Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

In punishing such crimes. The rolling stone
And gnawing vulture were slight pains, invented
When Jove was young, and no examples known
Of mighty ills; but you have ripened sin
To such a monstrous growth, 'twill pose the gods
To find an equal torture. Two, two such!
Oh, there's no farther name; two such to me,
To me, who locked my soul within your breasts,
Had no desires, no joys, no life but you;
When half the globe was mine, I gave it you
In dowry with my heart: I had no use,
No fruit, of all but you: a friend and mistress
Was what the world could give. Oh, Cleopatra!
Oh, Dolabella! how could you betray

This tender heart, which, with an infant fond

ness,

Lay lulled betwixt your bosoms, and there slept Secure of injured faith?

Dol. If she has wronged you,

Heaven, hell, and you revenge it!

Ant. If she has wronged me!

Thou wouldst evade thy part of guilt: but swear Thou lov'st not her..

Dol. Not so as I love you.

Ant. Not so? Swear, swear, I say, thou dost
not love her.

Dol. No more than friendship will allow.
Ant. No more!

Friendship allows thee nothing: thou art perjured

And yet thou didst not swear thou lov'st her not; But not so much, no more. Oh, trifling hypocrite!

Who dar'st not own to her thou dost not love, Nor own to me thou dost! Ventidius heard it, Octavia saw it.

Cleo. They are enemies.

An t. Alexas is not so; he, he confest it;

He, who next hell best knew it, he avowed it.
Why do I seek a proof beyond yourself!
[To DoL.

You, whom I sent to bear my last farewell,
Returned to plead her stay.

Dol. What shall I answer?

If to have loved be guilt, then I have sinned;
But if to have repented of that love
Can wash away my crime, I have repented;
Yet, if I have offended past forgiveness,
Let her not suffer: she is innocent.

Cleo. Ah, what will not a woman do, who
loves!

What means will. she refuse to keep that heart, Where all her joys are placed! 'Twas I encou raged,

'Twas I blew up the fire, that scorched his soul, To make you jealous, and by that regain you: But all in vain; I could not counterfeit : In spite of all the dams, my love broke o'er, And drowned my heart again: Fate took the oc casion,

And thus one minute's feigning has destroyed My whole life's truth.

Ant. Thin cobwebs, arts of falsehood,

Seen and broke through at first.

Dol. Forgive your mistress.

Cleo. Forgive your friend.

Ant. You have convinced yourselves;

You plead each other's cause. What witness have

[blocks in formation]

and friendship!

You have no longer place in human breasts;
These two have driven you out: avoid my sight!
I would not kill the man whom I have loved,
And cannot hurt the woman; but avoid me!
I do not know how long I can be tame;
For, if I stay one minute more to think
How I am wronged, my justice and revenge
Will cry so loud within me, that my pity
Will not be heard for either.

Dol. Heaven has but
Our sorrows for our sins, and then delights
To pardon erring man; sweet mercy seems
Its darling attribute, which limits justice,
As if there were degrees in infinite,
And infinite would rather want perfection,
Than punish to extent.

Ant. I can forgive

[blocks in formation]

Banished for love of you, banished from you;
Ay, there's the banishment! Oh, hear me, hear

me,

With strictest justice, for I beg no favour,
And, if I have offended you, then kill me,
But do not banish me!

Ant. I must not hear you;

I have a fool within me takes your part,
But honour stops my ears.

Cleo. For pity hear me !

Would you cast off a slave, who followed you, Who crouched beneath your spurn? He has no pity!

See, if he gives one tear to my departure,
One look, one kind farewell: oh, iron heart!
Let all the gods look down and judge betwixt us,
If he did ever love!

Ant. No more.

Alexas!

Dol. A perjured villain!

Ant. [To CLEO.] Your Alexas! yours! Cleo. Oh, 'twas his plot; his ruinous design To engage you in my love by jealousy. Hear him; confront him with me; let him speak. Ant. I have, I have.

Cleo. And if he clear me not

Ant. Your creature! one, who hangs upon your smiles,

Watches your eye, to say or to unsay
Whate'er you please. I am not to be moved.
Cleo. Then must we part? farewell, my cruel
lord!

The appearance is against me; and I go,
Unjustified, for ever from your sight.
How I have loved, you know; how yet I love,
My only comfort is I know myself:

I love you more, even now you are unkind,
Than when you loved me most; so well, so truly,
I'll never strive against it, but die pleased
To think you once were mine.

Ant. Good Heaven! they weep at parting.
Must I weep too? that calls them innocent.
I must not weep; and yet I must, to think,
That I must not forgive-

Live, but live wretched; 'tis but just you should,
Who made me so: live from each other's sight;"
Let me not hear you meet. Set all the earth
And all the seas betwixt your sundered loves;
View nothing common but the sun and skies.
Now all take several ways,

And each your own sad fate with mine deplore, That you were false, and I could trust no more. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE I.-The Temple.

ACT V.

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMION, and IRAS. Char. Be juster, heaven! such virtue, punished thus,

Will make us think, that chance rules all above, And shuffles, with a random hand, the lots, Which man is forced to draw.

Cleo. I could tear out these eyes, that gained his heart,

And had not power to keep it. Oh, the curse
Of doating on, even when I find it dotage!
Bear witness, gods! you heard him bid me go;
You, whom he mocked, with imprecating vows,
Of promised faith-I'll die, I will not bear it.
You may hold me-

[She pulls out her dagger, and they hold her. But I can keep my breath; I can die inward, And choke this love.

Enter ALEXAS.

Iras. Help, oh, Alexas, help!

The ruins of a falling majesty,

To place myself beneath the mighty flaw,
Thus to be crushed and pounded into atoms,
By its o'erwhelming weight? 'Tis too presuming
For subjects to preserve that wilful power,

Which courts its own destruction.

Cleo. I would reason

More calmly with you. Did you not o'errule
And force my plain, direct, and open love
Into these crooked paths of jealousy?
Now what's the event? Octavia is removed,
But Cleopatra's banished. Thou, thou villain,
Hast pushed my boat to open sea, to prove,
At my sad cost, if thou canst steer it back.
It cannot be; I am lost too far; I am ruined:
Hence! thou impostor, traitor, monster, devil-
I can no more: thou and my griefs have sunk
Me down so low, that I want voice to curse thee.
Alex. Suppose some shipwrecked seaman near
the shore,

Dropping and faint with climbing up the cliff,
If from above, some charitable hand

Pull him to safety, hazarding himself

The queen grows desperate, her soul struggles in To draw the other's weight, would he look back

her,

With all the agonies of love and rage,

And strives to force its passage.

Cleo. Let me go.

Art thou there, traitor!-Oh,

Oh for a little breath to vent my rage!

Give, give me way, and let me loose upon him.

Aler. Yes, I deserve it for my ill-timed truth. Was it for me to prop

And curse him for his pains? The case is yours; But one step more, and you have gained the

height.

Cleo. Sunk, never more to rise.

Alex. Octavia's gone, and Dolabella banished. Believe me, madam, Antony is yours;

His heart was never lost, but started off

To jealousy, love's last retreat and covert,

Where it lies hid in shades, watchful in silence,

And listening for the sound, that calls it back.
Some other, any man, 'tis so advanced,
May perfect this unfinished work, which I
(Unhappy only to myself) have left
So easy to his hand.

Cleo. Look well thou dost, else

Alex. Else, what your silence threatens.---An-
tony

Is mounted up the Pharos, from whose turret
He stands surveying our Egyptian gallies
Engaged with Cæsar's fleet: now death or con-
quest!

If the first happen, fate acquits my promise;
If we o'ercome, the conqueror is yours.
[A distant shout within.
Char. Have comfort, madam: did you mark
that shout? [Second shout nearer.
Iras. Hark! they redouble it.
Alex. 'Tis from the port;
The loudness shews it near.
Heavens !

Cleo. Osiris make it so!

Good news, kind

Enter SERAPION.

Ser. Where, where's the queen?
Alex. How frightfully the holy coward stares!
As if not yet recovered of the assault,
When all his gods, and what's more dear to him,
His offerings, were at stake.

Ser. Oh, horror, horror!

Egypt has been; our latest hour is come,
The queen of nations from her ancient seat
Is sunk for ever in the dark abyss:
Time has unrolled her glories to the last,
And now closed up the volume.

Cleo. Be more plain!

Say whence thou camest! though fate is in thy
face,

Which from thy haggard eyes looks wildly out,
And threatens ere thou speakest.

Ser. I came from Pharos,

From viewing (spare me, and imagine it)
Our land's last hope, your navy-
Cleo. Vanquished?

Ser. No;

They fought not.

Cleo. Then they fled.

Ser. Nor that; I saw,

With Antony, your well-appointed fleet

Row out, and thrice he waved his hand on high,
And thrice, with cheerful cries, they shouted
back:

"Twas then false Fortune, like a fawning strumpet,
About to leave the bankrupt prodigal,
With a dissembled smile would kiss at parting,
And flatter to the last: the well-timed oars
Now dipped from every bark, now smoothly run
To meet the foe; and soon indeed they met,
But not as foes. In few, we saw their caps
On either side thrown up: the Egyptian gallies,
Received like friends, past through, and fell be-

hind

The Roman rear; and now they all come forward,
And ride within the port.

Cleo. Enough, Serapion;

I have heard my doom. This needed not, you gods!
When I lost Antony, your work was done;
"Tis but superfluous malice. Where's my lord?
How bears he this last blow?

Ser. His fury cannot be expressed by words:
Thrice he attempted headlong to have fallen
Full on his foes, and aimed at Cæsar's galley:
Withheld, he raves on you, cries he's betrayed.
Should he now find you-

Alex. Shun him, seek your safety,
Till you can clear your innocence.
Cleo. I'll stay.

Alex. You must not; haste you to your mo
nument,

While I make speed to Cæsar.
Cleo. Cæsar! no;

I have no business with him.
Aler. I can work him

To spare your life, and let this madman perish.
Cleo. Base fawning wretch! wouldst thou be-
tray him too!

Hence from my sight! I will not hear a traitor :
'Twas thy design brought all this ruin on us.
Serapion, thou art honest; counsel me:
But haste, each moment's precious.

Ser. Retire; you must not see Antony.
He, who began this mischief,

'Tis just he tempt the danger: let him clear you;
And since he offer'd you his servile tongue
To gain a poor precarious life from Cæsar,
Let him expose that fawning eloquence,
And speak to Antony.

Alex. Oh heavens! I dare not:
I meet my certain death.

Cleo. Slave, thou deserv'st it.
Not that I fear my lord, will I avoid him;
I know him noble: when he banished me,
And thought me false, he scorned to take my life:
But I'll be justified, and then die with him.

Alex. Oh! pity me, and let me follow you!
Cleo. To death, if thou stir hence. Speak if
thou canst,

Now for thy life, which basely thou wouldst save,
While mine I prize at this. Come, good Serapion.
[Exeunt CLEO. SER. CHAR. and IRAS.
Alex. Oh, that I less could fear to lose this
being,

Which, like a snow-ball in my coward hand,
The more 'tis grasped the faster melts away.
Poor reason! what a wretched aid art thou!
For still, in spite of thee,

These two long lovers, soul and body, dread
Their final separation. Let me think;
What can I say to save myself from death!
No matter what becomes of Cleopatra.
Ant. Which way? where?
[Within.
Vent. This leads to the monument. [Within.
Alex. Ah me! I hear him: yet I'm unprepar'd:
My gift of lying's gone;

And this court-devil, which I so oft have raised,
Forsakes me at my need. I dare not stay,
Yet cannot go far hence.

[Exit.

Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS.
Ant. Oh, happy Cæsar! thou hast men to lead :

Think not, 'tis thou hast conquered Antony,
But Rome has conquered Egypt. I'm betray'd.
Vent. Curse on this treacherous train!
Their soil and heaven infect them all with base-
ness,

And their young souls come tainted to the world,
With the first breath they draw.

Ant. The original villain sure no god created; He was a bastard of the Sun by Nile; Aped into man with all his mother's mud Crusted about his soul.

Vent. The nation is

One universal traitor, and their queen
The very spirit and extract of them all.
Ant. Is there yet left

A possibility of aid from valour?

Is there one god unsworn to my destruction,
The least unmortgaged hope? for, if there be,
Methinks I cannot fall beneath the fate
Of such a boy as Cæsar.

The world's one half is yet in Antony,
And from each limb of it, that's hew'd away,
The soul comes back to me.

Vent. There yet remain

Three legions in the town; the last assault
Lopt off the rest. If death be your design
As I must wish it now, these are sufficient
To make a heap about us of dead foes,
An honest pile for burial.

Ant. They're enough.

We'll not divide our stars, but side by side
Fight emulous, and with malicious eyes
Survey each other's acts: so every death
Thou givest, I'll take on me as a just debt,
And pay thee back a soul.

Vent. Now you shall see I love you. Not a
word

Of chiding more. By my few hours of life,
I am so pleased with this brave Roman fate,
That I would not be Cæsar to outlive you!
When we put off this flesh, and mount together,
I shall be shewn to all the ethereal crowd,

Lo! this is he, who died with Antony!'
Ant. Who knows but we may pierce through
all their troops,

And reach my veterans yet? 'Tis worth the tempting,

To o'erleap this gulf of fate,

And leave our wandering destinies behind.

Enter ALEXAS, trembling.

Vent. See, see that villain!

See Cleopatra stamped upon that face,
With all her cunning, all her arts of falsehood!
How she looks out through those dissembling
eyes!

How he has set his countenance for deceit,
And promises a lie before he speaks!
Let me dispatch him first.

Alex. Oh, spare me, spare me!

[Drawing.

Ant. Hold; he's not worth your killing. On thy life,

(Which thou mayest keep, because I scorn to take it)

No syllable to justify thy queen;
Save thy base tongue its office.

Alex. Sir, she's gone

Where she shall never be molested more, By love or you.

Ant. Fled to her Dolabella!
Die, traitor! I revoke my promise; die!
[Going to kill him.
Alex. Oh, hold; she is not fled.
Ant. She is; my eyes

Are open to her falsehood. My whole life
Has been a golden dream of love and friendship;
But now I wake, I'm like a merchant roused
From soft repose, to see his vessel sinking,
And all his wealth cast o'er. Ungrateful woman!
Who followed me but as the swallow summer,
Hatching her young ones in my kindly beams,
Singing her flatteries to my morning wake;
But now my winter comes, she spreads her wings,
And seeks the spring of Cæsar.

Alex. Think not so;

Her fortunes have in all things mixed with yours: Had she betrayed her naval force to Rome, How easily might she have gone to Cæsar, Secure by such a bribe.

Vent. She sent it first,

To be more welcome after.
Ant. 'Tis too plain,

Else would she have appeared to clear herself.
Alex. Too fatally she has; she could not bear
To be accused by you, but shut herself
Within her monument, looked down and sighed,
While from her unchanged face the silent tears
Dropt, as they had not leave, but stole their

parting.

Some undistinguished words she inly murmured;
At last she raised her eyes, and with such looks
As dying Lucrece cast-

Ant. My heart forebodes———
Vent. All for the best. Go on.

Aler. She snatched her poniard,
And, ere we could prevent the fatal blow,
Plunged it within her breast; then turned to me;

Go, bear my lord,' said she, 'my last farewell, And ask him if he yet suspect my faith.' More she was saying, but death rushed betwixt. She half pronounced your name with her last breath,

And buried half within her.

Vent. Heaven be praised!

Ant. Then art thou innocent, my poor dear love! And art thou dead?

Oh, those two words! their sound should be divided.

Hadst thou been false and died, or hadst thou

lived

[merged small][ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

[Exit.

Vent. Would she had died a little sooner though,

Before Octavia went; you might have treated: Now 'twill look tame, and would not be received. Come, rouse yourself, and let's die warm together.

Ant. I will not fight; there's no more work for war;

The business of my angry hours is done.
Vent. Cæsar is at your gates.
Ant. Why let him enter:
He's welcome now.

Vent. What lethargy has crept into your soul? Ant. 'Tis but a scorn of life, and just desire To free myself from bondage.

Vent. Do it bravely.

Ant. I will, but not by fighting. Oh, Ventidius,

What should I fight for now? my queen is dead:
I was but great for her: my power, my empire,
Were but my merchandise to buy her love,
And conquered kings my factors. Now she's
dead,

Let Cæsar take the world--

An empty circle, since the jewel's gone,

Which made it worth my strife: my being's

nauseous,

For all the bribes of life are gone away.
Vent. Would you be taken?

Ant. Yes, I would be taken;

But as a Roman ought; dead, my Ventidius---
For I'll convey my soul from Cæsar's reach,
And lay down life myself. "Tis time the world
Should have a lord, and know whom to obey.
We two have kept its homage in suspense,
And bent the globe, on whose each side we trod,
Till it was dinted inwards. Let him walk
Alone upon it: I'm weary of my part.
My torch is out, and the world stands before me,
Like a black desert at the approach of night:
I'll lay me down and stray no farther on.

Vent. I could be grieved,

But that I'll not outlive you. Chuse your death,
For I have seen him in such various shapes,
I care not which I take: I'm only troubled
The life I bear is worn to such a rag,
'Tis scarce worth giving. I could wish indeed
We threw it from us with a better grace,
That, like two lions taken in the toils,

We might at least thrust out our paws, and wound
The hunters, that enclose us.

Ant. I have thought on it;

Ventidius, you must live.

Vent. I must not, sir.

[blocks in formation]

To stand by my fair fame, and guard the approaches

From the ill tongues of men?
Vent. Who shall guard mine,
For living after you?

Ant. Say, I commanded it.

Vent. If we die well, our deaths will speak themselves,

And need no living witness.

Ant. Thou hast loved me,

And fain I would reward thee. I must die;
Kill me, and take the merit of my death,
To make thee friends with Cæsar.

Vent. Thank your kindness!

You said I loved you, and in recompense
You bid me turn a traitor! Did I think

You would have used me thus! that I should die

With a hard thought of you!

Ant. Forgive me, Roman.

Since I have heard of Cleopatra's death,
My reason bears no rule upon my tongue,
But lets my thoughts break all at random out.
I have thought better; do not deny me twice.
Vent. By heaven I will not!

Let it not be to outlive you.

Ant. Kill me first,

And then die thou; for 'tis but just thou serve Thy friend before thyself.

Vent. Give me your hand

peror !

We soon shall meet again. Now farewell, em[Embrace. Methinks that word's too cold to be my last: Since death sweeps all distinctions, farewell, friend!

That's all

[blocks in formation]

But think, 'tis the first time I e'er deceived you, If that may plead my pardon. And you, gods! Forgive me, if you will; for I die perjured, Rather than kill my friend.

[Dies.

Ant. Farewell! ever my leader, even in death! My queen and thou have got the start of me, And I'm the lag of honour.-Gone so soon! Is death no more! He used him carelessly, With a familiar kindness; ere he knocked, Ran to the door, and took him in his arms, As who should say, you're welcome at all hours, A friend need give no warning.--Books had spoiled him,

For all the learned are cowards by profession. 'Tis not worth

My further thought; for death, for aught I know, Is but to think no more. Here's to be satisfied. [Falls on his sword.

« PreviousContinue »