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
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
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
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
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
- --oOo-- -