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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.

How now, lady!

ANT.
CLEO. I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst
know

There were a heart in Egypt.

ANT.
Hear me, queen :
The strong necessity of time commands
Our services a while; 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

Breeds 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 thriv'd
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.

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I pr'ythee, 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
Like perfect honour.

ANT.
You'll heat my blood: no more!
CLEO. You can do better yet; but this is
meetly.

ANT. Now, by my* sword,-
CLEO.

And target!—Still he mends;
But this is not the best-look, pr'ythee,
Charmian,

How this Herculean Roman does become

The carriage of his chief."

ANT. I'll leave you, lady.
CLEO.

Courteous lord, one word.
Sir, you and I must part,-but that's not it:

CLEO. Though age from folly could not give Sir, you and I have lov'd, but there's not it;

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The commentators will have the word best to relate to the "good end" made by Fulvia. But it is no more than an epithet of endearment which Antony applies to Cleopatra;-read at your leisure the troubles she awakened; and at the last, my best one, see when and where she died.

f

I am quickly ill, and well,
So Antony loves.]

This has been misconceived: "So Antony loves" is "As Antony
loves," and the sense therefore,-My health is as fickle as the love
of Antony.

And give true evidence to his lore, &c.] Mr. Collier's annotator, in his eagerness to confound all traces of our early language, would poorly read, " true credence," which, like many of his suggestions, is very specious and quite wrong. The meaning of Antony is this," Forbear these taunts, and demonstrate to the world your confidence in my love by submitting it freely to the

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"Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloster,
Than from true eridence, of good esteem,

He be approv'd," &c.-Henry VI. Pt. II. Act III. Sc. 2.
How this Herculean Roman does become
The carriage of his chief.]

"

The old and every modern edition read, "The carriage of his chafe." But can any one who considers the epithet "Herculean,' which Cleopatra applies to Antony, and reads the following extract from Shakespeare's authority, hesitate for an instant to pronounce chafe a silly blunder of the transcriber or compositor for "chief," meaning Hercules, the head or principal of the house of the Antonii? "Now it had bene a speech of old time, that the family of the Antonij were descended from one Anton the son of Hercules, whereof the family took the name. This opinion did Antonius seeke to confirme in all his doings: not only resembling him in the likenesse of his body, as we have said before, but also in the wearing of his garments."-Life of Antonius. NORTH'S Plutarch.

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LEP. 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 purchas'd; what he cannot change, Than what he chooses.

CES. You are too indulgent. Let us grant,
'tis 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,-'t is to be chid

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MESS. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,

Most noble Cæsar, shalt thou have report
How't is abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;
And it appears he is belov'd of those
That only have fear'd Cæsar: to the ports
The discontents repair, and men's reports
Give him much wrong'd.

CES.

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 lov'd 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.

MESS.
Cæsar, I bring thee word,
Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
Make the sea serve them, which they eard 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 't is as soon
Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more
Than could his war resisted.

Antony,

CAS.
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: (3) and all this

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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 wott'st thou whom thou
mov'st?

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

Cæsar,

[Exeunt. 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

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brow;

There would he anchor his aspéct, and die With looking on his life.

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CLEO. Ha, ha!-Give me to drink mandra- Yet, coming from him, that great med'cine hath

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a

(*) First folio, me.

· orient-] Pellucid, lustrous. See note (a), p. 395. b — an arm-gaunt steed,-] The epithet "arm-gaunt" has been fruitful of controversy. Hanmer reads arm-girt; Mason suggests, not unhappily, termagant; and Mr. Boaden, arrogant. If the original lection be genuine, which we doubt, " gaunt must be understood to mean fierce, eager; a sense it, perhaps, bears in the following passage from Ben Jonson's "Catiline," Act III. Sc. 3,

"

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