Cleo. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high, That the false housewife Fortune break her wheel, Provoked by my offence. Ant. One word, sweet queen. Of Cæsar seek your honor with your safety.-0! Ant. Gentle, hear me. None about Cæsar trust, but Proculeius. Cleo. My resolution, and my hands, I'll trust; Ant. The miserable change now at my end, My countryman, a Roman, by a Roman Cleo. Noblest of men, woo't die? Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is The crown o' the earth doth melt.-My lord!- 1 [Dies. The soldier's pole is fallen; young boys and girls And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon. Char. Iras. She is dead, too, our sovereign. Char. Iras. [She faints. O, quietness, lady! Lady, Madam, Royal Egypt! Char. O madam, madam, madam! Iras. Empress! Char. Peace, peace, Iras. 1 That is, their standard or rallying point is thrown down. VOL. VI. 25 Cleo. No more, but e'en a woman; and commanded By such poor passion as the maid that milks, And does the meanest chares.2-It were for me To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods; To tell them that this world did equal theirs, Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but naught; Patience is sottish; 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? Our lamp is spent, it's out.-Good sirs, take heart. Come away; This case of that huge spirit now is cold. Ah women, women! come; we have no friend [Exeunt; those above bearing off ANTONY'S ACT V. SCENE I. Cæsar's Camp before Alexandria. Enter CESAR, Agrippa, DOLABELLA, MECENAS, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, and others. Cæs. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield; 1 Iras has just said, "Royal Egypt, empress!" Cleopatra completes the sentence (without taking notice of the intervening words of Charmian), empress "No more; but e'en a woman," now on a level with the meanest of my sex. The old copy reads "but in a woman." Dr. Johnson made the correction. 2 i. e. task-work. The word is in vulgar use pronounced as if it were chore. Being so frustrate,' tell him, he mocks us by Dol. Cæsar, I shall. [Exit DOLABElla. Enter DERCETAS, with the sword of ANTONY. Cæs. Wherefore is that? and what art thou that dar'st Appear thus to us? Der. I am called Dercetas ; To take me to thee, as I was to him I yield thee up my life. Cæs. What is't thou say'st? Der. I say, O Cæsar, Antony is dead. Cæs. The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack. The round world should have shook Lions into civil streets,2 And citizens to their dens.-The death of Antony A moiety of the world. 1 Frustrate, for frustrated, was the language of Shakspeare's time. The two last words in this line, us by, are not in the old copy, in which something seems omitted, and these words were supplied by Malone. : 2 The passage is thus arranged in the old copy : "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 second line is evidently defective. What is lost may be supplied by conjecture, thus:— Johnson thought that there was a line lost; and Steevens proposed to read: - "A greater crack than this: The ruined world," &c. 66 Der. He is dead, Cæsar; Not by a public minister of justice, Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand, Which writ his honor in the acts it did, Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, I robbed his wound of it; behold it stained With his most noble blood. Cæs. The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings To wash the eyes of kings.1 Agr. Look you sad, friends? And strange it is, His taints and honors A rarer spirit never That nature must compel us to lament. Mec. Waged equal with him. Agr. Did steer humanity: but you, gods, will give us Some faults to make us men. Cæsar is touched. Mec. When such a spacious mirror's set before him, He needs must see himself. Cæs. O Antony! I have followed thee to this;-but we do lance3 4 Where mine his thoughts did kindle-that our stars, Unreconcilable, should divide 1 "May the gods rebuke me if this be not tidings to make kings weep." But again in its exceptive sense. 2 Waged here must mean to be opposed, as equal stakes in a wager; unless we suppose that weighed is meant. The second folio reads way. 3 Launch, the word in the old copy, is only the obsolete spelling of lance. 4 His for its. Our equalness to this.'-Hear me, good friends,- Enter a Messenger. ? The business of this man looks out of him; tress, 2 Confined in all she has, her monument, Of thy intents desires instruction; Cæs. Bid her have good heart; She soon shall know of us, by some of ours, Determine for her; for Cæsar cannot live Mess. So the gods preserve thee! Cæs. Come hither, Proculeius. Go, and say, [Exit. We purpose her no shame; give her what comforts 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. Pro. Cæsar, I shall. [Exit PROCULEius. Cæs. Gallus, go you along.-Where's Dolabella, To second Proculeius? [Exit GALLUS. Cæs. Let him alone, for I remember now How he's employed; he shall in time be ready. Go with me to my tent; where you shall see 1 That is, should have made us, in our equality of fortune, disagree, to a pitch like this, that one of us must die. 2 i. e. "yet a subject of the queen of Egypt." 3 It has been before observed that the termination ble was anciently often used for bly. 4 "If I send her in triumph to Rome, her memory and my glory will be eternal." |