Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness, To be entangled with those mouth-made vows, Which break themselves in swearing!

Ant.

Most sweet queen,—

Cleo. Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your

going,

But bid farewell, and

go: when you sued staying, 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.

Ant.

How now, lady!

Cleo. I would, I had thy inches; thou should'st

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 5 with you. Our Italy

Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius Makes his approaches to the port of Rome: Equality of two domestick powers

Breeds scrupulous faction: The hated, grown to strength,

Are newly grown to love: the condemn'd Pompey,

3 Our brows' bent,' is the bending or inclination of our brows. The brow is that part of the face which expresses most fully the mental emotions. So in King John:

'Why do you bend such solemn brows on me.'

4 i. e. of heavenly mould.

Divinæ stirpis alumnus.'

6

5 The poet here means, in pledge,' the use of a thing is the possession of it. Thus in The Merchant of Venice:

6 Gate.

'I am content, so he will let me have

The other half in use.'

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 safe7 my going,
Is Fulvia's death.

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

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

Look here, and, at thy sovereign leisure, read
The garboils she awak'd9; at the last, best:
See, when, and where she died.

Cleo.
O most false love:
Where be the sacred vials thou should'st fill
With sorrowful water 10? I see, I see,

In Fulvia's death, how mine receiv'd shall be.
Ant. Quarrel no more, but be prepar'd 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 honourable trial.

7 i. e. render my going not dangerous.

8 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? cannot believe it.'

9 The commotion she occasioned.

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

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 11: 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 12 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 lov'd,—but there's not it;
That you know well: Something it is I would,-
O, my oblivion 13 is a very Antony,

And I am all forgotten.

Ant.

But that your royalty

Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
For idleness itself 14.

Cleo.

To bear such idleness so near the heart

'Tis sweating labour,

As Cleopatra this.

But, sir, forgive me;

Since my becomings kill me, when they do not

Eye well to you 15:

Your honour calls you hence;

11 To me, the queen of Egypt.

12 Antony traced his descent from Anton, a son of Hercules. 13 Oblivion is used for oblivious memory, a memory apt to be deceitful.

14 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.'

15 That which would seem to become me most, is hateful to

Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,

And all the gods go with you! upon your sword Sit laurel'd victory! and smooth success

Be strew'd 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 16.

Away.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

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 competitor1: 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

me when it is not acceptable in your sight.' There is perhaps an allusion to what Antony said in the first scene:

wrangling queen,

Whom every thing becomes.'

16 This conceit may have been suggested by the following passage in Sidney's Arcadia, b. i.:

'She went, they staid; or rightly for to say

She staid with them, they went in thought with her.' Thus also in the Mercator of Plautus:- Si domi sum, foris est animus; sin foris sum, animus domi est.'

1 The old copy reads, One great competitor. Dr. Johnson proposed the emendation. So Menas says:

These three world-sharers, these competitors

Are in thy vessel.'

And Cæsar, speaking of Antony in another place, says:-
That thou my brother, my competitor

In top of all design, my mate in empire.'

More womanly than he: hardly gave audience, or Vouchsaf'd to think he had partners: You shall find there

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: His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary, Rather than purchas'd3; 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
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 5 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

2 As the stars or spots of heaven appear more bright and prominent from the darkness of the night, so the faults of Antony seem enlarged and aggravated by his goodness, which gives relief to his faults, and makes them show out more prominent and conspicuous.'

3 i. e. procured by his own fault.

4 His trifling levity throws so much burden upon us.'

5 i. e. visit him for't.' If Antony followed his debaucheries at times of leisure only, I should leave him to be punished (says Cæsar) by their natural consequences, by surfeits and dry bones, but to consume such time,' &c.