWhich my love makes religion to obey,\nI tell you this: Caesar through Syria\nIntends his journey; and within three days\nYou with your children will he send before:\nMake your best use of this: I have perform'd\nYour pleasure and my promise.\nCLEOPATRA Dolabella,\nI shall remain your debtor.\nDOLABELLA I your servant,\nAdieu, good queen; I must attend on Caesar.\nCLEOPATRA Farewell, and thanks.\n[Exit DOLABELLA]\nNow, Iras, what think'st thou?\nThou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown\nIn Rome, as well as I mechanic slaves\nWith greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall\nUplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,\nRank of gross diet, shall be enclouded,\nAnd forced to drink their vapour.\nIRAS The gods forbid!\nCLEOPATRA Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors\nWill catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers\nBallad us out o' tune: the quick comedians\nExtemporally will stage us, and present\nOur Alexandrian revels; Antony\nShall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see\nSome squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness\nI' the posture of a whore.\nIRAS O the good gods!\nCLEOPATRA Nay, that's certain.\nIRAS I'll never see 't; for, I am sure, my nails\nAre stronger than mine eyes.\nCLEOPATRA Why, that's the way\nTo fool their preparation, and to conquer\nTheir most absurd intents.\n[Re-enter CHARMIAN]\nNow, Charmian!\nShow me, my women, like a queen: go fetch\nMy best attires: I am again for Cydnus,\nTo meet Mark Antony: sirrah Iras, go.\nNow, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed;\nAnd, when thou hast done this chare, I'll give thee leave\nTo play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.\nWherefore's this noise?\n[Exit IRAS. A noise within]\n[Enter a Guardsman]\nGuard Here is a rural fellow\nThat will not be denied your highness presence:\nHe brings you figs.\nCLEOPATRA Let him come in.\n[Exit Guardsman]\nWhat poor an instrument\nMay do a noble deed! he brings me liberty.\nMy resolution's placed, and I have nothing\nOf woman in me: now from head to foot\nI am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon\nNo planet is of mine.\n[Re-enter Guardsman, with Clown bringing in a basket]\nGuard This is the man.\nCLEOPATRA Avoid, and leave him.\n[Exit Guardsman]\nHast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,\nThat kills and pains not?\nClown Truly, I have him: but I would not be the party\nthat should desire you to touch him, for his biting\nis immortal; those that do die of it do seldom or\nnever recover.\nCLEOPATRA Rememberest thou any that have died on't?\nClown Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of\nthem no longer than yesterday: a very honest woman,\nbut something given to lie; as a woman should not\ndo, but in the way of honesty: how she died of the\nbiting of it, what pain she felt: truly, she makes\na very good report o' the worm; but he that will\nbelieve all that they say, shall never be saved by\nhalf that they do: but this is most fallible, the\nworm's an odd worm.\nCLEOPATRA Get thee hence; farewell.\nClown I wish you all joy of the worm.\n[Setting down his basket]\nCLEOPATRA Farewell.\nClown You must think this, look you, that the worm will\ndo his kind.\nCLEOPATRA Ay, ay; farewell.\nClown Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the\nkeeping of wise people; for, indeed, there is no\ngoodness in worm.\nCLEOPATRA Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.\nClown Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is\nnot worth the feeding.\nCLEOPATRA Will it eat me?\nClown You must not think I am so simple but I know the\ndevil himself will not eat a woman: I know that a\nwoman is a dish for the gods, if the devil dress her\nnot. But, truly, these same whoreson devils do the\ngods great harm in their women; for in every ten\nthat they make, the devils mar five.\nCLEOPATRA Well, get thee gone; farewell.\nClown Yes, forsooth: I wish you joy o' the worm.\n[Exit]\n[Re-enter IRAS with a robe, crown, &c]\nCLEOPATRA Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have\nImmortal longings in me: now no more\nThe juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:\nYare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear\nAntony call; I see him rouse himself\nTo praise my noble act; I hear him mock\nThe luck of Caesar, which the gods give men\nTo excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:\nNow to that name my courage prove my title!\nI am fire and air; my other elements\nI give to baser life. So; have you done?\nCome then, and take the last warmth of my lips.\nFarewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.\n[Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies]\nHave I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?\nIf thou and nature can so gently part,\nThe stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,\nWhich hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?\nIf thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world\nIt is not worth leave-taking.\nCHARMIAN Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain; that I may say,\nThe gods themselves do weep!\nCLEOPATRA This proves me base:\nIf she first meet the curled Antony,\nHe'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss\nWhich is my heaven to have. Come, thou\nmortal wretch,\n[To an asp, which she applies to her breast]\nWith thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate\nOf life at once untie: poor venomous fool\nBe angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak,\nThat I might hear thee call great Caesar ass\nUnpolicied!\nCHARMIAN O eastern star!\nCLEOPATRA Peace, peace!\nDost thou not see my baby at my breast,\nThat sucks the nurse asleep?\nCHARMIAN O, break! O, break!\nCLEOPATRA As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,--\nO Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too.\n[Applying another asp to her arm]\nWhat should I stay--\n[Dies]\nCHARMIAN In this vile world? So, fare thee well.\nNow boast thee, death, in thy possession lies\nA lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;\nAnd golden Phoebus never be beheld\nOf eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;\nI'll mend it, and then play.\n[Enter the Guard, rushing in]\nFirst Guard Where is the queen?\nCHARMIAN Speak softly, wake her not.\nFirst Guard Caesar hath sent--\nCHARMIAN Too slow a messenger.\n[Applies an asp]\nO, come apace, dispatch! I partly feel thee.\nFirst Guard Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguiled.\nSecond Guard There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.\nFirst Guard What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?\nCHARMIAN It is well done, and fitting for a princess\nDescended of so many royal kings.\nAh, soldier!\n[Dies]\n[Re-enter DOLABELLA]\nDOLABELLA How goes it here?\nSecond Guard All dead.\nDOLABELLA Caesar, thy thoughts\nTouch their effects in this: thyself art coming\nTo see perform'd the dreaded act which thou\nSo sought'st to hinder.\n[Within 'A way there, a way for Caesar!']\n[Re-enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR and all his train marching]\nDOLABELLA O sir, you are too sure an augurer;\nThat you did fear is done.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Bravest at the last,\nShe levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal,\nTook her own way. The manner of their deaths?\nI do not see them bleed.\nDOLABELLA Who was last with them?\nFirst Guard A simple countryman, that brought her figs:\nThis was his basket.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Poison'd, then.\nFirst Guard O Caesar,\nThis Charmian lived but now; she stood and spake:\nI found her trimming up the diadem\nOn her dead mistress; tremblingly she stood\nAnd on the sudden dropp'd.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR O noble weakness!\nIf they had swallow'd poison, 'twould appear\nBy external swelling: but she looks like sleep,\nAs she would catch another Antony\nIn her strong toil of grace.\nDOLABELLA Here, on her breast,\nThere is a vent of blood and something blown:\nThe like is on her arm.\nFirst Guard This is an aspic's trail: and these fig-leaves\nHave slime upon them, such as the aspic leaves\nUpon the caves of Nile.\nOCTAVIUS CAESAR Most probable\nThat so she died; for her physician tells me\nShe hath pursued conclusions infinite\nOf easy ways to die. Take up her bed;\nAnd bear her women from the monument:\nShe shall be buried by her Antony:\nNo grave upon the earth shall clip in it\nA pair so famous. High events as these\nStrike those that make them; and their story is\nNo less in pity than his glory which\nBrought them to be lamented. Our army shall\nIn solemn show attend this funeral;\nAnd then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see\nHigh order in this great solemnity.\n[Exeunt]","title":"Antony and Cleopatra","type":"page"}