Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare.
Title: Anthony and Cleopatra.
Author: William Shakespeare.
Genre: Literature, fiction, play, tragedy, romance.
Country: U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: ~1607.
Summary: Based on Plutarch's Lives, the tragedy follows the tumultuous romantic relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Sicilian revolt to Cleopatra's suicide during the War of Actium.
My rating: 8/10
My review:
♥ 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 glowed 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 flights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gypsy'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 transformed
Into a strumpet's fool. Behold and see.
♥ Anthony. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dingy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.
♥ Soothsayer. You shall be more beloving than beloved.
♥ Chairman. 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 worse follow worse till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave, fiftyfold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight: good Isis, I beseech thee!
Iras. 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!
♥ Messenger. The nature of bad news infects the teller.
♥ Messenger. Fulvia thy wife is dead.
..Antony. Forbear me. [Exit Messenger.]
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempts doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,
By revolution low'ring, does become
The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
♥ Antony. I must with haste from hence.
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.
Antony. I must be gone.
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.
Antony. She is cunning past man's thought.
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, the makes a show'r of rain as well as Jove.
Antony. Would I have never seen her!
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.
♥ Antony. Our slippery people,
Whose love is never linked to the deserver
Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
Pompey the Great and all his dignities
Upon his son..
♥ 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.]
Chairman. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,
You do not hold the method to enforce
The like from him.
♥ Chairman. In each thing give him way, cross him in nothing.
Cleopatra. Thou teachest like a fool: the way to lose him!
Chairman. Tempt him not so too far. I wish, forbear.
In time we hate that which we often fear.
♥ Cleopatra. Why should I think you can be mine, and true
(Though you in swearing shake the thronèd gods)
Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows
Which break themselves in swearing.
♥ Antony. How now, lady?
Cleopatra. I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst know
There were a heart in Egypt.
♥ 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.
♥ Antony. Now by my sword-
Cleopatra. And target. Still he mends.
But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Chairman,
How this Herculean Roman does become
The carriage of his chafe.
♥ 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.
♥ Cleopatra. Your honor 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 strewed before your feet!
Antony. Let us go. Come:
Our separation so abides and flies
That thou residing here goes yet with me,
And I hence fleeting here remain with thee.
Away!
[Exit Alexas.]
♥ Cleopatra. I take no pleasure
In aught an eunuch has: 'tis well for thee
That, being unseminared, 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. 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 mov'st?
The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
And bergonet 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 I 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.
♥ Cleopatra. He was not sad, for he would shine on those
That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
Which seemed to tell them his remebrance 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.
♥ Cleopatra. My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then.
♥ 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 pow'rs
Deny us for our good; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.
♥ Pompey. Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands
Our lives upon, to use our strongest hands.
♥ Antony. I learn you take things ill which are not so,
Or being, concern you not.
♥ Maecenas. 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, Maecenas.
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.
Antony. Thou art a solider only; speak no more.
Enobarbus. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.
♥ 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.
Enobarbus. I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so pefumèd that
The winds were lovesick 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 beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.
Agrippa. O, rare for Antony.
Enobarbus. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i' th' 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' th' marketplace, did sit alone,
Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.
Agrippa. Rare Egyptian!
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 barbered ten times o'er, goes to the feast,
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.
Arippa. Royal wench!
She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed;
He plowed her, and she cropped.
♥ Maecenas. Now Antony must leave her utterly.
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.
♥ Cleopatra. That time-O times!-
I laughed him out of patience; and that night
I laughed 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.
♥ Cleopatra. There is gold and here
My bluest veins to kiss, a hand that kings
Have lipped, and trembled kissing.
♥ Chairman. 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!
Chairman. He is afeard to come.
Cleopatra: I will not hurt him.
[Exit Chairman.]
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
A meaner than myself; since I myself
Have given myself the cause.
♥ Caesar. Since I saw you last
There's 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.
♥ Menas. You and I have known, sir.
Enobarbus. At sea, I think.
Menas. We have, sir.
Enobarbus. You have done well by water.
Menas. And you by land.
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.
Enobarbus. Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you have been a great thief by sea.
Menas. And you by land.
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.
Enobarbus. But there is never a fair woman has a true face.
♥ Menas. For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.
Enobarbus. If he do, sure he cannot weep't back again.
♥ Menas. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage than the love of the parties.
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?
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. 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 villainy,
In thee't had been good service. Thou must know,
'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honor;
Mine honor, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue
Hath so betrayed 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 palled fortunes more.
Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offered,
Shall never find it more.
♥ Antony. Be a child o' th' time.
Caesar. Possess it, I'll make answer;
But I had rather fast from all, four days,
Than drink so much in one.
♥ 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
Anticked us all. What needs more words? Good night.
♥ 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 alone 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 th' minute, lost his favor.
Who does i' th' 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 offense
Should my performance perish.
Silius. Thou hast, Ventidius, that
Without the which a soldier and his sword
Grants scarce distinction.
♥ Caesar. Fare thee well.
Octavia. My noble brother!
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-
Caesar. What, Octavia?
Octavia. I'll tell you in your ear.
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 the full of tide,
And neither way inclines.
♥ 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.
♥ 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.
Chairman. Like her? O Isis! 'Tis impossible.
Cleopatra. I think so, Chairman. Dull of tongue, and dwarfish.
What majesty is in her gait? Remember,
If e'er thou look'st 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. 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.
♥ Octavia. O, my good lord,
Believe not all; or, if you must believe,
Stomach not all.
♥ Octavia. Husband win, win brother,
Prays, and destroys the prayer; no midway
'Twixt these extremes at all.
Antony. Gentle Octavia,
Let your best love draw to that point which seeks
Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honor,
I lose myself: better I were not yours
Than yours so branchless.
♥ 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.
♥ 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
Lone ere she did appear. The trees by th' 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.
♥ Caesar. 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 unbewailed their way. Welcome to Rome,
Nothing more dear to me. You are abused
Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods,
To do your justice, makes his ministers
Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort,
And ever welcome to us.
♥ 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' th' war,
And as the president of my kingdom will
Appear there for a man. Speak not against it,
I will not stay behind.
♥ Cleopatra. Celerity is never more admired
Than by the negligent.
♥ Messenger. The Emperor calls Canidius.
Canidius. With news the time's with labor, and throws forth
Each minute some.
♥ Scarus. Gods and goddesses,
All the wholy synod of them!
Enobarbus. What's thy passion?
Scarus. The greater cantle of the world is lost
With very ignorance; we have kissed away
Kingdoms and provinces.
♥ Antony. 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 seaside 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.
♥ 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
'Stroyed in dishonor.
Cleopatra. O my lord, my lord,
Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
You would have followed.
Antony. Egypt, thou knew'st too well
My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' 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.
♥ 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.
..Love, I am full of lead.
Some wine, within there, and our viands! Fortune knows
We scorn her most when most she offers blows.
♥ Cleopatra. What shall we do, Enobarbus?
Enobarbus. Think, and die.
Celopatra. Is Antony, or we, in fault for this?
Enobarbus. Antony only, that would make his will
Lord of his reason. What thought 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 nicked his captainship, at such a point,
When half to half the world opposed, he being
The merèd question. 'Twas a shame no less
Than was his loss, to course your flying flags
And leave his navy gazing.
♥ Cleopatra. See, my women,
Against the blown rose may they stop their nose
That kneeled unto the buds.
♥ 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' th' story.
♥ Thidias. '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.
♥ Enobarbus. [Aside.] 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp
Than with an old one dying.
♥ Antony. ..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 th' abysm of hell.
♥ Antony. 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!
Antony. I will be treble-sinewed, 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 birthday.
I had thought t' have held it poor. But since my lord
Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.
♥ Antony. 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.
♥ Enter three or four Servitors.
Antony. 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.
..And thou art honest too.
I wish I could be made so many men,
And all of you clapped up together in
An Antony, that I might do you service
So good as you have done.
..Tend me tonight;
May be it is the period of your duty.
Haply you shall not see me more; or if,
A mangled shadow. Perchance tomorrow
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 tonight two hours, I ask no more,
And the gods yield you for't!
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.
♥ Antony. Eros! Come, mine armor, Ero!
Enter Eros [with armor].
Come, good fellow, put thine iron on.
If fortune be not ours today, it is
Because we brave her. Come.
♥ Antony. Fare thee well, dame; whate'er becomes of me,
This is a soldier's kiss. Rebukable
And worthy shameful check 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.
♥ Antony. O, my fortunes have
Corrupted honest men!
♥ Caesar. The time of universal peace is near.
Prove this a prosp'rous day, the three-nooked world
Shall bear the olive freely.
♥ Antony. 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 honored gashes whole.
♥ Antony. -O thou day o' th' world,
Chain mine armed 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, com'st thou smiling from
The world's great snare uncaught?
Antony. Mine nightingale,
We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! Though gray
Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we
A brain that nourishes our nerves, and cam
Get goal for goal of youth.
♥ 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.
♥ Antony. 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 spanieled me at heels, to whom I gave
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is barked,
That overstopped them all. Betrayed I am.
O this false soul of Egypt! This grave charm,
Whose eye becked forth my wars, and called them home,
Whose bosom was my crowned, my chief end,
Like a right gypsy hath at fast and loose
Beguiled me, to the very heart of loss.
What, Eros, Eros!
♥ Cleopatra. ..I dare not,
Lest I be taken. Not th' imperious show
Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall
Be brooched 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 honor
Demuring upon me.
♥ Cleopatra. Had I great Juno's power,
The strong-winged Mercury should fetch thee up
And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little,
Wishers were ever fools. O, come, come, come.
They heave Anthony aloft to Cleopatra.
And welcome, welcome! Die when thou hast lived,
Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power,
Thus would I wear them out.
♥ Cleopatra. No, let me speak, and let me rail so high
That the false housewife Fortune break her wheel,
Provoked by my offense.
♥ 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 sky? O, see, my women.
[Antony dies.]
The crown o' th' earth doth melt. My lord!
O, withered 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.
♥ Cleopatra. 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't after the high Roman fashion,
And make death proud to take us.
..Come; we have no friend
But resolution, and the briefest end.
♥ Decretas. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.
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.
♥ Cleopatra. I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony.
O, such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man.
..His face was as the heav'ns, and therein stuck
A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted
The little O, th' earth.
..His legs bestrid the ocean: his reared arm
Crested the world: his voice was propertied
As all the tunèd 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 dolphinlike, they showed his back above
The element they lived in. In his livery
Walked crowns and crownets: realms and islands were
As plates dropped from his pocket.
♥ Cleopatra. Prithee to hence,
Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through th' ashes of my chance. Wert thou a man,
Thou wouldst have mercy on me.
..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.
♥ Iras. Finish, good lady, the bright day is done,
And we are for the dark.
♥ Iras. I'll never see't! For I am sure mine nails
Are stronger than mine eyes.
Cleopatra. Why, that's the way
To fool their preparation, and to conquer
Their most absurd intents.
Enter Chairmian.
Now, Chairmian!
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.
♥ Cleopatra. 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.
♥ 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.