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Mess.

Madam, in Rome

I look'd her in the face; and saw her led
Between her brother and Mark Antony.

Cleo. Is she as tall as me?
Mess.

She is not, madam.

Cleo. Didst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongu'd,

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or low?

Mess. Madam, I heard her speak; she is low-
voic'd.

Cleo. That's not so good:-he cannot like her long.
Char. Like her? O Isis! 'tis impossible.

Cleo. I think so, Charmian: Dull of tongue, and
dwarfish!-

What majesty is in her gait? Remember,

If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.

Mess.

She creeps;

Her motion and her station1 are as one:
She shows a body rather than a life;

A statue, than a breather.

Cleo.

Mess. Or I have no observance.

Char.

Cannot make better note.

Cleo.

Is this certain?

Three in Egypt

He's very knowing,

I do perceive't:-There's nothing in her yet:-
The fellow has good judgment.

Char.

Cleo. Guess at her years, I pr'ythee.

Mess.

She was a widow.

Cleo.

Excellent.

Madam,

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Mess. And I do think, she's thirty.

1 Station here means the act of standing. So in Hamlet:'A station like the herald Mercury.'

2 Cleopatra rejoices in this circumstance, as it sets Octavia on a level with herself, who was no virgin, when she fell to the lot of Antony.

Cleo. Bear'st thou her face in mind? is't long, or

round?

Mess. Round even to faultiness.

Cleo. For the most part too, they are foolish that are so3.

Her hair, what colour?

Mess. Brown, madam: And her forehead As low as she would wish it.

Cleo. There is gold for thee. Thou must not take my former sharpness ill:I will employ thee back again; I find thee Most fit for business: Go, make thee ready; Our letters are prepar❜d.

Char.

Cleo. Indeed, he is so:

[Exit Messenger.

A proper man.

I repent me much,

That I so harry'd him. Why, methinks, by him, This creature's no such thing.

Char.

Nothing, madam. Cleo. The man hath seen some majesty, and should

know.

Char. Hath he seen majesty ? Isis else defend, And serving you so long!

Cleo. I have one thing more to ask him yet, good

Charmian:-
:-

But 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me
Where I will write: All may be well enough.
Char. I warrant you, madam.

[Exeunt.

3 This is from the old writers on physiognomy. Thus in Hill's Pleasant History, &c. 1613: The head very round, to be forgetful and foolish. Again:-' The head long, to be prudent and wary.' A low forehead,' &c. p. 218.

4 To harry is to harass, to worry, to use roughly, to vex, or molest, from the old Norman-French harier of the same meaning. The word occurs frequently in our old writers. Thus in The Revengers' Tragedy, 1607 :

He harry'd her amidst a nest of pandars.' So Nash, in his Lenten Stuff:- As if he were harrying and chasing his enemies.'

SCENE IV. Athens. A Room in Antony's House.

Enter ANTONY and OCTAVIA.

Ant. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that,
That were excusable, that, and thousands more
Of semblable import,—but he hath wag'd

New wars 'gainst Pompey: made his will, and read it
To publick ear:

Spoke scantly of me; when perforce he could not
But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly
He vented them; most narrow measure lent me:
When the best hint was given him, he not took't,
Or did it from his teeth 1.

Oct.
O my good lord,
Believe not all: or, if you must believe,
Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady,
If this division chance, ne'er stood between,
Praying for both parts: the good gods will mock
me presently,

When I shall pray2, O bless my lord and husband!
Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud,

O, bless my brother! Husband win, win brother,
Prays, and destroys the prayer; no midway
"Twixt these extremes at all.

Let

Ant.

your

Gentle Octavia,

best love draw to that point, which seeks Best to preserve it: If I lose mine honour,

1 i. e. to appearance only, not seriously. Thus Dryden in his Wild Gallant:- I am confident she is only angry from the teeth outward.' So Chapman, in his version of the fifteenth Iliad :-'She laught, but meerly from her lips.'

And Fuller, in his Holie Warre, b. iv. c. 17:~ This bad breath, though it came but from the teeth of some, yet proceeded from the corrupt lungs of others.'

2 The situation and sentiments of Octavia resemble those of Lady Blanch in King John, Act iii. Se. 1.

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I lose myself: better I were not yours,
Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested;
Yourself shall go between us: The mean time, lady,
I'll raise the preparation of a war

Shall stain your brother; Make your soonest haste;
So your desires are yours.

Oct. Thanks to my lord. The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak, Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be As if the world should cleave, and that slain men Should solder up

Ant. When it

the rift.

where this begins, appears to you Turn your displeasure that way; for our faults Can never be so equal, that your love

Can equally move with them. Provide your going; Choose your own company,

Your heart has mind to.

and command what cost

SCENE V.

[Exeunt.

The same. Another Room in the same.

Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting.
Eno. How now, friend Eros?

Eros. There's strange news come, sir.

3 Mr. Boswell suggests that, perhaps, we should read, 'Shall stay your brother.' To stain is not here used for to shame or disgrace, as Johnson supposed; but for to eclipse, extinguish, throw into the shade, to put out; from the old French esteindre. In this sense it is used in all the examples cited by Steevens: here at hand approacheth one

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Whose face will stain you all.'

Tottel's Miscellany, 1568. 'So Shore's wife's face made fowle Brownetta blush, As pearle staynes pitch, or gold surmounts a rush.' Shore's Wife, by Churchyard, 1593. Whose beautie staines the faire Helen of Greece.'

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Churchyard's Charitie, 1595. the praise and yet the stain of all womankind.' Sidney's Arcadia.

Eno. What, man?

Eros. Cæsar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

Eno. This is old; What is the success?

Eros. Cæsar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality 1! would not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him: So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

Eno. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more 3;

And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? Eros. He's walking in the garden-thus; and

spurns

The rush that lies before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus! And threats the throat of that his officer,

That murder'd Pompey.

Eno.

Our great navy's rigged.

Eros. For Italy, and Cæsar. More, Domitius; My lord desires you presently: my news

I might have told hereafter.

Eno.

But let it be.-Bring me to Antony.

Eros. Come, sir.

"Twill be naught:

[Exeunt.

1i. e. equal rank. In Hamlet Horatio and Marcellus are styled by Bernardo 'the rivals' of his watch.'

out

2

Appeal here means accusation. Cæsar seized Lepidus withany other proof than Cæsar's accusation.

3 No more does not signify no longer; but has the same meaning as if Shakspeare had written and no more: Thou hast now a pair of chaps, and only a pair. Cæsar and Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey on between them.' The old copy reads would instead of world, and omits one the in the third line of this speech.

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