CLEOPATRA. 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 CLEOPATRA, SERAPION, CHARMION, and IRAS.]
ALEXAS. O that I less could fear to lose this being, Which, like a snowball 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.
ANTONY. Which way? where?
[Within.]
VENTIDIUS. This leads to the monument.
[Within.]
ALEXAS. Ah me! I hear him; yet I'm unprepared:
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 far go hence.
[Exit.]
Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS
ANTONY. O happy Caesar! thou hast men to lead:
Think not 'tis thou hast conquered Antony;But Rome has conquered Egypt. I'm betrayed.
VENTIDIUS. Curse on this treacherous train!
Their soil and heaven infect them all with baseness:
And their young souls come tainted to the world With the first breath they draw.
ANTONY. 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.
VENTIDIUS. The nation is One universal traitor; and their queen The very spirit and extract of them all.
ANTONY. 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 Caesar.
The world's one half is yet in Antony;
And from each limb of it, that's hewed away, The soul comes back to me.
VENTIDIUS. 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.
ANTONY. They are 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 giv'st, I'll take on me, as a just debt, And pay thee back a soul.
VENTIDIUS. 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 Caesar, to outlive you.
When we put off this flesh, and mount together, I shall be shown to all the ethereal crowd,--Lo, this is he who died with Antony!
ANTONY. 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 VENTIDIUS. 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 sets his countenance for deceit, And promises a lie, before he speaks!
Let me despatch him first.
[Drawing.]
ALEXAS. O spare me, spare me!
ANTONY. Hold; he's not worth your killing.--On thy life, Which thou may'st keep, because I scorn to take it, No syllable to justify thy queen;1
ALEXAS. Sir, she is gone.
Where she shall never be molested more By love, or you.
ANTONY. Fled to her Dolabella!
Die, traitor! I revoke my promise! die!
[Going to kill him.]
ALEXAS. O hold! she is not fled.
ANTONY. 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 over. 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 Caesar.
ALEXAS. 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 Caesar, Secure by such a bribe!
VENTIDIUS. She sent it first, To be more welcome after.
ANTONY. 'Tis too plain;
Else would she have appeared, to clear herself.
ALEXAS. 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 indistinguished words she only murmured;At last, she raised her eyes; and, with such looks As dying Lucrece cast--ANTONY. My heart forebodes--
VENTIDIUS. All for the best:--Go on.
ALEXAS. 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.
VENTIDIUS. Heaven be praised!
ANTONY. Then art thou innocent, my poor dear love, And art thou dead?
O those two words! their sound should be divided:
Hadst thou been false, and died; or hadst thou lived, And hadst been true--But innocence and death!
This shows not well above. Then what am I, The murderer of this truth, this innocence!
Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid As can express my guilt!
VENTIDIUS. Is't come to this? The gods have been too gracious;And thus you thank them for it!
ANTONY. [to ALEXAS.] Why stayest thou here?
Is it for thee to spy upon my soul, And see its inward mourning? Get thee hence;Thou art not worthy to behold, what now Becomes a Roman emperor to perform.
ALEXAS. He loves her still:
His grief betrays it. Good! the joy to find She's yet alive, completes the reconcilement.
I've saved myself, and her. But, oh! the Romans!
Fate comes too fast upon my wit, Hunts me too hard, and meets me at each double.
[Aside.]
[Exit.]
VENTIDIUS. Would she had died a little sooner, though!
Before Octavia went, you might have treated:
Now 'twill look tame, and would not be received.
