Bliss in our brows' bent;1 none our parts so poor,

2

But was a race of heaven.

They are so still,

How now, lady!

Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
Art turned the greatest liar.

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 awhile; but my full heart
Remains in use3 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

4

Breeds scrupulous faction: the hated, grown to strength,

Are newly grown to love: the condemned Pompey,
Rich in his father's honor, 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 5 my going,
Is Fulvia's death.

Cleo. Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness.-Can Fulvia die?6
Ant. She's dead, my queen.

7

Look here, and, at thy sovereign leisure, read
The garboils she awaked; at the last, best.
See, when, and where she died.

1 The bending or inclination of our brows.

2 i. e. of heavenly mould.

3 The Poet here means, "in pledge:" the use of a thing is the posses sion of it.

4 Gate.

5 i. e. render my going not dangerous.

6 Cleopatra apparently means to say, "Though age could not exempt me from folly, at least it frees me from a childish and ready belief of every assertion. Is it possible that Fulvia is dead? I cannot believe it.” 7 The commotion she occasioned.·

Cleo.

O, most false love!

Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water?1 I see, I see,

In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be.
Ant. 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.

Cleo.

Cut my lace, Charmian, come ;

But let it be. I am quickly ill, and well;
So Antony loves.

Ant.

My precious queen, forbear; And give true evidence to his love, which stands An honorable trial.

Cleo.

So Fulvia told me.

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 honor.

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 2 does become

The carriage of his chafe.

Ant.

I'll leave you, lady.

Cleo. 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 oblivion3 is a very Antony,

And I am all forgotten.

1 Alluding to the lachrymatory vials filled with tears, which the Romans placed in the tomb of a departed friend.

2 Antony traced his descent from Anton, a son of Hercules.

3 Oblivion is used for oblivious memory, a memory apt to be deceitful.

To bear such idleness so near the heart

As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;
Since my becomings kill me, when they do not
Your honor calls you hence;

Eye well to you.

Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,

And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword
Sit laurelled victory! and smooth success

Be strewed before your feet!

Ant.

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. An Apartment in Cæsar's

House.

Enter OCTAVIUS CÆSAR, LEPIDUS, and Attendants.

Cæs. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know, It is not Cæsar's natural vice to hate

Our great competitor.3 From Alexandria

This is the news:-He fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike
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

1 An antithesis seems intended between royalty and subject. "But that I know you to be a queen, and that your royalty holds idleness in subjection to you, I should suppose you, from this idle discourse, to be the very genius of idleness itself."

2 "That which would seem to become me most, is hateful to me when it is not acceptable in your sight."

3 The old copy reads, " One great competitor." Dr. Johnson proposed the emendation.

A man who is the abstract of all faults

That all men follow.

Lep.

I must not think there are Evils enough to darken all his goodness.

1

His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven;1
More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary,
Rather than purchased;2 what he cannot change,
Than what he chooses.

Cæs. 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

3

So great weight in his lightness. If he filled

His vacancy with his voluptuousness,

Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones,

4

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.

Lep.

Enter a Messenger.

Here's more news.

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

Most noble Cæsar, shalt thou have report

How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;
And, it appears, he is beloved of those

That only have feared Cæsar." To the ports

1 i. e. the stars.

2 i. e. procured by his own fault.

3 "His trifling levity throws so much burden upon us.

4 i. e. "visit him for't."

5 "Those whom not love, but fear, made adherents to Cæsar, now show their affection for Pompey."

The discontents1 repair, and men's reports
Give him much wronged.

Cæs.

I should have known no less.

It hath been taught us from the primal state,

That he, which is, was wished until he were ;

2

And the ebbed man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love, Comes deared, by being lacked. This common body, Like a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,3

To rot itself with motion.

Mess.

Cæsar, I bring thee word,

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,

4

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

6

Lack blood 5 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.

7

Antony,

Cæs. Leave thy lascivious wassals. 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 8 Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did

deign

The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;

Yea, like a stag, when snow the pasture sheets,

1 That is, the malecontents.

2 The old copy reads, "Comes feared by being lacked."

3 The folio reads, "lashing the varying tide." The emendation, which is well supported by Steevens, was made by Theobald. Perhaps another Messenger should be noted as entering here, with fresh news.

4 Plough.

5 i. e. turn pale.

6 Flush youth is youth ripened to manhood, youth whose blood is at

the flow.

7 Wassals, or wassailes, is here put for intemperance in general. 8 All these circumstances of Antony's distress are literally taken from Plutarch.