The Complete Works of William Shakespeare/The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.iso/shakespr/cleopatr.txt

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    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


    DRAMATIS PERSONAE



MARK ANTONY        |
        |
OCTAVIUS CAESAR        |  triumvirs.
        |
M. AEMILIUS        |
LEPIDUS    (LEPIDUS:)    |


SEXTUS POMPEIUS    (POMPEY:)


DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    |
    |
VENTIDIUS    |
    |
EROS    |
    |
SCARUS    |  friends to Antony.
    |
DERCETAS    |
    |
DEMETRIUS    |
    |
PHILO    |


MECAENAS    |
    |
AGRIPPA    |
    |
DOLABELLA    |
    |
PROCULEIUS    |  friends to Caesar.
    |
THYREUS    |
    |
GALLUS    |
    |
MENAS    |


MENECRATES    |
    |  friends to Pompey.
VARRIUS    |


TAURUS    lieutenant-general to Caesar.

CANIDIUS    lieutenant-general to Antony.

SILIUS    an officer in Ventidius's army.

EUPHRONIUS    an ambassador from Antony to Caesar.


ALEXAS        |
        |
MARDIAN    a Eunuch.    |
        |  attendants on Cleopatra.
SELEUCUS        |
        |
DIOMEDES        |


    A Soothsayer. (Soothsayer:)

    A Clown. (Clown:)

CLEOPATRA    queen of Egypt.

OCTAVIA    sister to Caesar and wife to Antony.


CHARMIAN    |
    |  attendants on Cleopatra.
IRAS    |


    Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.
    (First Officer:)
    (Second Officer:)
    (Third Officer:)
    (Messenger:)
    (Second Messenger:)
    (First Servant:)
    (Second Servant:)
    (Egyptian:)
    (Guard:)
    (First Guard:)
    (Second Guard:)
    (Attendant:)
    (First Attendant:)
    (Second Attendant:)



SCENE    In several parts of the Roman empire.




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT I



SCENE I    Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA's palace.


    [Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO]

PHILO    Nay, but this dotage of our general's
    O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
    That o'er the files and musters of the war
    Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
    The office and devotion of their view
    Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
    Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
    The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
    And is become the bellows and the fan
    To cool a gipsy's lust.

    [Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her Ladies,
    the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her]

          Look, where they come:
    Take but good note, and you shall see in him.
    The triple pillar of the world transform'd
    Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

CLEOPATRA    If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

MARK ANTONY    There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.

CLEOPATRA    I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

MARK ANTONY    Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

    [Enter an Attendant]

Attendant    News, my good lord, from Rome.

MARK ANTONY    Grates me: the sum.

CLEOPATRA    Nay, hear them, Antony:
    Fulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows
    If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
    His powerful mandate to you, 'Do this, or this;
    Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
    Perform 't, or else we damn thee.'

MARK ANTONY    How, my love!

CLEOPATRA    Perchance! nay, and most like:
    You must not stay here longer, your dismission
    Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
    Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? both?
    Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen,
    Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
    Is Caesar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame
    When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!

MARK ANTONY    Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
    Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
    Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
    Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
    Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair

    [Embracing]

    And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
    On pain of punishment, the world to weet
    We stand up peerless.

CLEOPATRA    Excellent falsehood!
    Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
    I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
    Will be himself.

MARK ANTONY                      But stirr'd by Cleopatra.
    Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,
    Let's not confound the time with conference harsh:
    There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
    Without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?

CLEOPATRA    Hear the ambassadors.

MARK ANTONY    Fie, wrangling queen!
    Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
    To weep; whose every passion fully strives
    To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
    No messenger, but thine; and all alone
    To-night we'll wander through the streets and note
    The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
    Last night you did desire it: speak not to us.

    [Exeunt MARK ANTONY and CLEOPATRA with
    their train]

DEMETRIUS    Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?

PHILO    Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
    He comes too short of that great property
    Which still should go with Antony.

DEMETRIUS    I am full sorry
    That he approves the common liar, who
    Thus speaks of him at Rome: but I will hope
    Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT I



SCENE II    The same. Another room.


    [Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer]

CHARMIAN    Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas,
    almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer
    that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew
    this husband, which, you say, must charge his horns
    with garlands!

ALEXAS    Soothsayer!

Soothsayer    Your will?

CHARMIAN    Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?

Soothsayer    In nature's infinite book of secrecy
    A little I can read.

ALEXAS    Show him your hand.

    [Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
    Cleopatra's health to drink.

CHARMIAN    Good sir, give me good fortune.

Soothsayer    I make not, but foresee.

CHARMIAN    Pray, then, foresee me one.

Soothsayer    You shall be yet far fairer than you are.

CHARMIAN    He means in flesh.

IRAS    No, you shall paint when you are old.

CHARMIAN    Wrinkles forbid!

ALEXAS    Vex not his prescience; be attentive.

CHARMIAN    Hush!

Soothsayer    You shall be more beloving than beloved.

CHARMIAN    I had rather heat my liver with drinking.

ALEXAS    Nay, hear him.

CHARMIAN    Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married
    to three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all:
    let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry
    may do homage: find me to marry me with Octavius
    Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.

Soothsayer    You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.

CHARMIAN    O excellent! I love long life better than figs.

Soothsayer    You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
    Than that which is to approach.

CHARMIAN    Then belike my children shall have no names:
    prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

Soothsayer    If every of your wishes had a womb.
    And fertile every wish, a million.

CHARMIAN    Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.

ALEXAS    You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.

CHARMIAN    Nay, come, tell Iras hers.

ALEXAS    We'll know all our fortunes.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall
    be--drunk to bed.

IRAS    There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.

CHARMIAN    E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.

IRAS    Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.

CHARMIAN    Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful
    prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee,
    tell her but a worky-day fortune.

Soothsayer    Your fortunes are alike.

IRAS    But how, but how? give me particulars.

Soothsayer    I have said.

IRAS    Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

CHARMIAN    Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than
    I, where would you choose it?

IRAS    Not in my husband's nose.

CHARMIAN    Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,--come,
    his fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman
    that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and let
    her die too, and give him a worse! and let worst
    follow worse, till the worst of all follow him
    laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good
    Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a
    matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!

IRAS    Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people!
    for, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man
    loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a
    foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep
    decorum, and fortune him accordingly!

CHARMIAN    Amen.

ALEXAS    Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a
    cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but
    they'ld do't!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Hush! here comes Antony.

CHARMIAN    Not he; the queen.

    [Enter CLEOPATRA]

CLEOPATRA    Saw you my lord?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS                      No, lady.

CLEOPATRA    Was he not here?

CHARMIAN    No, madam.

CLEOPATRA    He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
    A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Madam?

CLEOPATRA    Seek him, and bring him hither.
    Where's Alexas?

ALEXAS    Here, at your service. My lord approaches.

CLEOPATRA    We will not look upon him: go with us.

    [Exeunt]

    [Enter MARK ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants]

Messenger    Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.

MARK ANTONY    Against my brother Lucius?

Messenger    Ay:
    But soon that war had end, and the time's state
    Made friends of them, joining their force 'gainst Caesar;
    Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
    Upon the first encounter, drave them.

MARK ANTONY    Well, what worst?

Messenger    The nature of bad news infects the teller.

MARK ANTONY    When it concerns the fool or coward. On:
    Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:
    Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
    I hear him as he flatter'd.

Messenger    Labienus--
    This is stiff news--hath, with his Parthian force,
    Extended Asia from Euphrates;
    His conquering banner shook from Syria
    To Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--

MARK ANTONY    Antony, thou wouldst say,--

Messenger    O, my lord!

MARK ANTONY    Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue:
    Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;
    Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my faults
    With such full licence as both truth and malice
    Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,
    When our quick minds lie still; and our ills told us
    Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.

Messenger    At your noble pleasure.

    [Exit]

MARK ANTONY    From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!

First Attendant    The man from Sicyon,--is there such an one?

Second Attendant    He stays upon your will.

MARK ANTONY    Let him appear.
    These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
    Or lose myself in dotage.

    [Enter another Messenger]

            What are you?

Second Messenger    Fulvia thy wife is dead.

MARK ANTONY    Where died she?

Second Messenger    In Sicyon:
    Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
    Importeth thee to know, this bears.

    [Gives a letter]

MARK ANTONY    Forbear me.

    [Exit Second Messenger]

    There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
    What our contempt doth often hurl from us,
    We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
    By revolution lowering, does become
    The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
    The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
    I must from this enchanting queen break off:
    Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
    My idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus!

    [Re-enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    What's your pleasure, sir?

MARK ANTONY    I must with haste from hence.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Why, then, we kill all our women:
    we see how mortal an unkindness is to them;
    if they suffer our departure, death's the word.

MARK ANTONY    I must be gone.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were
    pity to cast them away for nothing; though, between
    them and a great cause, they should be esteemed
    nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of
    this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty
    times upon far poorer moment: I do think there is
    mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon
    her, she hath such a celerity in dying.

MARK ANTONY    She is cunning past man's thought.

    [Exit ALEXAS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but
    the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her
    winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater
    storms and tempests than almanacs can report: this
    cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a
    shower of rain as well as Jove.

MARK ANTONY    Would I had never seen her.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece
    of work; which not to have been blest withal would
    have discredited your travel.

MARK ANTONY    Fulvia is dead.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Sir?

MARK ANTONY    Fulvia is dead.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Fulvia!

MARK ANTONY    Dead.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When
    it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man
    from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth;
    comforting therein, that when old robes are worn
    out, there are members to make new. If there were
    no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,
    and the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned
    with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new
    petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion
    that should water this sorrow.

MARK ANTONY    The business she hath broached in the state
    Cannot endure my absence.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    And the business you have broached here cannot be
    without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which
    wholly depends on your abode.

MARK ANTONY    No more light answers. Let our officers
    Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
    The cause of our expedience to the queen,
    And get her leave to part. For not alone
    The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
    Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
    Of many our contriving friends in Rome
    Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
    Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands
    The empire of the sea: our slippery people,
    Whose love is never link'd to the deserver
    Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
    Pompey the Great and all his dignities
    Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
    Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
    For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
    The sides o' the world may danger: much is breeding,
    Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
    And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure,
    To such whose place is under us, requires
    Our quick remove from hence.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I shall do't.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT I



SCENE III    The same. Another room.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS]

CLEOPATRA    Where is he?

CHARMIAN                      I did not see him since.

CLEOPATRA    See where he is, who's with him, what he does:
    I did not send you: if you find him sad,
    Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
    That I am sudden sick: quick, and return.

    [Exit ALEXAS]

CHARMIAN    Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,
    You do not hold the method to enforce
    The like from him.

CLEOPATRA                      What should I do, I do not?

CHARMIAN    In each thing give him way, cross him nothing.

CLEOPATRA    Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him.

CHARMIAN    Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear:
    In time we hate that which we often fear.
    But here comes Antony.

    [Enter MARK ANTONY]

CLEOPATRA    I am sick and sullen.

MARK ANTONY    I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose,--

CLEOPATRA    Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall:
    It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature
    Will not sustain it.

MARK ANTONY    Now, my dearest queen,--

CLEOPATRA    Pray you, stand further from me.

MARK ANTONY    What's the matter?

CLEOPATRA    I know, by that same eye, there's some good news.
    What says the married woman? You may go:
    Would she had never given you leave to come!
    Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here:
    I have no power upon you; hers you are.

MARK ANTONY    The gods best know,--

CLEOPATRA    O, never was there queen
    So mightily betray'd! yet at the first
    I saw the treasons planted.

MARK ANTONY    Cleopatra,--

CLEOPATRA    Why should I think you can be mine and true,
    Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
    Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
    To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
    Which break themselves in swearing!

MARK ANTONY    Most sweet queen,--

CLEOPATRA    Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going,
    But bid farewell, and go: when you sued staying,
    Then was the time for words: no going then;
    Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
    Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor,
    But was a race of heaven: they are so still,
    Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
    Art turn'd the greatest liar.

MARK ANTONY    How now, lady!

CLEOPATRA    I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst know
    There were a heart in Egypt.

MARK ANTONY    Hear me, queen:
    The strong necessity of time commands
    Our services awhile; but my full heart
    Remains in use with you. Our Italy
    Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius
    Makes his approaches to the port of Rome:
    Equality of two domestic powers
    Breed scrupulous faction: the hated, grown to strength,
    Are newly grown to love: the condemn'd Pompey,
    Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace,
    Into the hearts of such as have not thrived
    Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;
    And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
    By any desperate change: my more particular,
    And that which most with you should safe my going,
    Is Fulvia's death.

CLEOPATRA    Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
    It does from childishness: can Fulvia die?

MARK ANTONY    She's dead, my queen:
    Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read
    The garboils she awaked; at the last, best:
    See when and where she died.

CLEOPATRA    O most false love!
    Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
    With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,
    In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be.

MARK ANTONY    Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know
    The purposes I bear; which are, or cease,
    As you shall give the advice. By the fire
    That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence
    Thy soldier, servant; making peace or war
    As thou affect'st.

CLEOPATRA                      Cut my lace, Charmian, come;
    But let it be: I am quickly ill, and well,
    So Antony loves.

MARK ANTONY                      My precious queen, forbear;
    And give true evidence to his love, which stands
    An honourable trial.

CLEOPATRA    So Fulvia told me.
    I prithee, turn aside and weep for her,
    Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears
    Belong to Egypt: good now, play one scene
    Of excellent dissembling; and let it look
    Life perfect honour.

MARK ANTONY    You'll heat my blood: no more.

CLEOPATRA    You can do better yet; but this is meetly.

MARK ANTONY    Now, by my sword,--

CLEOPATRA    And target. Still he mends;
    But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,
    How this Herculean Roman does become
    The carriage of his chafe.

MARK ANTONY    I'll leave you, lady.

CLEOPATRA    Courteous lord, one word.
    Sir, you and I must part, but that's not it:
    Sir, you and I have loved, but there's not it;
    That you know well: something it is I would,
    O, my oblivion is a very Antony,
    And I am all forgotten.

MARK ANTONY    But that your royalty
    Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
    For idleness itself.

CLEOPATRA    'Tis sweating labour
    To bear such idleness so near the heart
    As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;
    Since my becomings kill me, when they do not
    Eye well to you: your honour calls you hence;
    Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly.
    And all the gods go with you! upon your sword
    Sit laurel victory! and smooth success
    Be strew'd before your feet!

MARK ANTONY    Let us go. Come;
    Our separation so abides, and flies,
    That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me,
    And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee. Away!

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT I



SCENE IV    Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.


    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter, LEPIDUS,
    and their Train]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
    It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate
    Our great competitor: from Alexandria
    This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
    The lamps of night in revel; is not more man-like
    Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy
    More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or
    Vouchsafed to think he had partners: you shall find there
    A man who is the abstract of all faults
    That all men follow.

LEPIDUS    I must not think there are
    Evils enow to darken all his goodness:
    His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,
    More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary,
    Rather than purchased; what he cannot change,
    Than what he chooses.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    You are too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not
    Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;
    To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit
    And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;
    To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
    With knaves that smell of sweat: say this
    becomes him,--
    As his composure must be rare indeed
    Whom these things cannot blemish,--yet must Antony
    No way excuse his soils, when we do bear
    So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd
    His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
    Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones,
    Call on him for't: but to confound such time,
    That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
    As his own state and ours,--'tis to be chid
    As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,
    Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
    And so rebel to judgment.

    [Enter a Messenger]

LEPIDUS    Here's more news.

Messenger    Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,
    Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report
    How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;
    And it appears he is beloved of those
    That only have fear'd Caesar: to the ports
    The discontents repair, and men's reports
    Give him much wrong'd.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    I should have known no less.
    It hath been taught us from the primal state,
    That he which is was wish'd until he were;
    And the ebb'd man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love,
    Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,
    Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
    Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
    To rot itself with motion.

Messenger    Caesar, I bring thee word,
    Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
    Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound
    With keels of every kind: many hot inroads
    They make in Italy; the borders maritime
    Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt:
    No vessel can peep forth, but 'tis as soon
    Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more
    Than could his war resisted.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Antony,
    Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
    Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
    Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
    Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
    Though daintily brought up, with patience more
    Than savages could suffer: thou didst drink
    The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
    Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
    The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
    Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
    The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
    It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
    Which some did die to look on: and all this--
    It wounds thine honour that I speak it now--
    Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
    So much as lank'd not.

LEPIDUS    'Tis pity of him.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Let his shames quickly
    Drive him to Rome: 'tis time we twain
    Did show ourselves i' the field; and to that end
    Assemble we immediate council: Pompey
    Thrives in our idleness.

LEPIDUS    To-morrow, Caesar,
    I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly
    Both what by sea and land I can be able
    To front this present time.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Till which encounter,
    It is my business too. Farewell.

LEPIDUS    Farewell, my lord: what you shall know meantime
    Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,
    To let me be partaker.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Doubt not, sir;
    I knew it for my bond.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT I



SCENE V    Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN]

CLEOPATRA    Charmian!

CHARMIAN    Madam?

CLEOPATRA    Ha, ha!
    Give me to drink mandragora.

CHARMIAN    Why, madam?

CLEOPATRA    That I might sleep out this great gap of time
    My Antony is away.

CHARMIAN                      You think of him too much.

CLEOPATRA    O, 'tis treason!

CHARMIAN                      Madam, I trust, not so.

CLEOPATRA    Thou, eunuch Mardian!

MARDIAN    What's your highness' pleasure?

CLEOPATRA    Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure
    In aught an eunuch has: 'tis well for thee,
    That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts
    May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?

MARDIAN    Yes, gracious madam.

CLEOPATRA    Indeed!

MARDIAN    Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing
    But what indeed is honest to be done:
    Yet have I fierce affections, and think
    What Venus did with Mars.

CLEOPATRA    O Charmian,
    Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?
    Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
    O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
    Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou movest?
    The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
    And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
    Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'
    For so he calls me: now I feed myself
    With most delicious poison. Think on me,
    That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,
    And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,
    When thou wast here above the ground, I was
    A morsel for a monarch: and great Pompey
    Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;
    There would he anchor his aspect and die
    With looking on his life.

    [Enter ALEXAS, from OCTAVIUS CAESAR]

ALEXAS    Sovereign of Egypt, hail!

CLEOPATRA    How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!
    Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath
    With his tinct gilded thee.
    How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?

ALEXAS    Last thing he did, dear queen,
    He kiss'd,--the last of many doubled kisses,--
    This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.

CLEOPATRA    Mine ear must pluck it thence.

ALEXAS    'Good friend,' quoth he,
    'Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends
    This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,
    To mend the petty present, I will piece
    Her opulent throne with kingdoms; all the east,
    Say thou, shall call her mistress.' So he nodded,
    And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
    Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke
    Was beastly dumb'd by him.

CLEOPATRA    What, was he sad or merry?

ALEXAS    Like to the time o' the year between the extremes
    Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.

CLEOPATRA    O well-divided disposition! Note him,
    Note him good Charmian, 'tis the man; but note him:
    He was not sad, for he would shine on those
    That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
    Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay
    In Egypt with his joy; but between both:
    O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,
    The violence of either thee becomes,
    So does it no man else. Met'st thou my posts?

ALEXAS    Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
    Why do you send so thick?

CLEOPATRA    Who's born that day
    When I forget to send to Antony,
    Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
    Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
    Ever love Caesar so?

CHARMIAN    O that brave Caesar!

CLEOPATRA    Be choked with such another emphasis!
    Say, the brave Antony.

CHARMIAN    The valiant Caesar!

CLEOPATRA    By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
    If thou with Caesar paragon again
    My man of men.

CHARMIAN                      By your most gracious pardon,
    I sing but after you.

CLEOPATRA    My salad days,
    When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
    To say as I said then! But, come, away;
    Get me ink and paper:
    He shall have every day a several greeting,
    Or I'll unpeople Egypt.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT II



SCENE I    Messina. POMPEY's house.


    [Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS, in
    warlike manner]

POMPEY    If the great gods be just, they shall assist
    The deeds of justest men.

MENECRATES    Know, worthy Pompey,
    That what they do delay, they not deny.

POMPEY    Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays
    The thing we sue for.

MENECRATES    We, ignorant of ourselves,
    Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
    Deny us for our good; so find we profit
    By losing of our prayers.

POMPEY    I shall do well:
    The people love me, and the sea is mine;
    My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
    Says it will come to the full. Mark Antony
    In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make
    No wars without doors: Caesar gets money where
    He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,
    Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,
    Nor either cares for him.

MENAS    Caesar and Lepidus
    Are in the field: a mighty strength they carry.

POMPEY    Where have you this? 'tis false.

MENAS    From Silvius, sir.

POMPEY    He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,
    Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,
    Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!
    Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!
    Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
    Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks
    Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite;
    That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
    Even till a Lethe'd dulness!

    [Enter VARRIUS]

               How now, Varrius!

VARRIUS    This is most certain that I shall deliver:
    Mark Antony is every hour in Rome
    Expected: since he went from Egypt 'tis
    A space for further travel.

POMPEY    I could have given less matter
    A better ear. Menas, I did not think
    This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm
    For such a petty war: his soldiership
    Is twice the other twain: but let us rear
    The higher our opinion, that our stirring
    Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck
    The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.

MENAS    I cannot hope
    Caesar and Antony shall well greet together:
    His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;
    His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,
    Not moved by Antony.

POMPEY    I know not, Menas,
    How lesser enmities may give way to greater.
    Were't not that we stand up against them all,
    'Twere pregnant they should square between
    themselves;
    For they have entertained cause enough
    To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
    May cement their divisions and bind up
    The petty difference, we yet not know.
    Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands
    Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.
    Come, Menas.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT II



SCENE II    Rome. The house of LEPIDUS.


    [Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS]

LEPIDUS    Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
    And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
    To soft and gentle speech.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I shall entreat him
    To answer like himself: if Caesar move him,
    Let Antony look over Caesar's head
    And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
    Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,
    I would not shave't to-day.

LEPIDUS    'Tis not a time
    For private stomaching.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Every time
    Serves for the matter that is then born in't.

LEPIDUS    But small to greater matters must give way.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Not if the small come first.

LEPIDUS    Your speech is passion:
    But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
    The noble Antony.

    [Enter MARK ANTONY and VENTIDIUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS                      And yonder, Caesar.

    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MECAENAS, and AGRIPPA]

MARK ANTONY    If we compose well here, to Parthia:
    Hark, Ventidius.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      I do not know,
    Mecaenas; ask Agrippa.

LEPIDUS    Noble friends,
    That which combined us was most great, and let not
    A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,
    May it be gently heard: when we debate
    Our trivial difference loud, we do commit
    Murder in healing wounds: then, noble partners,
    The rather, for I earnestly beseech,
    Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
    Nor curstness grow to the matter.

MARK ANTONY    'Tis spoken well.
    Were we before our armies, and to fight.
    I should do thus.

    [Flourish]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Welcome to Rome.

MARK ANTONY                      Thank you.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Sit.

MARK ANTONY    Sit, sir.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Nay, then.

MARK ANTONY    I learn, you take things ill which are not so,
    Or being, concern you not.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    I must be laugh'd at,
    If, or for nothing or a little, I
    Should say myself offended, and with you
    Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at, that I should
    Once name you derogately, when to sound your name
    It not concern'd me.

MARK ANTONY    My being in Egypt, Caesar,
    What was't to you?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    No more than my residing here at Rome
    Might be to you in Egypt: yet, if you there
    Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt
    Might be my question.

MARK ANTONY    How intend you, practised?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    You may be pleased to catch at mine intent
    By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother
    Made wars upon me; and their contestation
    Was theme for you, you were the word of war.

MARK ANTONY    You do mistake your business; my brother never
    Did urge me in his act: I did inquire it;
    And have my learning from some true reports,
    That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather
    Discredit my authority with yours;
    And make the wars alike against my stomach,
    Having alike your cause? Of this my letters
    Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,
    As matter whole you have not to make it with,
    It must not be with this.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    You praise yourself
    By laying defects of judgment to me; but
    You patch'd up your excuses.

MARK ANTONY    Not so, not so;
    I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,
    Very necessity of this thought, that I,
    Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,
    Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars
    Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
    I would you had her spirit in such another:
    The third o' the world is yours; which with a snaffle
    You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Would we had all such wives, that the men might go
    to wars with the women!

MARK ANTONY    So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar
    Made out of her impatience, which not wanted
    Shrewdness of policy too, I grieving grant
    Did you too much disquiet: for that you must
    But say, I could not help it.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    I wrote to you
    When rioting in Alexandria; you
    Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
    Did gibe my missive out of audience.

MARK ANTONY    Sir,
    He fell upon me ere admitted: then
    Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
    Of what I was i' the morning: but next day
    I told him of myself; which was as much
    As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow
    Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
    Out of our question wipe him.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    You have broken
    The article of your oath; which you shall never
    Have tongue to charge me with.

LEPIDUS    Soft, Caesar!

MARK ANTONY    No,
    Lepidus, let him speak:
    The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
    Supposing that I lack'd it. But, on, Caesar;
    The article of my oath.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    To lend me arms and aid when I required them;
    The which you both denied.

MARK ANTONY    Neglected, rather;
    And then when poison'd hours had bound me up
    From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,
    I'll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty
    Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
    Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,
    To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;
    For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
    So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
    To stoop in such a case.

LEPIDUS    'Tis noble spoken.

MECAENAS    If it might please you, to enforce no further
    The griefs between ye: to forget them quite
    Were to remember that the present need
    Speaks to atone you.

LEPIDUS    Worthily spoken, Mecaenas.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Or, if you borrow one another's love for the
    instant, you may, when you hear no more words of
    Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to
    wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

MARK ANTONY    Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

MARK ANTONY    You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Go to, then; your considerate stone.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    I do not much dislike the matter, but
    The manner of his speech; for't cannot be
    We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
    So differing in their acts. Yet if I knew
    What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge
    O' the world I would pursue it.

AGRIPPA    Give me leave, Caesar,--

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Speak, Agrippa.

AGRIPPA    Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
    Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony
    Is now a widower.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      Say not so, Agrippa:
    If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
    Were well deserved of rashness.

MARK ANTONY    I am not married, Caesar: let me hear
    Agrippa further speak.

AGRIPPA    To hold you in perpetual amity,
    To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
    With an unslipping knot, take Antony
    Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
    No worse a husband than the best of men;
    Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
    That which none else can utter. By this marriage,
    All little jealousies, which now seem great,
    And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
    Would then be nothing: truths would be tales,
    Where now half tales be truths: her love to both
    Would, each to other and all loves to both,
    Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;
    For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,
    By duty ruminated.

MARK ANTONY                      Will Caesar speak?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd
    With what is spoke already.

MARK ANTONY    What power is in Agrippa,
    If I would say, 'Agrippa, be it so,'
    To make this good?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      The power of Caesar, and
    His power unto Octavia.

MARK ANTONY    May I never
    To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,
    Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand:
    Further this act of grace: and from this hour
    The heart of brothers govern in our loves
    And sway our great designs!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    There is my hand.
    A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
    Did ever love so dearly: let her live
    To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never
    Fly off our loves again!

LEPIDUS    Happily, amen!

MARK ANTONY    I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;
    For he hath laid strange courtesies and great
    Of late upon me: I must thank him only,
    Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;
    At heel of that, defy him.

LEPIDUS    Time calls upon's:
    Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
    Or else he seeks out us.

MARK ANTONY    Where lies he?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    About the mount Misenum.

MARK ANTONY    What is his strength by land?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Great and increasing: but by sea
    He is an absolute master.

MARK ANTONY    So is the fame.
    Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it:
    Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we
    The business we have talk'd of.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    With most gladness:
    And do invite you to my sister's view,
    Whither straight I'll lead you.

MARK ANTONY    Let us, Lepidus,
    Not lack your company.

LEPIDUS    Noble Antony,
    Not sickness should detain me.

    [Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY,
    and LEPIDUS]

MECAENAS    Welcome from Egypt, sir.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas! My
    honourable friend, Agrippa!

AGRIPPA    Good Enobarbus!

MECAENAS    We have cause to be glad that matters are so well
    digested. You stayed well by 't in Egypt.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and
    made the night light with drinking.

MECAENAS    Eight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and
    but twelve persons there; is this true?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more
    monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

MECAENAS    She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to
    her.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up
    his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.

AGRIPPA    There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised
    well for her.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I will tell you.
    The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
    Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
    Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
    The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
    The water which they beat to follow faster,
    As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
    It beggar'd all description: she did lie
    In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--
    O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
    The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
    Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
    With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
    To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
    And what they undid did.

AGRIPPA    O, rare for Antony!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
    So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
    And made their bends adornings: at the helm
    A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
    Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
    That yarely frame the office. From the barge
    A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
    Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
    Her people out upon her; and Antony,
    Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
    Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
    Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
    And made a gap in nature.

AGRIPPA    Rare Egyptian!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
    Invited her to supper: she replied,
    It should be better he became her guest;
    Which she entreated: our courteous Antony,
    Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
    Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,
    And for his ordinary pays his heart
    For what his eyes eat only.

AGRIPPA    Royal wench!
    She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:
    He plough'd her, and she cropp'd.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I saw her once
    Hop forty paces through the public street;
    And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,
    That she did make defect perfection,
    And, breathless, power breathe forth.

MECAENAS    Now Antony must leave her utterly.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Never; he will not:
    Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
    Her infinite variety: other women cloy
    The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
    Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
    Become themselves in her: that the holy priests
    Bless her when she is riggish.

MECAENAS    If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
    The heart of Antony, Octavia is
    A blessed lottery to him.

AGRIPPA    Let us go.
    Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
    Whilst you abide here.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Humbly, sir, I thank you.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT II



SCENE III    The same. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY, OCTAVIUS CAESAR, OCTAVIA between
    them, and Attendants]

MARK ANTONY    The world and my great office will sometimes
    Divide me from your bosom.

OCTAVIA    All which time
    Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers
    To them for you.

MARK ANTONY                      Good night, sir. My Octavia,
    Read not my blemishes in the world's report:
    I have not kept my square; but that to come
    Shall all be done by the rule. Good night, dear lady.
    Good night, sir.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Good night.

    [Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR and OCTAVIA]

    [Enter Soothsayer]

MARK ANTONY    Now, sirrah; you do wish yourself in Egypt?

Soothsayer    Would I had never come from thence, nor you Thither!

MARK ANTONY    If you can, your reason?

Soothsayer    I see it in
    My motion, have it not in my tongue: but yet
    Hie you to Egypt again.

MARK ANTONY    Say to me,
    Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine?

Soothsayer    Caesar's.
    Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:
    Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is
    Noble, courageous high, unmatchable,
    Where Caesar's is not; but, near him, thy angel
    Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd: therefore
    Make space enough between you.

MARK ANTONY    Speak this no more.

Soothsayer    To none but thee; no more, but when to thee.
    If thou dost play with him at any game,
    Thou art sure to lose; and, of that natural luck,
    He beats thee 'gainst the odds: thy lustre thickens,
    When he shines by: I say again, thy spirit
    Is all afraid to govern thee near him;
    But, he away, 'tis noble.

MARK ANTONY    Get thee gone:
    Say to Ventidius I would speak with him:

    [Exit Soothsayer]

    He shall to Parthia. Be it art or hap,
    He hath spoken true: the very dice obey him;
    And in our sports my better cunning faints
    Under his chance: if we draw lots, he speeds;
    His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
    When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
    Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt:
    And though I make this marriage for my peace,
    I' the east my pleasure lies.

    [Enter VENTIDIUS]

                O, come, Ventidius,
    You must to Parthia: your commission's ready;
    Follow me, and receive't.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT II



SCENE IV    The same. A street.


    [Enter LEPIDUS, MECAENAS, and AGRIPPA]

LEPIDUS    Trouble yourselves no further: pray you, hasten
    Your generals after.

AGRIPPA    Sir, Mark Antony
    Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.

LEPIDUS    Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,
    Which will become you both, farewell.

MECAENAS    We shall,
    As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount
    Before you, Lepidus.

LEPIDUS    Your way is shorter;
    My purposes do draw me much about:
    You'll win two days upon me.


MECAENAS    |
    |    Sir, good success!
AGRIPPA    |


LEPIDUS    Farewell.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT II



SCENE V    Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS]

CLEOPATRA    Give me some music; music, moody food
    Of us that trade in love.

Attendants    The music, ho!

    [Enter MARDIAN]

CLEOPATRA    Let it alone; let's to billiards: come, Charmian.

CHARMIAN    My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.

CLEOPATRA    As well a woman with an eunuch play'd
    As with a woman. Come, you'll play with me, sir?

MARDIAN    As well as I can, madam.

CLEOPATRA    And when good will is show'd, though't come
    too short,
    The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now:
    Give me mine angle; we'll to the river: there,
    My music playing far off, I will betray
    Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
    Their slimy jaws; and, as I draw them up,
    I'll think them every one an Antony,
    And say 'Ah, ha! you're caught.'

CHARMIAN    'Twas merry when
    You wager'd on your angling; when your diver
    Did hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he
    With fervency drew up.

CLEOPATRA    That time,--O times!--
    I laugh'd him out of patience; and that night
    I laugh'd him into patience; and next morn,
    Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed;
    Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst
    I wore his sword Philippan.

    [Enter a Messenger]

              O, from Italy
    Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
    That long time have been barren.

Messenger    Madam, madam,--

CLEOPATRA    Antonius dead!--If thou say so, villain,
    Thou kill'st thy mistress: but well and free,
    If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here
    My bluest veins to kiss; a hand that kings
    Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.

Messenger    First, madam, he is well.

CLEOPATRA    Why, there's more gold.
    But, sirrah, mark, we use
    To say the dead are well: bring it to that,
    The gold I give thee will I melt and pour
    Down thy ill-uttering throat.

Messenger    Good madam, hear me.

CLEOPATRA    Well, go to, I will;
    But there's no goodness in thy face: if Antony
    Be free and healthful,--so tart a favour
    To trumpet such good tidings! If not well,
    Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,
    Not like a formal man.

Messenger    Will't please you hear me?

CLEOPATRA    I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st:
    Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
    Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,
    I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
    Rich pearls upon thee.

Messenger    Madam, he's well.

CLEOPATRA    Well said.

Messenger    And friends with Caesar.

CLEOPATRA    Thou'rt an honest man.

Messenger    Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.

CLEOPATRA    Make thee a fortune from me.

Messenger    But yet, madam,--

CLEOPATRA    I do not like 'But yet,' it does allay
    The good precedence; fie upon 'But yet'!
    'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth
    Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,
    Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,
    The good and bad together: he's friends with Caesar:
    In state of health thou say'st; and thou say'st free.

Messenger    Free, madam! no; I made no such report:
    He's bound unto Octavia.

CLEOPATRA    For what good turn?

Messenger    For the best turn i' the bed.

CLEOPATRA    I am pale, Charmian.

Messenger    Madam, he's married to Octavia.

CLEOPATRA    The most infectious pestilence upon thee!

    [Strikes him down]

Messenger    Good madam, patience.

CLEOPATRA    What say you? Hence,

    [Strikes him again]

    Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
    Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head:

    [She hales him up and down]

    Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,
    Smarting in lingering pickle.

Messenger    Gracious madam,
    I that do bring the news made not the match.

CLEOPATRA    Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
    And make thy fortunes proud: the blow thou hadst
    Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
    And I will boot thee with what gift beside
    Thy modesty can beg.

Messenger    He's married, madam.

CLEOPATRA    Rogue, thou hast lived too long.

    [Draws a knife]

Messenger    Nay, then I'll run.
    What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.

    [Exit]

CHARMIAN    Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:
    The man is innocent.

CLEOPATRA    Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
    Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
    Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again:
    Though I am mad, I will not bite him: call.

CHARMIAN    He is afeard to come.

CLEOPATRA    I will not hurt him.

    [Exit CHARMIAN]

    These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
    A meaner than myself; since I myself
    Have given myself the cause.

    [Re-enter CHARMIAN and Messenger]

               Come hither, sir.
    Though it be honest, it is never good
    To bring bad news: give to a gracious message.
    An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell
    Themselves when they be felt.

Messenger    I have done my duty.

CLEOPATRA    Is he married?
    I cannot hate thee worser than I do,
    If thou again say 'Yes.'

Messenger    He's married, madam.

CLEOPATRA    The gods confound thee! dost thou hold there still?

Messenger    Should I lie, madam?

CLEOPATRA    O, I would thou didst,
    So half my Egypt were submerged and made
    A cistern for scaled snakes! Go, get thee hence:
    Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
    Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?

Messenger    I crave your highness' pardon.

CLEOPATRA    He is married?

Messenger    Take no offence that I would not offend you:
    To punish me for what you make me do.
    Seems much unequal: he's married to Octavia.

CLEOPATRA    O, that his fault should make a knave of thee,
    That art not what thou'rt sure of! Get thee hence:
    The merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome
    Are all too dear for me: lie they upon thy hand,
    And be undone by 'em!

    [Exit Messenger]

CHARMIAN    Good your highness, patience.

CLEOPATRA    In praising Antony, I have dispraised Caesar.

CHARMIAN    Many times, madam.

CLEOPATRA                      I am paid for't now.
    Lead me from hence:
    I faint: O Iras, Charmian! 'tis no matter.
    Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
    Report the feature of Octavia, her years,
    Her inclination, let him not leave out
    The colour of her hair: bring me word quickly.

    [Exit ALEXAS]

    Let him for ever go:--let him not--Charmian,
    Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
    The other way's a Mars. Bid you Alexas

    [To MARDIAN]

    Bring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian,
    But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT II



SCENE VI    Near Misenum.


    [Flourish. Enter POMPEY and MENAS at one door,
    with drum and trumpet: at another, OCTAVIUS CAESAR,
    MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MECAENAS,
    with Soldiers marching]

POMPEY    Your hostages I have, so have you mine;
    And we shall talk before we fight.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Most meet
    That first we come to words; and therefore have we
    Our written purposes before us sent;
    Which, if thou hast consider'd, let us know
    If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword,
    And carry back to Sicily much tall youth
    That else must perish here.

POMPEY    To you all three,
    The senators alone of this great world,
    Chief factors for the gods, I do not know
    Wherefore my father should revengers want,
    Having a son and friends; since Julius Caesar,
    Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,
    There saw you labouring for him. What was't
    That moved pale Cassius to conspire; and what
    Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus,
    With the arm'd rest, courtiers and beauteous freedom,
    To drench the Capitol; but that they would
    Have one man but a man? And that is it
    Hath made me rig my navy; at whose burthen
    The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant
    To scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome
    Cast on my noble father.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Take your time.

MARK ANTONY    Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;
    We'll speak with thee at sea: at land, thou know'st
    How much we do o'er-count thee.

POMPEY    At land, indeed,
    Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house:
    But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
    Remain in't as thou mayst.

LEPIDUS    Be pleased to tell us--
    For this is from the present--how you take
    The offers we have sent you.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    There's the point.

MARK ANTONY    Which do not be entreated to, but weigh
    What it is worth embraced.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    And what may follow,
    To try a larger fortune.

POMPEY    You have made me offer
    Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must
    Rid all the sea of pirates; then, to send
    Measures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon
    To part with unhack'd edges, and bear back
    Our targes undinted.


OCTAVIUS CAESAR    |
    |
MARK ANTONY    |  That's our offer.
    |
LEPIDUS    |


POMPEY    Know, then,
    I came before you here a man prepared
    To take this offer: but Mark Antony
    Put me to some impatience: though I lose
    The praise of it by telling, you must know,
    When Caesar and your brother were at blows,
    Your mother came to Sicily and did find
    Her welcome friendly.

MARK ANTONY    I have heard it, Pompey;
    And am well studied for a liberal thanks
    Which I do owe you.

POMPEY    Let me have your hand:
    I did not think, sir, to have met you here.

MARK ANTONY    The beds i' the east are soft; and thanks to you,
    That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither;
    For I have gain'd by 't.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Since I saw you last,
    There is a change upon you.

POMPEY    Well, I know not
    What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;
    But in my bosom shall she never come,
    To make my heart her vassal.

LEPIDUS    Well met here.

POMPEY    I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed:
    I crave our composition may be written,
    And seal'd between us.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    That's the next to do.

POMPEY    We'll feast each other ere we part; and let's
    Draw lots who shall begin.

MARK ANTONY    That will I, Pompey.

POMPEY    No, Antony, take the lot: but, first
    Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery
    Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar
    Grew fat with feasting there.

MARK ANTONY    You have heard much.

POMPEY    I have fair meanings, sir.

MARK ANTONY    And fair words to them.

POMPEY    Then so much have I heard:
    And I have heard, Apollodorus carried--

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    No more of that: he did so.

POMPEY    What, I pray you?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.

POMPEY    I know thee now: how farest thou, soldier?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Well;
    And well am like to do; for, I perceive,
    Four feasts are toward.

POMPEY    Let me shake thy hand;
    I never hated thee: I have seen thee fight,
    When I have envied thy behavior.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Sir,
    I never loved you much; but I ha' praised ye,
    When you have well deserved ten times as much
    As I have said you did.

POMPEY    Enjoy thy plainness,
    It nothing ill becomes thee.
    Aboard my galley I invite you all:
    Will you lead, lords?


OCTAVIUS CAESAR    |
    |
MARK ANTONY    |  Show us the way, sir.
    |
LEPIDUS    |


POMPEY    Come.

    [Exeunt all but MENAS and ENOBARBUS]

MENAS    [Aside]  Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have
    made this treaty.--You and I have known, sir.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    At sea, I think.

MENAS    We have, sir.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    You have done well by water.

MENAS    And you by land.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I will praise any man that will praise me; though it
    cannot be denied what I have done by land.

MENAS    Nor what I have done by water.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Yes, something you can deny for your own
    safety: you have been a great thief by sea.

MENAS    And you by land.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    There I deny my land service. But give me your
    hand, Menas: if our eyes had authority, here they
    might take two thieves kissing.

MENAS    All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    But there is never a fair woman has a true face.

MENAS    No slander; they steal hearts.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    We came hither to fight with you.

MENAS    For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking.
    Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    If he do, sure, he cannot weep't back again.

MENAS    You've said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony
    here: pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Caesar's sister is called Octavia.

MENAS    True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.

MENAS    Pray ye, sir?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    'Tis true.

MENAS    Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would
    not prophesy so.

MENAS    I think the policy of that purpose made more in the
    marriage than the love of the parties.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I think so too. But you shall find, the band that
    seems to tie their friendship together will be the
    very strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a
    holy, cold, and still conversation.

MENAS    Who would not have his wife so?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony.
    He will to his Egyptian dish again: then shall the
    sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar; and, as
    I said before, that which is the strength of their
    amity shall prove the immediate author of their
    variance. Antony will use his affection where it is:
    he married but his occasion here.

MENAS    And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard?
    I have a health for you.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.

MENAS    Come, let's away.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT II


SCENE VII    On board POMPEY's galley, off Misenum.


    [Music plays. Enter two or three Servants with
    a banquet]

First Servant    Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are
    ill-rooted already: the least wind i' the world
    will blow them down.

Second Servant    Lepidus is high-coloured.

First Servant    They have made him drink alms-drink.

Second Servant    As they pinch one another by the disposition, he
    cries out 'No more;' reconciles them to his
    entreaty, and himself to the drink.

First Servant    But it raises the greater war between him and
    his discretion.

Second Servant    Why, this is to have a name in great men's
    fellowship: I had as lief have a reed that will do
    me no service as a partisan I could not heave.

First Servant    To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen
    to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be,
    which pitifully disaster the cheeks.

    [A sennet sounded. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK
    ANTONY, LEPIDUS, POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MECAENAS,
    DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MENAS, with other captains]

MARK ANTONY    [To OCTAVIUS CAESAR]  Thus do they, sir: they take
    the flow o' the Nile
    By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know,
    By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
    Or foison follow: the higher Nilus swells,
    The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman
    Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
    And shortly comes to harvest.

LEPIDUS    You've strange serpents there.

MARK ANTONY    Ay, Lepidus.

LEPIDUS    Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
    operation of your sun: so is your crocodile.

MARK ANTONY    They are so.

POMPEY    Sit,--and some wine! A health to Lepidus!

LEPIDUS    I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Not till you have slept; I fear me you'll be in till then.

LEPIDUS    Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies'
    pyramises are very goodly things; without
    contradiction, I have heard that.

MENAS    [Aside to POMPEY]  Pompey, a word.

POMPEY    [Aside to MENAS]                 Say in mine ear:
    what is't?

MENAS    [Aside to POMPEY]  Forsake thy seat, I do beseech
    thee, captain,
    And hear me speak a word.

POMPEY    [Aside to MENAS]  Forbear me till anon.
    This wine for Lepidus!

LEPIDUS    What manner o' thing is your crocodile?

MARK ANTONY    It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad
    as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is,
    and moves with its own organs: it lives by that
    which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of
    it, it transmigrates.

LEPIDUS    What colour is it of?

MARK ANTONY    Of it own colour too.

LEPIDUS    'Tis a strange serpent.

MARK ANTONY    'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Will this description satisfy him?

MARK ANTONY    With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a
    very epicure.

POMPEY    [Aside to MENAS]  Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of
    that? away!
    Do as I bid you. Where's this cup I call'd for?

MENAS    [Aside to POMPEY]  If for the sake of merit thou
    wilt hear me,
    Rise from thy stool.

POMPEY    [Aside to MENAS]  I think thou'rt mad.
    The matter?

    [Rises, and walks aside]

MENAS    I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.

POMPEY    Thou hast served me with much faith. What's else to say?
    Be jolly, lords.

MARK ANTONY                      These quick-sands, Lepidus,
    Keep off them, for you sink.

MENAS    Wilt thou be lord of all the world?

POMPEY    What say'st thou?

MENAS    Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That's twice.

POMPEY    How should that be?

MENAS    But entertain it,
    And, though thou think me poor, I am the man
    Will give thee all the world.

POMPEY    Hast thou drunk well?

MENAS    Now, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
    Thou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove:
    Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,
    Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.

POMPEY    Show me which way.

MENAS    These three world-sharers, these competitors,
    Are in thy vessel: let me cut the cable;
    And, when we are put off, fall to their throats:
    All there is thine.

POMPEY    Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
    And not have spoke on't! In me 'tis villany;
    In thee't had been good service. Thou must know,
    'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;
    Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue
    Hath so betray'd thine act: being done unknown,
    I should have found it afterwards well done;
    But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.

MENAS    [Aside]  For this,
    I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.
    Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,
    Shall never find it more.

POMPEY    This health to Lepidus!

MARK ANTONY    Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Here's to thee, Menas!

MENAS    Enobarbus, welcome!

POMPEY    Fill till the cup be hid.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    There's a strong fellow, Menas.

    [Pointing to the Attendant who carries off LEPIDUS]

MENAS    Why?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    A' bears the third part of the world, man; see'st
    not?

MENAS    The third part, then, is drunk: would it were all,
    That it might go on wheels!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Drink thou; increase the reels.

MENAS    Come.

POMPEY    This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.

MARK ANTONY    It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho?
    Here is to Caesar!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      I could well forbear't.
    It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain,
    And it grows fouler.

MARK ANTONY    Be a child o' the time.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Possess it, I'll make answer:
    But I had rather fast from all four days
    Than drink so much in one.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Ha, my brave emperor!

    [To MARK ANTONY]

    Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals,
    And celebrate our drink?

POMPEY    Let's ha't, good soldier.

MARK ANTONY    Come, let's all take hands,
    Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense
    In soft and delicate Lethe.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    All take hands.
    Make battery to our ears with the loud music:
    The while I'll place you: then the boy shall sing;
    The holding every man shall bear as loud
    As his strong sides can volley.

    [Music plays. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS places them
    hand in hand]
    THE SONG.

    Come, thou monarch of the vine,
    Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
    In thy fats our cares be drown'd,
    With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd:
    Cup us, till the world go round,
    Cup us, till the world go round!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,
    Let me request you off: our graver business
    Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;
    You see we have burnt our cheeks: strong Enobarb
    Is weaker than the wine; and mine own tongue
    Splits what it speaks: the wild disguise hath almost
    Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.
    Good Antony, your hand.

POMPEY    I'll try you on the shore.

MARK ANTONY    And shall, sir; give's your hand.

POMPEY    O Antony,
    You have my father's house,--But, what? we are friends.
    Come, down into the boat.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Take heed you fall not.

    [Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and MENAS]

    Menas, I'll not on shore.

MENAS    No, to my cabin.
    These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!
    Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
    To these great fellows: sound and be hang'd, sound out!

    [Sound a flourish, with drums]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Ho! says a' There's my cap.

MENAS    Ho! Noble captain, come.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE I    A plain in Syria.


    [Enter VENTIDIUS as it were in triumph, with SILIUS,
    and other Romans, Officers, and Soldiers; the dead
    body of PACORUS borne before him]

VENTIDIUS    Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck; and now
    Pleased fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death
    Make me revenger. Bear the king's son's body
    Before our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,
    Pays this for Marcus Crassus.

SILIUS    Noble Ventidius,
    Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm,
    The fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,
    Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither
    The routed fly: so thy grand captain Antony
    Shall set thee on triumphant chariots and
    Put garlands on thy head.

VENTIDIUS    O Silius, Silius,
    I have done enough; a lower place, note well,
    May make too great an act: for learn this, Silius;
    Better to leave undone, than by our deed
    Acquire too high a fame when him we serve's away.
    Caesar and Antony have ever won
    More in their officer than person: Sossius,
    One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,
    For quick accumulation of renown,
    Which he achieved by the minute, lost his favour.
    Who does i' the wars more than his captain can
    Becomes his captain's captain: and ambition,
    The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
    Than gain which darkens him.
    I could do more to do Antonius good,
    But 'twould offend him; and in his offence
    Should my performance perish.

SILIUS    Thou hast, Ventidius,
    that
    Without the which a soldier, and his sword,
    Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony!

VENTIDIUS    I'll humbly signify what in his name,
    That magical word of war, we have effected;
    How, with his banners and his well-paid ranks,
    The ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia
    We have jaded out o' the field.

SILIUS    Where is he now?

VENTIDIUS    He purposeth to Athens: whither, with what haste
    The weight we must convey with's will permit,
    We shall appear before him. On there; pass along!

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE II    Rome. An ante-chamber in OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.


    [Enter AGRIPPA at one door, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
    at another]

AGRIPPA    What, are the brothers parted?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    They have dispatch'd with Pompey, he is gone;
    The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps
    To part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,
    Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled
    With the green sickness.

AGRIPPA    'Tis a noble Lepidus.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    A very fine one: O, how he loves Caesar!

AGRIPPA    Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Caesar? Why, he's the Jupiter of men.

AGRIPPA    What's Antony? The god of Jupiter.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Spake you of Caesar? How! the non-pareil!

AGRIPPA    O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar:' go no further.

AGRIPPA    Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    But he loves Caesar best; yet he loves Antony:
    Ho! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards,
    poets, cannot
    Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number, ho!
    His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,
    Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.

AGRIPPA    Both he loves.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    They are his shards, and he their beetle.

    [Trumpets within]
            So;
    This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.

AGRIPPA    Good fortune, worthy soldier; and farewell.

    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, and OCTAVIA]

MARK ANTONY    No further, sir.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    You take from me a great part of myself;
    Use me well in 't. Sister, prove such a wife
    As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band
    Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,
    Let not the piece of virtue, which is set
    Betwixt us as the cement of our love,
    To keep it builded, be the ram to batter
    The fortress of it; for better might we
    Have loved without this mean, if on both parts
    This be not cherish'd.

MARK ANTONY    Make me not offended
    In your distrust.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      I have said.

MARK ANTONY    You shall not find,
    Though you be therein curious, the least cause
    For what you seem to fear: so, the gods keep you,
    And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends!
    We will here part.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well:
    The elements be kind to thee, and make
    Thy spirits all of comfort! fare thee well.

OCTAVIA    My noble brother!

MARK ANTONY    The April 's in her eyes: it is love's spring,
    And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.

OCTAVIA    Sir, look well to my husband's house; and--

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    What, Octavia?

OCTAVIA           I'll tell you in your ear.

MARK ANTONY    Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can
    Her heart inform her tongue,--the swan's
    down-feather,
    That stands upon the swell at full of tide,
    And neither way inclines.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside to AGRIPPA]  Will Caesar weep?

AGRIPPA    [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]  He has a cloud in 's face.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside to AGRIPPA]  He were the worse for that,
    were he a horse;
    So is he, being a man.

AGRIPPA    [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]  Why, Enobarbus,
    When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,
    He cried almost to roaring; and he wept
    When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside to AGRIPPA]  That year, indeed, he was
    troubled with a rheum;
    What willingly he did confound he wail'd,
    Believe't, till I wept too.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    No, sweet Octavia,
    You shall hear from me still; the time shall not
    Out-go my thinking on you.

MARK ANTONY    Come, sir, come;
    I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love:
    Look, here I have you; thus I let you go,
    And give you to the gods.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Adieu; be happy!

LEPIDUS    Let all the number of the stars give light
    To thy fair way!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Farewell, farewell!

    [Kisses OCTAVIA]

MARK ANTONY    Farewell!

    [Trumpets sound. Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE III    Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS]

CLEOPATRA    Where is the fellow?

ALEXAS    Half afeard to come.

CLEOPATRA    Go to, go to.

    [Enter the Messenger as before]

    Come hither, sir.

ALEXAS    Good majesty,
    Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you
    But when you are well pleased.

CLEOPATRA    That Herod's head
    I'll have: but how, when Antony is gone
    Through whom I might command it? Come thou near.

Messenger    Most gracious majesty,--

CLEOPATRA    Didst thou behold Octavia?

Messenger    Ay, dread queen.

CLEOPATRA    Where?

Messenger    Madam, in Rome;
    I look'd her in the face, and saw her led
    Between her brother and Mark Antony.

CLEOPATRA    Is she as tall as me?

Messenger    She is not, madam.

CLEOPATRA    Didst hear her speak? is she shrill-tongued or low?

Messenger    Madam, I heard her speak; she is low-voiced.

CLEOPATRA    That's not so good: he cannot like her long.

CHARMIAN    Like her! O Isis! 'tis impossible.

CLEOPATRA    I think so, Charmian: dull of tongue, and dwarfish!
    What majesty is in her gait? Remember,
    If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.

Messenger    She creeps:
    Her motion and her station are as one;
    She shows a body rather than a life,
    A statue than a breather.

CLEOPATRA    Is this certain?

Messenger    Or I have no observance.

CHARMIAN    Three in Egypt
    Cannot make better note.

CLEOPATRA    He's very knowing;
    I do perceive't: there's nothing in her yet:
    The fellow has good judgment.

CHARMIAN    Excellent.

CLEOPATRA    Guess at her years, I prithee.

Messenger    Madam,
    She was a widow,--

CLEOPATRA                      Widow! Charmian, hark.

Messenger    And I do think she's thirty.

CLEOPATRA    Bear'st thou her face in mind? is't long or round?

Messenger    Round even to faultiness.

CLEOPATRA    For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.
    Her hair, what colour?

Messenger    Brown, madam: and her forehead
    As low as she would wish it.

CLEOPATRA    There's gold for thee.
    Thou must not take my former sharpness ill:
    I will employ thee back again; I find thee
    Most fit for business: go make thee ready;
    Our letters are prepared.

    [Exit Messenger]

CHARMIAN    A proper man.

CLEOPATRA    Indeed, he is so: I repent me much
    That so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him,
    This creature's no such thing.

CHARMIAN    Nothing, madam.

CLEOPATRA    The man hath seen some majesty, and should know.

CHARMIAN    Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,
    And serving you so long!

CLEOPATRA    I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian:
    But 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me
    Where I will write. All may be well enough.

CHARMIAN    I warrant you, madam.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III


SCENE IV    Athens. A room in MARK ANTONY's house.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY and OCTAVIA]

MARK ANTONY    Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that,--
    That were excusable, that, and thousands more
    Of semblable import,--but he hath waged
    New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it
    To public ear:
    Spoke scantly of me: when perforce he could not
    But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly
    He vented them; most narrow measure lent me:
    When the best hint was given him, he not took't,
    Or did it from his teeth.

OCTAVIA    O my good lord,
    Believe not all; or, if you must believe,
    Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady,
    If this division chance, ne'er stood between,
    Praying for both parts:
    The good gods me presently,
    When I shall pray, 'O bless my lord and husband!'
    Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud,
    'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother,
    Prays, and destroys the prayer; no midway
    'Twixt these extremes at all.

MARK ANTONY    Gentle Octavia,
    Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks
    Best to preserve it: if I lose mine honour,
    I lose myself: better I were not yours
    Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested,
    Yourself shall go between 's: the mean time, lady,
    I'll raise the preparation of a war
    Shall stain your brother: make your soonest haste;
    So your desires are yours.

OCTAVIA    Thanks to my lord.
    The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak,
    Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be
    As if the world should cleave, and that slain men
    Should solder up the rift.

MARK ANTONY    When it appears to you where this begins,
    Turn your displeasure that way: for our faults
    Can never be so equal, that your love
    Can equally move with them. Provide your going;
    Choose your own company, and command what cost
    Your heart has mind to.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE V    The same. Another room.


    [Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    How now, friend Eros!

EROS    There's strange news come, sir.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    What, man?

EROS    Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    This is old: what is the success?

EROS    Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst
    Pompey, presently denied him rivality; would not let
    him partake in the glory of the action: and not
    resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly
    wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him: so
    the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more;
    And throw between them all the food thou hast,
    They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?

EROS    He's walking in the garden--thus; and spurns
    The rush that lies before him; cries, 'Fool Lepidus!'
    And threats the throat of that his officer
    That murder'd Pompey.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Our great navy's rigg'd.

EROS    For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius;
    My lord desires you presently: my news
    I might have told hereafter.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    'Twill be naught:
    But let it be. Bring me to Antony.

EROS    Come, sir.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE VI    Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.


    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECAENAS]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Contemning Rome, he has done all this, and more,
    In Alexandria: here's the manner of 't:
    I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,
    Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
    Were publicly enthroned: at the feet sat
    Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,
    And all the unlawful issue that their lust
    Since then hath made between them. Unto her
    He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her
    Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
    Absolute queen.

MECAENAS                      This in the public eye?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    I' the common show-place, where they exercise.
    His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:
    Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia.
    He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
    Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: she
    In the habiliments of the goddess Isis
    That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,
    As 'tis reported, so.

MECAENAS    Let Rome be thus Inform'd.

AGRIPPA    Who, queasy with his insolence
    Already, will their good thoughts call from him.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    The people know it; and have now received
    His accusations.

AGRIPPA                      Who does he accuse?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Caesar: and that, having in Sicily
    Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him
    His part o' the isle: then does he say, he lent me
    Some shipping unrestored: lastly, he frets
    That Lepidus of the triumvirate
    Should be deposed; and, being, that we detain
    All his revenue.

AGRIPPA                      Sir, this should be answer'd.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    'Tis done already, and the messenger gone.
    I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel;
    That he his high authority abused,
    And did deserve his change: for what I have conquer'd,
    I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia,
    And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I
    Demand the like.

MECAENAS                      He'll never yield to that.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Nor must not then be yielded to in this.

    [Enter OCTAVIA with her train]

OCTAVIA    Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    That ever I should call thee castaway!

OCTAVIA    You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Why have you stol'n upon us thus! You come not
    Like Caesar's sister: the wife of Antony
    Should have an army for an usher, and
    The neighs of horse to tell of her approach
    Long ere she did appear; the trees by the way
    Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,
    Longing for what it had not; nay, the dust
    Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
    Raised by your populous troops: but you are come
    A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented
    The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown,
    Is often left unloved; we should have met you
    By sea and land; supplying every stage
    With an augmented greeting.

OCTAVIA    Good my lord,
    To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did
    On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,
    Hearing that you prepared for war, acquainted
    My grieved ear withal; whereon, I begg'd
    His pardon for return.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Which soon he granted,
    Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.

OCTAVIA    Do not say so, my lord.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    I have eyes upon him,
    And his affairs come to me on the wind.
    Where is he now?

OCTAVIA                      My lord, in Athens.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra
    Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire
    Up to a whore; who now are levying
    The kings o' the earth for war; he hath assembled
    Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus,
    Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king
    Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;
    King Malchus of Arabia; King of Pont;
    Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king
    Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,
    The kings of Mede and Lycaonia,
    With a more larger list of sceptres.

OCTAVIA    Ay me, most wretched,
    That have my heart parted betwixt two friends
    That do afflict each other!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Welcome hither:
    Your letters did withhold our breaking forth;
    Till we perceived, both how you were wrong led,
    And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart;
    Be you not troubled with the time, which drives
    O'er your content these strong necessities;
    But let determined things to destiny
    Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;
    Nothing more dear to me. You are abused
    Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods,
    To do you justice, make them ministers
    Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort;
    And ever welcome to us.

AGRIPPA    Welcome, lady.

MECAENAS    Welcome, dear madam.
    Each heart in Rome does love and pity you:
    Only the adulterous Antony, most large
    In his abominations, turns you off;
    And gives his potent regiment to a trull,
    That noises it against us.

OCTAVIA    Is it so, sir?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Most certain. Sister, welcome: pray you,
    Be ever known to patience: my dear'st sister!

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE VII    Near Actium. MARK ANTONY's camp.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

CLEOPATRA    I will be even with thee, doubt it not.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    But why, why, why?

CLEOPATRA    Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,
    And say'st it is not fit.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Well, is it, is it?

CLEOPATRA    If not denounced against us, why should not we
    Be there in person?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside]  Well, I could reply:
    If we should serve with horse and mares together,
    The horse were merely lost; the mares would bear
    A soldier and his horse.

CLEOPATRA    What is't you say?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;
    Take from his heart, take from his brain,
    from's time,
    What should not then be spared. He is already
    Traduced for levity; and 'tis said in Rome
    That Photinus an eunuch and your maids
    Manage this war.

CLEOPATRA                      Sink Rome, and their tongues rot
    That speak against us! A charge we bear i' the war,
    And, as the president of my kingdom, will
    Appear there for a man. Speak not against it:
    I will not stay behind.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Nay, I have done.
    Here comes the emperor.

    [Enter MARK ANTONY and CANIDIUS]

MARK ANTONY    Is it not strange, Canidius,
    That from Tarentum and Brundusium
    He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea,
    And take in Toryne? You have heard on't, sweet?

CLEOPATRA    Celerity is never more admired
    Than by the negligent.

MARK ANTONY    A good rebuke,
    Which might have well becomed the best of men,
    To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we
    Will fight with him by sea.

CLEOPATRA    By sea! what else?

CANIDIUS    Why will my lord do so?

MARK ANTONY    For that he dares us to't.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    So hath my lord dared him to single fight.

CANIDIUS    Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia.
    Where Caesar fought with Pompey: but these offers,
    Which serve not for his vantage, be shakes off;
    And so should you.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS                      Your ships are not well mann'd;
    Your mariners are muleters, reapers, people
    Ingross'd by swift impress; in Caesar's fleet
    Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought:
    Their ships are yare; yours, heavy: no disgrace
    Shall fall you for refusing him at sea,
    Being prepared for land.

MARK ANTONY    By sea, by sea.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Most worthy sir, you therein throw away
    The absolute soldiership you have by land;
    Distract your army, which doth most consist
    Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted
    Your own renowned knowledge; quite forego
    The way which promises assurance; and
    Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard,
    From firm security.

MARK ANTONY    I'll fight at sea.

CLEOPATRA    I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.

MARK ANTONY    Our overplus of shipping will we burn;
    And, with the rest full-mann'd, from the head of Actium
    Beat the approaching Caesar. But if we fail,
    We then can do't at land.

    [Enter a Messenger]

            Thy business?

Messenger    The news is true, my lord; he is descried;
    Caesar has taken Toryne.

MARK ANTONY    Can he be there in person? 'tis impossible;
    Strange that power should be. Canidius,
    Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,
    And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship:
    Away, my Thetis!

    [Enter a Soldier]

    How now, worthy soldier?

Soldier    O noble emperor, do not fight by sea;
    Trust not to rotten planks: do you misdoubt
    This sword and these my wounds? Let the Egyptians
    And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we
    Have used to conquer, standing on the earth,
    And fighting foot to foot.

MARK ANTONY    Well, well: away!

    [Exeunt MARK ANTONY, QUEEN CLEOPATRA, and DOMITIUS
    ENOBARBUS]

Soldier    By Hercules, I think I am i' the right.

CANIDIUS    Soldier, thou art: but his whole action grows
    Not in the power on't: so our leader's led,
    And we are women's men.

Soldier    You keep by land
    The legions and the horse whole, do you not?

CANIDIUS    Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,
    Publicola, and Caelius, are for sea:
    But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's
    Carries beyond belief.

Soldier    While he was yet in Rome,
    His power went out in such distractions as
    Beguiled all spies.

CANIDIUS    Who's his lieutenant, hear you?

Soldier    They say, one Taurus.

CANIDIUS    Well I know the man.

    [Enter a Messenger]

Messenger    The emperor calls Canidius.

CANIDIUS    With news the time's with labour, and throes forth,
    Each minute, some.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE VIII    A plain near Actium.


    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, and TAURUS, with his army, marching]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Taurus!

TAURUS    My lord?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Strike not by land; keep whole: provoke not battle,
    Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed
    The prescript of this scroll: our fortune lies
    Upon this jump.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE IX    Another part of the plain.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

MARK ANTONY    Set we our squadrons on yond side o' the hill,
    In eye of Caesar's battle; from which place
    We may the number of the ships behold,
    And so proceed accordingly.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III


SCENE X    Another part of the plain.


    [CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way over
    the stage; and TAURUS, the lieutenant of OCTAVIUS
    CAESAR, the other way. After their going in, is
    heard the noise of a sea-fight]

    [Alarum. Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Naught, naught all, naught! I can behold no longer:
    The Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,
    With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder:
    To see't mine eyes are blasted.

    [Enter SCARUS]

SCARUS    Gods and goddesses,
    All the whole synod of them!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    What's thy passion!

SCARUS    The greater cantle of the world is lost
    With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away
    Kingdoms and provinces.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    How appears the fight?

SCARUS    On our side like the token'd pestilence,
    Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,--
    Whom leprosy o'ertake!--i' the midst o' the fight,
    When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,
    Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,
    The breese upon her, like a cow in June,
    Hoists sails and flies.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    That I beheld:
    Mine eyes did sicken at the sight, and could not
    Endure a further view.

SCARUS    She once being loof'd,
    The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,
    Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,
    Leaving the fight in height, flies after her:
    I never saw an action of such shame;
    Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before
    Did violate so itself.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Alack, alack!

    [Enter CANIDIUS]

CANIDIUS    Our fortune on the sea is out of breath,
    And sinks most lamentably. Had our general
    Been what he knew himself, it had gone well:
    O, he has given example for our flight,
    Most grossly, by his own!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Ay, are you thereabouts?
    Why, then, good night indeed.

CANIDIUS    Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.

SCARUS    'Tis easy to't; and there I will attend
    What further comes.

CANIDIUS    To Caesar will I render
    My legions and my horse: six kings already
    Show me the way of yielding.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I'll yet follow
    The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason
    Sits in the wind against me.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE XI    Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY with Attendants]

MARK ANTONY    Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;
    It is ashamed to bear me! Friends, come hither:
    I am so lated in the world, that I
    Have lost my way for ever: I have a ship
    Laden with gold; take that, divide it; fly,
    And make your peace with Caesar.

All    Fly! not we.

MARK ANTONY    I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards
    To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;
    I have myself resolved upon a course
    Which has no need of you; be gone:
    My treasure's in the harbour, take it. O,
    I follow'd that I blush to look upon:
    My very hairs do mutiny; for the white
    Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them
    For fear and doting. Friends, be gone: you shall
    Have letters from me to some friends that will
    Sweep your way for you. Pray you, look not sad,
    Nor make replies of loathness: take the hint
    Which my despair proclaims; let that be left
    Which leaves itself: to the sea-side straightway:
    I will possess you of that ship and treasure.
    Leave me, I pray, a little: pray you now:
    Nay, do so; for, indeed, I have lost command,
    Therefore I pray you: I'll see you by and by.

    [Sits down]

    [Enter CLEOPATRA led by CHARMIAN and IRAS; EROS
    following]

EROS    Nay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him.

IRAS    Do, most dear queen.

CHARMIAN    Do! why: what else?

CLEOPATRA    Let me sit down. O Juno!

MARK ANTONY    No, no, no, no, no.

EROS    See you here, sir?

MARK ANTONY    O fie, fie, fie!

CHARMIAN    Madam!

IRAS    Madam, O good empress!

EROS    Sir, sir,--

MARK ANTONY    Yes, my lord, yes; he at Philippi kept
    His sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck
    The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I
    That the mad Brutus ended: he alone
    Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practise had
    In the brave squares of war: yet now--No matter.

CLEOPATRA    Ah, stand by.

EROS    The queen, my lord, the queen.

IRAS    Go to him, madam, speak to him:
    He is unqualitied with very shame.

CLEOPATRA    Well then, sustain him: O!

EROS    Most noble sir, arise; the queen approaches:
    Her head's declined, and death will seize her, but
    Your comfort makes the rescue.

MARK ANTONY    I have offended reputation,
    A most unnoble swerving.

EROS    Sir, the queen.

MARK ANTONY    O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See,
    How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
    By looking back what I have left behind
    'Stroy'd in dishonour.

CLEOPATRA    O my lord, my lord,
    Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
    You would have follow'd.

MARK ANTONY    Egypt, thou knew'st too well
    My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
    And thou shouldst tow me after: o'er my spirit
    Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that
    Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
    Command me.

CLEOPATRA              O, my pardon!

MARK ANTONY    Now I must
    To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
    And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
    With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleased,
    Making and marring fortunes. You did know
    How much you were my conqueror; and that
    My sword, made weak by my affection, would
    Obey it on all cause.

CLEOPATRA    Pardon, pardon!

MARK ANTONY    Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
    All that is won and lost: give me a kiss;
    Even this repays me. We sent our schoolmaster;
    Is he come back? Love, I am full of lead.
    Some wine, within there, and our viands! Fortune knows
    We scorn her most when most she offers blows.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE XII    Egypt. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.


    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, with others]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Let him appear that's come from Antony.
    Know you him?

DOLABELLA                      Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:
    An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither
    He sends so poor a pinion off his wing,
    Which had superfluous kings for messengers
    Not many moons gone by.

    [Enter EUPHRONIUS, ambassador from MARK ANTONY]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Approach, and speak.

EUPHRONIUS    Such as I am, I come from Antony:
    I was of late as petty to his ends
    As is the morn-dew on the myrtle-leaf
    To his grand sea.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      Be't so: declare thine office.

EUPHRONIUS    Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and
    Requires to live in Egypt: which not granted,
    He lessens his requests; and to thee sues
    To let him breathe between the heavens and earth,
    A private man in Athens: this for him.
    Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness;
    Submits her to thy might; and of thee craves
    The circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,
    Now hazarded to thy grace.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    For Antony,
    I have no ears to his request. The queen
    Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she
    From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,
    Or take his life there: this if she perform,
    She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.

EUPHRONIUS    Fortune pursue thee!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Bring him through the bands.

    [Exit EUPHRONIUS]

    [To THYREUS]  To try eloquence, now 'tis time: dispatch;
    From Antony win Cleopatra: promise,
    And in our name, what she requires; add more,
    From thine invention, offers: women are not
    In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure
    The ne'er touch'd vestal: try thy cunning, Thyreus;
    Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we
    Will answer as a law.

THYREUS    Caesar, I go.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,
    And what thou think'st his very action speaks
    In every power that moves.

THYREUS    Caesar, I shall.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT III



SCENE XIII    Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS]

CLEOPATRA    What shall we do, Enobarbus?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Think, and die.

CLEOPATRA    Is Antony or we in fault for this?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Antony only, that would make his will
    Lord of his reason. What though you fled
    From that great face of war, whose several ranges
    Frighted each other? why should he follow?
    The itch of his affection should not then
    Have nick'd his captainship; at such a point,
    When half to half the world opposed, he being
    The meered question: 'twas a shame no less
    Than was his loss, to course your flying flags,
    And leave his navy gazing.

CLEOPATRA    Prithee, peace.

    [Enter MARK ANTONY with EUPHRONIUS, the Ambassador]

MARK ANTONY    Is that his answer?

EUPHRONIUS    Ay, my lord.

MARK ANTONY    The queen shall then have courtesy, so she
    Will yield us up.

EUPHRONIUS                      He says so.

MARK ANTONY    Let her know't.
    To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,
    And he will fill thy wishes to the brim
    With principalities.

CLEOPATRA    That head, my lord?

MARK ANTONY    To him again: tell him he wears the rose
    Of youth upon him; from which the world should note
    Something particular: his coin, ships, legions,
    May be a coward's; whose ministers would prevail
    Under the service of a child as soon
    As i' the command of Caesar: I dare him therefore
    To lay his gay comparisons apart,
    And answer me declined, sword against sword,
    Ourselves alone. I'll write it: follow me.

    [Exeunt MARK ANTONY and EUPHRONIUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside]  Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will
    Unstate his happiness, and be staged to the show,
    Against a sworder! I see men's judgments are
    A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
    Do draw the inward quality after them,
    To suffer all alike. That he should dream,
    Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will
    Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdued
    His judgment too.

    [Enter an Attendant]

Attendant                      A messenger from CAESAR.

CLEOPATRA    What, no more ceremony? See, my women!
    Against the blown rose may they stop their nose
    That kneel'd unto the buds. Admit him, sir.

    [Exit Attendant]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside]  Mine honesty and I begin to square.
    The loyalty well held to fools does make
    Our faith mere folly: yet he that can endure
    To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord
    Does conquer him that did his master conquer
    And earns a place i' the story.

    [Enter THYREUS]

CLEOPATRA    Caesar's will?

THYREUS    Hear it apart.

CLEOPATRA                      None but friends: say boldly.

THYREUS    So, haply, are they friends to Antony.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has;
    Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master
    Will leap to be his friend: for us, you know,
    Whose he is we are, and that is, Caesar's.

THYREUS    So.
    Thus then, thou most renown'd: Caesar entreats,
    Not to consider in what case thou stand'st,
    Further than he is Caesar.

CLEOPATRA    Go on: right royal.

THYREUS    He knows that you embrace not Antony
    As you did love, but as you fear'd him.

CLEOPATRA    O!

THYREUS    The scars upon your honour, therefore, he
    Does pity, as constrained blemishes,
    Not as deserved.

CLEOPATRA                      He is a god, and knows
    What is most right: mine honour was not yielded,
    But conquer'd merely.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside]             To be sure of that,
    I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky,
    That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for
    Thy dearest quit thee.

    [Exit]

THYREUS    Shall I say to Caesar
    What you require of him? for he partly begs
    To be desired to give. It much would please him,
    That of his fortunes you should make a staff
    To lean upon: but it would warm his spirits,
    To hear from me you had left Antony,
    And put yourself under his shrowd,
    The universal landlord.

CLEOPATRA    What's your name?

THYREUS    My name is Thyreus.

CLEOPATRA    Most kind messenger,
    Say to great Caesar this: in deputation
    I kiss his conquering hand: tell him, I am prompt
    To lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel:
    Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear
    The doom of Egypt.

THYREUS    'Tis your noblest course.
    Wisdom and fortune combating together,
    If that the former dare but what it can,
    No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay
    My duty on your hand.

CLEOPATRA    Your Caesar's father oft,
    When he hath mused of taking kingdoms in,
    Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place,
    As it rain'd kisses.

    [Re-enter MARK ANTONY and DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

MARK ANTONY    Favours, by Jove that thunders!
    What art thou, fellow?

THYREUS    One that but performs
    The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest
    To have command obey'd.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside]               You will be whipp'd.

MARK ANTONY    Approach, there! Ah, you kite! Now, gods
    and devils!
    Authority melts from me: of late, when I cried 'Ho!'
    Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth,
    And cry 'Your will?' Have you no ears? I am
    Antony yet.

    [Enter Attendants]

    Take hence this Jack, and whip him.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside]  'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp
    Than with an old one dying.

MARK ANTONY    Moon and stars!
    Whip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries
    That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them
    So saucy with the hand of she here,--what's her name,
    Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,
    Till, like a boy, you see him cringe his face,
    And whine aloud for mercy: take him hence.

THYREUS    Mark Antony!


MARK ANTONY                      Tug him away: being whipp'd,
    Bring him again: this Jack of Caesar's shall
    Bear us an errand to him.

    [Exeunt Attendants with THYREUS]

    You were half blasted ere I knew you: ha!
    Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome,
    Forborne the getting of a lawful race,
    And by a gem of women, to be abused
    By one that looks on feeders?

CLEOPATRA    Good my lord,--

MARK ANTONY    You have been a boggler ever:
    But when we in our viciousness grow hard--
    O misery on't!--the wise gods seel our eyes;
    In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us
    Adore our errors; laugh at's, while we strut
    To our confusion.

CLEOPATRA                      O, is't come to this?

MARK ANTONY    I found you as a morsel cold upon
    Dead Caesar's trencher; nay, you were a fragment
    Of Cneius Pompey's; besides what hotter hours,
    Unregister'd in vulgar fame, you have
    Luxuriously pick'd out: for, I am sure,
    Though you can guess what temperance should be,
    You know not what it is.

CLEOPATRA    Wherefore is this?

MARK ANTONY    To let a fellow that will take rewards
    And say 'God quit you!' be familiar with
    My playfellow, your hand; this kingly seal
    And plighter of high hearts! O, that I were
    Upon the hill of Basan, to outroar
    The horned herd! for I have savage cause;
    And to proclaim it civilly, were like
    A halter'd neck which does the hangman thank
    For being yare about him.

    [Re-enter Attendants with THYREUS]

            Is he whipp'd?

First Attendant    Soundly, my lord.

MARK ANTONY                      Cried he? and begg'd a' pardon?

First Attendant    He did ask favour.

MARK ANTONY    If that thy father live, let him repent
    Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry
    To follow Caesar in his triumph, since
    Thou hast been whipp'd for following him: henceforth
    The white hand of a lady fever thee,
    Shake thou to look on 't. Get thee back to Caesar,
    Tell him thy entertainment: look, thou say
    He makes me angry with him; for he seems
    Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,
    Not what he knew I was: he makes me angry;
    And at this time most easy 'tis to do't,
    When my good stars, that were my former guides,
    Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires
    Into the abysm of hell. If he mislike
    My speech and what is done, tell him he has
    Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom
    He may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture,
    As he shall like, to quit me: urge it thou:
    Hence with thy stripes, begone!

    [Exit THYREUS]

CLEOPATRA    Have you done yet?

MARK ANTONY                      Alack, our terrene moon
    Is now eclipsed; and it portends alone
    The fall of Antony!

CLEOPATRA    I must stay his time.

MARK ANTONY    To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes
    With one that ties his points?

CLEOPATRA    Not know me yet?

MARK ANTONY    Cold-hearted toward me?

CLEOPATRA    Ah, dear, if I be so,
    From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,
    And poison it in the source; and the first stone
    Drop in my neck: as it determines, so
    Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!
    Till by degrees the memory of my womb,
    Together with my brave Egyptians all,
    By the discandying of this pelleted storm,
    Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile
    Have buried them for prey!

MARK ANTONY    I am satisfied.
    Caesar sits down in Alexandria; where
    I will oppose his fate. Our force by land
    Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy too
    Have knit again, and fleet, threatening most sea-like.
    Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?
    If from the field I shall return once more
    To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood;
    I and my sword will earn our chronicle:
    There's hope in't yet.

CLEOPATRA    That's my brave lord!

MARK ANTONY    I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breathed,
    And fight maliciously: for when mine hours
    Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives
    Of me for jests; but now I'll set my teeth,
    And send to darkness all that stop me. Come,
    Let's have one other gaudy night: call to me
    All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;
    Let's mock the midnight bell.

CLEOPATRA    It is my birth-day:
    I had thought to have held it poor: but, since my lord
    Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.

MARK ANTONY    We will yet do well.

CLEOPATRA    Call all his noble captains to my lord.

MARK ANTONY    Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force
    The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen;
    There's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight,
    I'll make death love me; for I will contend
    Even with his pestilent scythe.

    [Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious,
    Is to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood
    The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still,
    A diminution in our captain's brain
    Restores his heart: when valour preys on reason,
    It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek
    Some way to leave him.

    [Exit]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE I    Before Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.


    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECAENAS, with
    his Army; OCTAVIUS CAESAR reading a letter]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    He calls me boy; and chides, as he had power
    To beat me out of Egypt; my messenger
    He hath whipp'd with rods; dares me to personal combat,
    Caesar to Antony: let the old ruffian know
    I have many other ways to die; meantime
    Laugh at his challenge.

MECAENAS    Caesar must think,
    When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted
    Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now
    Make boot of his distraction: never anger
    Made good guard for itself.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Let our best heads
    Know, that to-morrow the last of many battles
    We mean to fight: within our files there are,
    Of those that served Mark Antony but late,
    Enough to fetch him in. See it done:
    And feast the army; we have store to do't,
    And they have earn'd the waste. Poor Antony!

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE II    Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS,
    CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, with others]

MARK ANTONY    He will not fight with me, Domitius.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    No.

MARK ANTONY    Why should he not?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,
    He is twenty men to one.

MARK ANTONY    To-morrow, soldier,
    By sea and land I'll fight: or I will live,
    Or bathe my dying honour in the blood
    Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.'

MARK ANTONY    Well said; come on.
    Call forth my household servants: let's to-night
    Be bounteous at our meal.

    [Enter three or four Servitors]

            Give me thy hand,
    Thou hast been rightly honest;--so hast thou;--
    Thou,--and thou,--and thou:--you have served me well,
    And kings have been your fellows.

CLEOPATRA    [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]  What means this?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside to CLEOPATRA]  'Tis one of those odd
    tricks which sorrow shoots
    Out of the mind.

MARK ANTONY                      And thou art honest too.
    I wish I could be made so many men,
    And all of you clapp'd up together in
    An Antony, that I might do you service
    So good as you have done.

All    The gods forbid!

MARK ANTONY    Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night:
    Scant not my cups; and make as much of me
    As when mine empire was your fellow too,
    And suffer'd my command.

CLEOPATRA    [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]  What does he mean?

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    [Aside to CLEOPATRA]  To make his followers weep.

MARK ANTONY    Tend me to-night;
    May be it is the period of your duty:
    Haply you shall not see me more; or if,
    A mangled shadow: perchance to-morrow
    You'll serve another master. I look on you
    As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,
    I turn you not away; but, like a master
    Married to your good service, stay till death:
    Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,
    And the gods yield you for't!

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    What mean you, sir,
    To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;
    And I, an ass, am onion-eyed: for shame,
    Transform us not to women.

MARK ANTONY    Ho, ho, ho!
    Now the witch take me, if I meant it thus!
    Grace grow where those drops fall!
    My hearty friends,
    You take me in too dolorous a sense;
    For I spake to you for your comfort; did desire you
    To burn this night with torches: know, my hearts,
    I hope well of to-morrow; and will lead you
    Where rather I'll expect victorious life
    Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come,
    And drown consideration.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE III    The same. Before the palace.


    [Enter two Soldiers to their guard]

First Soldier    Brother, good night: to-morrow is the day.

Second Soldier    It will determine one way: fare you well.
    Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?

First Soldier    Nothing. What news?

Second Soldier    Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you.

First Soldier    Well, sir, good night.

    [Enter two other Soldiers]

Second Soldier    Soldiers, have careful watch.

Third Soldier    And you. Good night, good night.

    [They place themselves in every corner of the stage]

Fourth Soldier    Here we: and if to-morrow
    Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope
    Our landmen will stand up.

Third Soldier    'Tis a brave army,
    And full of purpose.

    [Music of the hautboys as under the stage]

Fourth Soldier    Peace! what noise?

First Soldier    List, list!

Second Soldier    Hark!

First Soldier        Music i' the air.

Third Soldier    Under the earth.

Fourth Soldier    It signs well, does it not?

Third Soldier    No.

First Soldier    Peace, I say!
    What should this mean?

Second Soldier    'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved,
    Now leaves him.

First Soldier    Walk; let's see if other watchmen
    Do hear what we do?

    [They advance to another post]

Second Soldier    How now, masters!

All    [Speaking together]  How now!
    How now! do you hear this?

First Soldier    Ay; is't not strange?

Third Soldier    Do you hear, masters? do you hear?

First Soldier    Follow the noise so far as we have quarter;
    Let's see how it will give off.

All    Content. 'Tis strange.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE IV    The same. A room in the palace.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and
    others attending]

MARK ANTONY    Eros! mine armour, Eros!

CLEOPATRA    Sleep a little.

MARK ANTONY    No, my chuck. Eros, come; mine armour, Eros!

    [Enter EROS with armour]

    Come good fellow, put mine iron on:
    If fortune be not ours to-day, it is
    Because we brave her: come.

CLEOPATRA    Nay, I'll help too.
    What's this for?

MARK ANTONY                      Ah, let be, let be! thou art
    The armourer of my heart: false, false; this, this.

CLEOPATRA    Sooth, la, I'll help: thus it must be.

MARK ANTONY    Well, well;
    We shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow?
    Go put on thy defences.

EROS    Briefly, sir.

CLEOPATRA    Is not this buckled well?

MARK ANTONY    Rarely, rarely:
    He that unbuckles this, till we do please
    To daff't for our repose, shall hear a storm.
    Thou fumblest, Eros; and my queen's a squire
    More tight at this than thou: dispatch. O love,
    That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st
    The royal occupation! thou shouldst see
    A workman in't.

    [Enter an armed Soldier]

    Good morrow to thee; welcome:
    Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge:
    To business that we love we rise betime,
    And go to't with delight.

Soldier    A thousand, sir,
    Early though't be, have on their riveted trim,
    And at the port expect you.

    [Shout. Trumpets flourish]

    [Enter Captains and Soldiers]

Captain    The morn is fair. Good morrow, general.

All    Good morrow, general.

MARK ANTONY    'Tis well blown, lads:
    This morning, like the spirit of a youth
    That means to be of note, begins betimes.
    So, so; come, give me that: this way; well said.
    Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me:
    This is a soldier's kiss: rebukeable

    [Kisses her]

    And worthy shameful cheque it were, to stand
    On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee
    Now, like a man of steel. You that will fight,
    Follow me close; I'll bring you to't. Adieu.

    [Exeunt MARK ANTONY, EROS, Captains, and Soldiers]

CHARMIAN    Please you, retire to your chamber.

CLEOPATRA    Lead me.
    He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might
    Determine this great war in single fight!
    Then Antony,--but now--Well, on.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE V    Alexandria. MARK ANTONY's camp.


    [Trumpets sound. Enter MARK ANTONY and EROS; a
    Soldier meeting them]

Soldier    The gods make this a happy day to Antony!

MARK ANTONY    Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd
    To make me fight at land!

Soldier    Hadst thou done so,
    The kings that have revolted, and the soldier
    That has this morning left thee, would have still
    Follow'd thy heels.

MARK ANTONY    Who's gone this morning?

Soldier    Who!
    One ever near thee: call for Enobarbus,
    He shall not hear thee; or from Caesar's camp
    Say 'I am none of thine.'

MARK ANTONY    What say'st thou?

Soldier    Sir,
    He is with Caesar.

EROS                      Sir, his chests and treasure
    He has not with him.

MARK ANTONY    Is he gone?

Soldier    Most certain.

MARK ANTONY    Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;
    Detain no jot, I charge thee: write to him--
    I will subscribe--gentle adieus and greetings;
    Say that I wish he never find more cause
    To change a master. O, my fortunes have
    Corrupted honest men! Dispatch.--Enobarbus!

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE VI    Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.


    [Flourish. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, with
    DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, and others]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight:
    Our will is Antony be took alive;
    Make it so known.

AGRIPPA    Caesar, I shall.

    [Exit]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    The time of universal peace is near:
    Prove this a prosperous day, the three-nook'd world
    Shall bear the olive freely.

    [Enter a Messenger]

Messenger    Antony
    Is come into the field.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Go charge Agrippa
    Plant those that have revolted in the van,
    That Antony may seem to spend his fury
    Upon himself.

    [Exeunt all but DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Alexas did revolt; and went to Jewry on
    Affairs of Antony; there did persuade
    Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar,
    And leave his master Antony: for this pains
    Caesar hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest
    That fell away have entertainment, but
    No honourable trust. I have done ill;
    Of which I do accuse myself so sorely,
    That I will joy no more.

    [Enter a Soldier of CAESAR's]

Soldier    Enobarbus, Antony
    Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with
    His bounty overplus: the messenger
    Came on my guard; and at thy tent is now
    Unloading of his mules.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I give it you.

Soldier    Mock not, Enobarbus.
    I tell you true: best you safed the bringer
    Out of the host; I must attend mine office,
    Or would have done't myself. Your emperor
    Continues still a Jove.

    [Exit]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    I am alone the villain of the earth,
    And feel I am so most. O Antony,
    Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid
    My better service, when my turpitude
    Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart:
    If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean
    Shall outstrike thought: but thought will do't, I feel.
    I fight against thee! No: I will go seek
    Some ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits
    My latter part of life.

    [Exit]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE VII    Field of battle between the camps.


    [Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA
    and others]

AGRIPPA    Retire, we have engaged ourselves too far:
    Caesar himself has work, and our oppression
    Exceeds what we expected.

    [Exeunt]

    [Alarums. Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS wounded]

SCARUS    O my brave emperor, this is fought indeed!
    Had we done so at first, we had droven them home
    With clouts about their heads.

MARK ANTONY    Thou bleed'st apace.

SCARUS    I had a wound here that was like a T,
    But now 'tis made an H.

MARK ANTONY    They do retire.

SCARUS    We'll beat 'em into bench-holes: I have yet
    Room for six scotches more.

    [Enter EROS]

EROS    They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves
    For a fair victory.

SCARUS    Let us score their backs,
    And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind:
    'Tis sport to maul a runner.

MARK ANTONY    I will reward thee
    Once for thy spritely comfort, and ten-fold
    For thy good valour. Come thee on.

SCARUS    I'll halt after.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE VIII    Under the walls of Alexandria.


    [Alarum. Enter MARK ANTONY, in a march; SCARUS,
    with others]

MARK ANTONY    We have beat him to his camp: run one before,
    And let the queen know of our gests. To-morrow,
    Before the sun shall see 's, we'll spill the blood
    That has to-day escaped. I thank you all;
    For doughty-handed are you, and have fought
    Not as you served the cause, but as 't had been
    Each man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.
    Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends,
    Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears
    Wash the congealment from your wounds, and kiss
    The honour'd gashes whole.

    [To SCARUS]

            Give me thy hand

    [Enter CLEOPATRA, attended]

    To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,
    Make her thanks bless thee.

    [To CLEOPATRA]

              O thou day o' the world,
    Chain mine arm'd neck; leap thou, attire and all,
    Through proof of harness to my heart, and there
    Ride on the pants triumphing!

CLEOPATRA    Lord of lords!
    O infinite virtue, comest thou smiling from
    The world's great snare uncaught?

MARK ANTONY    My nightingale,
    We have beat them to their beds. What, girl!
    though grey
    Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we
    A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
    Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;
    Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand:
    Kiss it, my warrior: he hath fought to-day
    As if a god, in hate of mankind, had
    Destroy'd in such a shape.

CLEOPATRA    I'll give thee, friend,
    An armour all of gold; it was a king's.

MARK ANTONY    He has deserved it, were it carbuncled
    Like holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand:
    Through Alexandria make a jolly march;
    Bear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them:
    Had our great palace the capacity
    To camp this host, we all would sup together,
    And drink carouses to the next day's fate,
    Which promises royal peril. Trumpeters,
    With brazen din blast you the city's ear;
    Make mingle with rattling tabourines;
    That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together,
    Applauding our approach.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE IX    OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.


    [Sentinels at their post]

First Soldier    If we be not relieved within this hour,
    We must return to the court of guard: the night
    Is shiny; and they say we shall embattle
    By the second hour i' the morn.

Second Soldier    This last day was
    A shrewd one to's.

    [Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS                      O, bear me witness, night,--

Third Soldier    What man is this?

Second Soldier                      Stand close, and list him.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,
    When men revolted shall upon record
    Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did
    Before thy face repent!

First Soldier    Enobarbus!

Third Soldier    Peace!
    Hark further.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS    O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
    The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,
    That life, a very rebel to my will,
    May hang no longer on me: throw my heart
    Against the flint and hardness of my fault:
    Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,
    And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,
    Nobler than my revolt is infamous,
    Forgive me in thine own particular;
    But let the world rank me in register
    A master-leaver and a fugitive:
    O Antony! O Antony!

    [Dies]

Second Soldier    Let's speak To him.

First Soldier    Let's hear him, for the things he speaks
    May concern Caesar.

Third Soldier    Let's do so. But he sleeps.

First Soldier    Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his
    Was never yet for sleep.

Second Soldier    Go we to him.

Third Soldier    Awake, sir, awake; speak to us.

Second Soldier    Hear you, sir?

First Soldier    The hand of death hath raught him.

    [Drums afar off]

                          Hark! the drums
    Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him
    To the court of guard; he is of note: our hour
    Is fully out.

Third Soldier    Come on, then;
    He may recover yet.

    [Exeunt with the body]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE X    Between the two camps.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS, with their Army]

MARK ANTONY    Their preparation is to-day by sea;
    We please them not by land.

SCARUS    For both, my lord.

MARK ANTONY    I would they'ld fight i' the fire or i' the air;
    We'ld fight there too. But this it is; our foot
    Upon the hills adjoining to the city
    Shall stay with us: order for sea is given;
    They have put forth the haven [           ]
    Where their appointment we may best discover,
    And look on their endeavour.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV


SCENE XI    Another part of the same.


    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, and his Army]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    But being charged, we will be still by land,
    Which, as I take't, we shall; for his best force
    Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales,
    And hold our best advantage.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV


SCENE XII    Another part of the same.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY and SCARUS]

MARK ANTONY    Yet they are not join'd: where yond pine
    does stand,
    I shall discover all: I'll bring thee word
    Straight, how 'tis like to go.

    [Exit]

SCARUS    Swallows have built
    In Cleopatra's sails their nests: the augurers
    Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly,
    And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony
    Is valiant, and dejected; and, by starts,
    His fretted fortunes give him hope, and fear,
    Of what he has, and has not.

    [Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight]

    [Re-enter MARK ANTONY]

MARK ANTONY    All is lost;
    This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me:
    My fleet hath yielded to the foe; and yonder
    They cast their caps up and carouse together
    Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore!
    'tis thou
    Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
    Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
    For when I am revenged upon my charm,
    I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.

    [Exit SCARUS]

    O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
    Fortune and Antony part here; even here
    Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
    That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
    Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
    On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd,
    That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am:
    O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,--
    Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home;
    Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,--
    Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
    Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.
    What, Eros, Eros!

    [Enter CLEOPATRA]

    Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!

CLEOPATRA    Why is my lord enraged against his love?

MARK ANTONY    Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving,
    And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee,
    And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians:
    Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot
    Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown
    For poor'st diminutives, for doits; and let
    Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
    With her prepared nails.

    [Exit CLEOPATRA]

        'Tis well thou'rt gone,
    If it be well to live; but better 'twere
    Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death
    Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!
    The shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me,
    Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage:
    Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the moon;
    And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club,
    Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die:
    To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall
    Under this plot; she dies for't. Eros, ho!

    [Exit]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV


SCENE XIII    Alexandria. Cleopatra's palace.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN]

CLEOPATRA    Help me, my women! O, he is more mad
    Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly
    Was never so emboss'd.

CHARMIAN    To the monument!
    There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead.
    The soul and body rive not more in parting
    Than greatness going off.

CLEOPATRA    To the monument!
    Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself;
    Say, that the last I spoke was 'Antony,'
    And word it, prithee, piteously: hence, Mardian,
    And bring me how he takes my death.
    To the monument!

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE XIV    The same. Another room.


    [Enter MARK ANTONY and EROS]

MARK ANTONY    Eros, thou yet behold'st me?

EROS    Ay, noble lord.

MARK ANTONY    Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish;
    A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
    A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,
    A forked mountain, or blue promontory
    With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,
    And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen
    these signs;
    They are black vesper's pageants.

EROS    Ay, my lord,

MARK ANTONY    That which is now a horse, even with a thought
    The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
    As water is in water.

EROS    It does, my lord.

MARK ANTONY    My good knave Eros, now thy captain is
    Even such a body: here I am Antony:
    Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
    I made these wars for Egypt: and the queen,--
    Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine;
    Which whilst it was mine had annex'd unto't
    A million more, now lost,--she, Eros, has
    Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory
    Unto an enemy's triumph.
    Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us
    Ourselves to end ourselves.

    [Enter MARDIAN]

              O! thy vile lady!
    She has robb'd me of my sword.

MARDIAN    No, Antony;
    My mistress loved thee, and her fortunes mingled
    With thine entirely.

MARK ANTONY    Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!
    She hath betray'd me and shall die the death.

MARDIAN    Death of one person can be paid but once,
    And that she has discharged: what thou wouldst do
    Is done unto thy hand: the last she spake
    Was 'Antony! most noble Antony!'
    Then in the midst a tearing groan did break
    The name of Antony; it was divided
    Between her heart and lips: she render'd life,
    Thy name so buried in her.

MARK ANTONY    Dead, then?

MARDIAN    Dead.

MARK ANTONY    Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,
    And we must sleep.

    [To MARDIAN]

    That thou depart'st hence safe,
    Does pay thy labour richly; go.

    [Exit MARDIAN]

                 Off, pluck off:
    The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep
    The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!
    Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,
    Crack thy frail case! Apace, Eros, apace.
    No more a soldier: bruised pieces, go;
    You have been nobly borne. From me awhile.

    [Exit EROS]

    I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
    Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now
    All length is torture: since the torch is out,
    Lie down, and stray no farther: now all labour
    Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles
    Itself with strength: seal then, and all is done.
    Eros!--I come, my queen:--Eros!--Stay for me:
    Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,
    And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:
    Dido and her AEneas shall want troops,
    And all the haunt be ours. Come, Eros, Eros!

    [Re-enter EROS]

EROS    What would my lord?

MARK ANTONY    Since Cleopatra died,
    I have lived in such dishonour, that the gods
    Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword
    Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back
    With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack
    The courage of a woman; less noble mind
    Than she which by her death our Caesar tells
    'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,
    That, when the exigent should come, which now
    Is come indeed, when I should see behind me
    The inevitable prosecution of
    Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,
    Thou then wouldst kill me: do't; the time is come:
    Thou strikest not me, 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.
    Put colour in thy cheek.

EROS    The gods withhold me!
    Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,
    Though enemy, lost aim, and could not?

MARK ANTONY    Eros,
    Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see
    Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down
    His corrigible neck, his face subdued
    To penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat
    Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded
    His baseness that ensued?

EROS    I would not see't.

MARK ANTONY    Come, then; for with a wound I must be cured.
    Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn
    Most useful for thy country.

EROS    O, sir, pardon me!

MARK ANTONY    When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then
    To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once;
    Or thy precedent services are all
    But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come.

EROS    Turn from me, then, that noble countenance,
    Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.

MARK ANTONY    Lo thee!

    [Turning from him]

EROS    My sword is drawn.

MARK ANTONY                      Then let it do at once
    The thing why thou hast drawn it.

EROS    My dear master,
    My captain, and my emperor, let me say,
    Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.

MARK ANTONY    'Tis said, man; and farewell.

EROS    Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?

MARK ANTONY    Now, Eros.

EROS    Why, there then: thus I do escape the sorrow
    Of Antony's death.

    [Kills himself]

MARK ANTONY                      Thrice-nobler than myself!
    Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what
    I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros
    Have by their brave instruction got upon me
    A nobleness in record: but I will be
    A bridegroom in my death, and run into't
    As to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,
    Thy master dies thy scholar: to do thus

    [Falling on his sword]

    I learn'd of thee. How! not dead? not dead?
    The guard, ho! O, dispatch me!

    [Enter DERCETAS and Guard]

First Guard    What's the noise?

MARK ANTONY    I have done my work in, friends: O, make an end
    Of what I have begun.

Second Guard    The star is fall'n.

First Guard    And time is at his period.

All    Alas, and woe!

MARK ANTONY    Let him that loves me strike me dead.

First Guard    Not I.

Second Guard    Nor I.

Third Guard    Nor any one.

    [Exeunt Guard]

DERCETAS    Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.
    This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,
    Shall enter me with him.

    [Enter DIOMEDES]

DIOMEDES    Where's Antony?

DERCETAS                      There, Diomed there.

DIOMEDES    Lives he?
    Wilt thou not answer, man?

    [Exit DERCETAS]

MARK ANTONY    Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword, and give me
    Sufficing strokes for death.

DIOMEDES    Most absolute lord,
    My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.

MARK ANTONY    When did she send thee?

DIOMEDES    Now, my lord.

MARK ANTONY    Where is she?

DIOMEDES    Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear
    Of what hath come to pass: for when she saw--
    Which never shall be found--you did suspect
    She had disposed with Caesar, and that your rage
    Would not be purged, she sent you word she was dead;
    But, fearing since how it might work, hath sent
    Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come,
    I dread, too late.

MARK ANTONY    Too late, good Diomed: call my guard, I prithee.

DIOMEDES    What, ho, the emperor's guard! The guard, what, ho!
    Come, your lord calls!

    [Enter four or five of the Guard of MARK ANTONY]

MARK ANTONY    Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;
    'Tis the last service that I shall command you.

First Guard    Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear
    All your true followers out.

All    Most heavy day!

MARK ANTONY    Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate
    To grace it with your sorrows: bid that welcome
    Which comes to punish us, and we punish it
    Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up:
    I have led you oft: carry me now, good friends,
    And have my thanks for all.

    [Exeunt, bearing MARK ANTONY]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT IV



SCENE XV    The same. A monument.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA and her maids aloft, with
    CHARMIAN and IRAS]

CLEOPATRA    O Charmian, I will never go from hence.

CHARMIAN    Be comforted, dear madam.

CLEOPATRA    No, I will not:
    All strange and terrible events are welcome,
    But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,
    Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great
    As that which makes it.

    [Enter, below, DIOMEDES]

          How now! is he dead?

DIOMEDES    His death's upon him, but not dead.
    Look out o' the other side your monument;
    His guard have brought him thither.

    [Enter, below, MARK ANTONY, borne by the Guard]

CLEOPATRA    O sun,
    Burn the great sphere thou movest in!
    darkling stand
    The varying shore o' the world. O Antony,
    Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian, help, Iras, help;
    Help, friends below; let's draw him hither.

MARK ANTONY    Peace!
    Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,
    But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself.

CLEOPATRA    So it should be, that none but Antony
    Should conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so!

MARK ANTONY    I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
    I here importune death awhile, until
    Of many thousand kisses the poor last
    I lay up thy lips.

CLEOPATRA                      I dare not, dear,--
    Dear my lord, pardon,--I dare not,
    Lest I be taken: not the imperious show
    Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall
    Be brooch'd with me; if knife, drugs,
    serpents, have
    Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe:
    Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes
    And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour
    Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony,--
    Help me, my women,--we must draw thee up:
    Assist, good friends.

MARK ANTONY    O, quick, or I am gone.

CLEOPATRA    Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!
    Our strength is all gone into heaviness,
    That makes the weight: had I great Juno's power,
    The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,
    And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little,--
    Wishes were ever fools,--O, come, come, come;

    [They heave MARK ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA]

    And welcome, welcome! die where thou hast lived:
    Quicken with kissing: had my lips that power,
    Thus would I wear them out.

All    A heavy sight!

MARK ANTONY    I am dying, Egypt, dying:
    Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.

CLEOPATRA    No, let me speak; and let me rail so high,
    That the false housewife Fortune break her wheel,
    Provoked by my offence.

MARK ANTONY    One word, sweet queen:
    Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!

CLEOPATRA    They do not go together.

MARK ANTONY    Gentle, hear me:
    None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.

CLEOPATRA    My resolution and my hands I'll trust;
    None about Caesar.

MARK ANTONY    The miserable change now at my end
    Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
    In feeding them with those my former fortunes
    Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world,
    The noblest; and do now not basely die,
    Not cowardly put off my helmet to
    My countryman,--a Roman by a Roman
    Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going;
    I can no more.

CLEOPATRA                      Noblest of men, woo't die?
    Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide
    In this dull world, which in thy absence is
    No better than a sty? O, see, my women,

    [MARK ANTONY dies]

    The crown o' the earth doth melt. My lord!
    O, wither'd is the garland of the war,
    The soldier's pole is fall'n: young boys and girls
    Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
    And there is nothing left remarkable
    Beneath the visiting moon.

    [Faints]

CHARMIAN    O, quietness, lady!

IRAS    She is dead too, our sovereign.

CHARMIAN    Lady!

IRAS    Madam!

CHARMIAN    O madam, madam, madam!

IRAS    Royal Egypt, Empress!

CHARMIAN    Peace, peace, Iras!

CLEOPATRA    No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded
    By such poor passion as the maid that milks
    And does the meanest chares. It were for me
    To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
    To tell them that this world did equal theirs
    Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but naught;
    Patience is scottish, and impatience does
    Become a dog that's mad: then is it sin
    To rush into the secret house of death,
    Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
    What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!
    My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,
    Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart:
    We'll bury him; and then, what's brave,
    what's noble,
    Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
    And make death proud to take us. Come, away:
    This case of that huge spirit now is cold:
    Ah, women, women! come; we have no friend
    But resolution, and the briefest end.

    [Exeunt; those above bearing off MARK ANTONY's body]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT V



SCENE I    Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.


    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MECAENAS,
    GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, and others, his council of war]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;
    Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks
    The pauses that he makes.

DOLABELLA    Caesar, I shall.

    [Exit]

    [Enter DERCETAS, with the sword of MARK ANTONY]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Wherefore is that? and what art thou that darest
    Appear thus to us?

DERCETAS                      I am call'd Dercetas;
    Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy
    Best to be served: whilst he stood up and spoke,
    He was my master; and I wore my life
    To spend upon his haters. If thou please
    To take me to thee, as I was to him
    I'll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,
    I yield thee up my life.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    What is't thou say'st?

DERCETAS    I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    The breaking of so great a thing should make
    A greater crack: the round world
    Should have shook lions into civil streets,
    And citizens to their dens: the death of Antony
    Is not a single doom; in the name lay
    A moiety of the world.

DERCETAS    He is dead, Caesar:
    Not by a public minister of justice,
    Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand,
    Which writ his honour in the acts it did,
    Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
    Splitted the heart. This is his sword;
    I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd
    With his most noble blood.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Look you sad, friends?
    The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings
    To wash the eyes of kings.

AGRIPPA    And strange it is,
    That nature must compel us to lament
    Our most persisted deeds.

MECAENAS    His taints and honours
    Waged equal with him.

AGRIPPA    A rarer spirit never
    Did steer humanity: but you, gods, will give us
    Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touch'd.

MECAENAS    When such a spacious mirror's set before him,
    He needs must see himself.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    O Antony!
    I have follow'd thee to this; but we do lance
    Diseases in our bodies: I must perforce
    Have shown to thee such a declining day,
    Or look on thine; we could not stall together
    In the whole world: but yet let me lament,
    With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
    That thou, my brother, my competitor
    In top of all design, my mate in empire,
    Friend and companion in the front of war,
    The arm of mine own body, and the heart
    Where mine his thoughts did kindle,--that our stars,
    Unreconciliable, should divide
    Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends--
    But I will tell you at some meeter season:

    [Enter an Egyptian]

    The business of this man looks out of him;
    We'll hear him what he says. Whence are you?

Egyptian    A poor Egyptian yet. The queen my mistress,
    Confined in all she has, her monument,
    Of thy intents desires instruction,
    That she preparedly may frame herself
    To the way she's forced to.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Bid her have good heart:
    She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,
    How honourable and how kindly we
    Determine for her; for Caesar cannot live
    To be ungentle.

Egyptian    So the gods preserve thee!

    [Exit]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say,
    We purpose her no shame: give her what comforts
    The quality of her passion shall require,
    Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke
    She do defeat us; for her life in Rome
    Would be eternal in our triumph: go,
    And with your speediest bring us what she says,
    And how you find of her.

PROCULEIUS    Caesar, I shall.

    [Exit]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Gallus, go you along.

    [Exit GALLUS]

        Where's Dolabella,
    To second Proculeius?

All    Dolabella!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Let him alone, for I remember now
    How he's employ'd: he shall in time be ready.
    Go with me to my tent; where you shall see
    How hardly I was drawn into this war;
    How calm and gentle I proceeded still
    In all my writings: go with me, and see
    What I can show in this.

    [Exeunt]




    ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


ACT V



SCENE II    Alexandria. A room in the monument.


    [Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and IRAS]

CLEOPATRA    My desolation does begin to make
    A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar;
    Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,
    A minister of her will: and it is great
    To do that thing that ends all other deeds;
    Which shackles accidents and bolts up change;
    Which sleeps, and never palates more the dug,
    The beggar's nurse and Caesar's.

    [Enter, to the gates of the monument, PROCULEIUS,
    GALLUS and Soldiers]

PROCULEIUS    Caesar sends greeting to the Queen of Egypt;
    And bids thee study on what fair demands
    Thou mean'st to have him grant thee.

CLEOPATRA    What's thy name?

PROCULEIUS    My name is Proculeius.

CLEOPATRA    Antony
    Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but
    I do not greatly care to be deceived,
    That have no use for trusting. If your master
    Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him,
    That majesty, to keep decorum, must
    No less beg than a kingdom: if he please
    To give me conquer'd Egypt for my son,
    He gives me so much of mine own, as I
    Will kneel to him with thanks.

PROCULEIUS    Be of good cheer;
    You're fall'n into a princely hand, fear nothing:
    Make your full reference freely to my lord,
    Who is so full of grace, that it flows over
    On all that need: let me report to him
    Your sweet dependency; and you shall find
    A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness,
    Where he for grace is kneel'd to.

CLEOPATRA    Pray you, tell him
    I am his fortune's vassal, and I send him
    The greatness he has got. I hourly learn
    A doctrine of obedience; and would gladly
    Look him i' the face.

PROCULEIUS    This I'll report, dear lady.
    Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied
    Of him that caused it.

GALLUS    You see how easily she may be surprised:

    [Here PROCULEIUS and two of the Guard ascend the
    monument by a ladder placed against a window, and,
    having descended, come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of
    the Guard unbar and open the gates]

    [To PROCULEIUS and the Guard]

    Guard her till Caesar come.

    [Exit]

IRAS    Royal queen!

CHARMIAN    O Cleopatra! thou art taken, queen:

CLEOPATRA    Quick, quick, good hands.

    [Drawing a dagger]

PROCULEIUS    Hold, worthy lady, hold:

    [Seizes and disarms her]

    Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this
    Relieved, but not betray'd.

CLEOPATRA    What, of death too,
    That rids our dogs of languish?

PROCULEIUS    Cleopatra,
    Do not abuse my master's bounty by
    The undoing of yourself: let the world see
    His nobleness well acted, which your death
    Will never let come forth.

CLEOPATRA    Where art thou, death?
    Come hither, come! come, come, and take a queen
    Worthy many babes and beggars!

PROCULEIUS    O, temperance, lady!

CLEOPATRA    Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir;
    If idle talk will once be necessary,
    I'll not sleep neither: this mortal house I'll ruin,
    Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I
    Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court;
    Nor once be chastised with the sober eye
    Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up
    And show me to the shouting varletry
    Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
    Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud
    Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
    Blow me into abhorring! rather make
    My country's high pyramides my gibbet,
    And hang me up in chains!

PROCULEIUS    You do extend
    These thoughts of horror further than you shall
    Find cause in Caesar.

    [Enter DOLABELLA]

DOLABELLA    Proculeius,
    What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,
    And he hath sent for thee: for the queen,
    I'll take her to my guard.

PROCULEIUS    So, Dolabella,
    It shall content me best: be gentle to her.

    [To CLEOPATRA]

    To Caesar I will speak what you shall please,
    If you'll employ me to him.

CLEOPATRA    Say, I would die.

    [Exeunt PROCULEIUS and Soldiers]

DOLABELLA    Most noble empress, you have heard of me?

CLEOPATRA    I cannot tell.

DOLABELLA                      Assuredly you know me.

CLEOPATRA    No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
    You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;
    Is't not your trick?

DOLABELLA    I understand not, madam.

CLEOPATRA    I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony:
    O, such another sleep, that I might see
    But such another man!

DOLABELLA    If it might please ye,--

CLEOPATRA    His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
    A sun and moon, which kept their course,
    and lighted
    The little O, the earth.

DOLABELLA    Most sovereign creature,--

CLEOPATRA    His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
    Crested the world: his voice was propertied
    As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
    But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
    He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
    There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
    That grew the more by reaping: his delights
    Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
    The element they lived in: in his livery
    Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
    As plates dropp'd from his pocket.

DOLABELLA    Cleopatra!

CLEOPATRA    Think you there was, or might be, such a man
    As this I dream'd of?

DOLABELLA    Gentle madam, no.

CLEOPATRA    You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.
    But, if there be, or ever were, one such,
    It's past the size of dreaming: nature wants stuff
    To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine
    And Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,
    Condemning shadows quite.

DOLABELLA    Hear me, good madam.
    Your loss is as yourself, great; and you bear it
    As answering to the weight: would I might never
    O'ertake pursued success, but I do feel,
    By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites
    My very heart at root.

CLEOPATRA    I thank you, sir,
    Know you what Caesar means to do with me?

DOLABELLA    I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.

CLEOPATRA    Nay, pray you, sir,--

DOLABELLA    Though he be honourable,--

CLEOPATRA    He'll lead me, then, in triumph?

DOLABELLA    Madam, he will; I know't.

    [Flourish, and shout within, 'Make way there:
    Octavius Caesar!']

    [Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS,
    MECAENAS, SELEUCUS, and others of his Train]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Which is the Queen of Egypt?

DOLABELLA    It is the emperor, madam.

    [CLEOPATRA kneels]

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Arise, you shall not kneel:
    I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.

CLEOPATRA    Sir, the gods
    Will have it thus; my master and my lord
    I must obey.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      Take to you no hard thoughts:
    The record of what injuries you did us,
    Though written in our flesh, we shall remember
    As things but done by chance.

CLEOPATRA    Sole sir o' the world,
    I cannot project mine own cause so well
    To make it clear; but do confess I have
    Been laden with like frailties which before
    Have often shamed our sex.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Cleopatra, know,
    We will extenuate rather than enforce:
    If you apply yourself to our intents,
    Which towards you are most gentle, you shall find
    A benefit in this change; but if you seek
    To lay on me a cruelty, by taking
    Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself
    Of my good purposes, and put your children
    To that destruction which I'll guard them from,
    If thereon you rely. I'll take my leave.

CLEOPATRA    And may, through all the world: 'tis yours; and we,
    Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall
    Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.

CLEOPATRA    This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,
    I am possess'd of: 'tis exactly valued;
    Not petty things admitted. Where's Seleucus?

SELEUCUS    Here, madam.

CLEOPATRA    This is my treasurer: let him speak, my lord,
    Upon his peril, that I have reserved
    To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.

SELEUCUS    Madam,
    I had rather seal my lips, than, to my peril,
    Speak that which is not.

CLEOPATRA    What have I kept back?

SELEUCUS    Enough to purchase what you have made known.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve
    Your wisdom in the deed.

CLEOPATRA    See, Caesar! O, behold,
    How pomp is follow'd! mine will now be yours;
    And, should we shift estates, yours would be mine.
    The ingratitude of this Seleucus does
    Even make me wild: O slave, of no more trust
    Than love that's hired! What, goest thou back? thou shalt
    Go back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes,
    Though they had wings: slave, soulless villain, dog!
    O rarely base!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR                      Good queen, let us entreat you.

CLEOPATRA    O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,
    That thou, vouchsafing here to visit me,
    Doing the honour of thy lordliness
    To one so meek, that mine own servant should
    Parcel the sum of my disgraces by
    Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,
    That I some lady trifles have reserved,
    Immoment toys, things of such dignity
    As we greet modern friends withal; and say,
    Some nobler token I have kept apart
    For Livia and Octavia, to induce
    Their mediation; must I be unfolded
    With one that I have bred? The gods! it smites me
    Beneath the fall I have.

    [To SELEUCUS]

           Prithee, go hence;
    Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits
    Through the ashes of my chance: wert thou a man,
    Thou wouldst have mercy on me.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Forbear, Seleucus.

    [Exit SELEUCUS]

CLEOPATRA    Be it known, that we, the greatest, are misthought
    For things that others do; and, when we fall,
    We answer others' merits in our name,
    Are therefore to be pitied.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Cleopatra,
    Not what you have reserved, nor what acknowledged,
    Put we i' the roll of conquest: still be't yours,
    Bestow it at your pleasure; and believe,
    Caesar's no merchant, to make prize with you
    Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd;
    Make not your thoughts your prisons: no, dear queen;
    For we intend so to dispose you as
    Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed, and sleep:
    Our care and pity is so much upon you,
    That we remain your friend; and so, adieu.

CLEOPATRA    My master, and my lord!

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Not so. Adieu.

    [Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR and his train]

CLEOPATRA    He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
    Be noble to myself: but, hark thee, Charmian.

    [Whispers CHARMIAN]

IRAS    Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,
    And we are for the dark.

CLEOPATRA    Hie thee again:
    I have spoke already, and it is provided;
    Go put it to the haste.

CHARMIAN    Madam, I will.

    [Re-enter DOLABELLA]

DOLABELLA    Where is the queen?

CHARMIAN    Behold, sir.

    [Exit]

CLEOPATRA    Dolabella!

DOLABELLA    Madam, as thereto sworn by your command,
    Which my love makes religion to obey,
    I tell you this: Caesar through Syria
    Intends his journey; and within three days
    You with your children will he send before:
    Make your best use of this: I have perform'd
    Your pleasure and my promise.

CLEOPATRA    Dolabella,
    I shall remain your debtor.

DOLABELLA    I your servant,
    Adieu, good queen; I must attend on Caesar.

CLEOPATRA    Farewell, and thanks.

    [Exit DOLABELLA]

        Now, Iras, what think'st thou?
    Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
    In Rome, as well as I    mechanic slaves
    With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
    Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
    Rank of gross diet, shall be enclouded,
    And forced to drink their vapour.

IRAS    The gods forbid!

CLEOPATRA    Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
    Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
    Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians
    Extemporally will stage us, and present
    Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
    Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
    Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
    I' the posture of a whore.

IRAS    O the good gods!

CLEOPATRA    Nay, that's certain.

IRAS    I'll never see 't; for, I am sure, my nails
    Are stronger than mine eyes.

CLEOPATRA    Why, that's the way
    To fool their preparation, and to conquer
    Their most absurd intents.

    [Re-enter CHARMIAN]

             Now, Charmian!
    Show me, my women, like a queen: go fetch
    My best attires: I am again for Cydnus,
    To meet Mark Antony: sirrah Iras, go.
    Now, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed;
    And, when thou hast done this chare, I'll give thee leave
    To play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.
    Wherefore's this noise?

    [Exit IRAS. A noise within]

    [Enter a Guardsman]

Guard    Here is a rural fellow
    That will not be denied your highness presence:
    He brings you figs.

CLEOPATRA    Let him come in.

    [Exit Guardsman]

    What poor an instrument
    May do a noble deed! he brings me liberty.
    My resolution's placed, and I have nothing
    Of woman in me: now from head to foot
    I am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon
    No planet is of mine.

    [Re-enter Guardsman, with Clown bringing in a basket]

Guard    This is the man.

CLEOPATRA    Avoid, and leave him.

    [Exit Guardsman]

    Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,
    That kills and pains not?

Clown    Truly, I have him: but I would not be the party
    that should desire you to touch him, for his biting
    is immortal; those that do die of it do seldom or
    never recover.

CLEOPATRA    Rememberest thou any that have died on't?

Clown    Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of
    them no longer than yesterday: a very honest woman,
    but something given to lie; as a woman should not
    do, but in the way of honesty: how she died of the
    biting of it, what pain she felt: truly, she makes
    a very good report o' the worm; but he that will
    believe all that they say, shall never be saved by
    half that they do: but this is most fallible, the
    worm's an odd worm.

CLEOPATRA    Get thee hence; farewell.

Clown    I wish you all joy of the worm.

    [Setting down his basket]

CLEOPATRA    Farewell.

Clown    You must think this, look you, that the worm will
    do his kind.

CLEOPATRA    Ay, ay; farewell.

Clown    Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the
    keeping of wise people; for, indeed, there is no
    goodness in worm.


CLEOPATRA    Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.

Clown    Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is
    not worth the feeding.

CLEOPATRA    Will it eat me?

Clown    You must not think I am so simple but I know the
    devil himself will not eat a woman: I know that a
    woman is a dish for the gods, if the devil dress her
    not. But, truly, these same whoreson devils do the
    gods great harm in their women; for in every ten
    that they make, the devils mar five.

CLEOPATRA    Well, get thee gone; farewell.

Clown    Yes, forsooth: I wish you joy o' the worm.

    [Exit]

    [Re-enter IRAS with a robe, crown, &c]

CLEOPATRA    Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
    Immortal longings in me: now no more
    The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:
    Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
    Antony call; I see him rouse himself
    To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
    The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
    To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
    Now to that name my courage prove my title!
    I am fire and air; my other elements
    I give to baser life. So; have you done?
    Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
    Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.

    [Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies]

    Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
    If thou and nature can so gently part,
    The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
    Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?
    If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
    It is not worth leave-taking.

CHARMIAN    Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain; that I may say,
    The gods themselves do weep!

CLEOPATRA    This proves me base:
    If she first meet the curled Antony,
    He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
    Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou
    mortal wretch,

    [To an asp, which she applies to her breast]

    With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
    Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
    Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak,
    That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass
    Unpolicied!

CHARMIAN              O eastern star!

CLEOPATRA    Peace, peace!
    Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
    That sucks the nurse asleep?

CHARMIAN    O, break! O, break!

CLEOPATRA    As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,--
    O Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too.

    [Applying another asp to her arm]

    What should I stay--

    [Dies]

CHARMIAN    In this vile world? So, fare thee well.
    Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
    A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;
    And golden Phoebus never be beheld
    Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;
    I'll mend it, and then play.

    [Enter the Guard, rushing in]

First Guard    Where is the queen?

CHARMIAN    Speak softly, wake her not.

First Guard    Caesar hath sent--

CHARMIAN                      Too slow a messenger.

    [Applies an asp]

    O, come apace, dispatch! I partly feel thee.

First Guard    Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguiled.

Second Guard    There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.

First Guard    What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?

CHARMIAN    It is well done, and fitting for a princess
    Descended of so many royal kings.
    Ah, soldier!

    [Dies]

    [Re-enter DOLABELLA]

DOLABELLA    How goes it here?

Second Guard                      All dead.

DOLABELLA    Caesar, thy thoughts
    Touch their effects in this: thyself art coming
    To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou
    So sought'st to hinder.

    [Within  'A way there, a way for Caesar!']

    [Re-enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR and all his train marching]

DOLABELLA    O sir, you are too sure an augurer;
    That you did fear is done.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Bravest at the last,
    She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal,
    Took her own way. The manner of their deaths?
    I do not see them bleed.

DOLABELLA    Who was last with them?

First Guard    A simple countryman, that brought her figs:
    This was his basket.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Poison'd, then.

First Guard    O Caesar,
    This Charmian lived but now; she stood and spake:
    I found her trimming up the diadem
    On her dead mistress; tremblingly she stood
    And on the sudden dropp'd.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    O noble weakness!
    If they had swallow'd poison, 'twould appear
    By external swelling: but she looks like sleep,
    As she would catch another Antony
    In her strong toil of grace.

DOLABELLA    Here, on her breast,
    There is a vent of blood and something blown:
    The like is on her arm.

First Guard    This is an aspic's trail: and these fig-leaves
    Have slime upon them, such as the aspic leaves
    Upon the caves of Nile.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR    Most probable
    That so she died; for her physician tells me
    She hath pursued conclusions infinite
    Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed;
    And bear her women from the monument:
    She shall be buried by her Antony:
    No grave upon the earth shall clip in it
    A pair so famous. High events as these
    Strike those that make them; and their story is
    No less in pity than his glory which
    Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall
    In solemn show attend this funeral;
    And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see
    High order in this great solemnity.

    [Exeunt]