The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 330
Enter Decretas with the sword of Antony
CAESAR
Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar’st
Appear thus to us?
DECRETAS
I am called Decretas.
Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy
Best to be served. Whilst he stood up and spoke
He was my master, and I wore my life
To spend upon his haters. If thou please
To take me to thee, as I was to him
I’ll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,
I yield thee up my life.
CAESAR
What is’t thou sayst?
DECRETAS
I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.
CAESAR
The breaking of so great a thing should make
A greater crack. The rived world
Should have shook lions into civil streets,
And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in that name lay
A moiety of the world.
DECRETAS
He is dead, Caesar,
Not by a public minister of justice,
Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand
Which writ his honour in the acts it did
Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
Splitted the heart. This is his sword;
I robbed his wound of it. Behold it stained
With his most noble blood.
CAESAR (weeping)
Look you, sad friends, The gods rebuke me; but it is a tidings
To wash the eyes of kings.
⌈AGRIPPA⌉
And strange it is
That nature must compel us to lament
Our most persisted deeds.
MAECENAS
His taints and honours
Waged equal with him.
⌈AGRIPPA⌉
A rarer spirit never
Did steer humanity; but you gods will give us
Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touched.
MAECENAS
When such a spacious mirror’s set before him
He needs must see himself.
CAESAR
O Antony, I have followed thee to this. But we do lance
Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce
Have shown to thee such a declining day,
Or look on thine. We could not stall together
In the whole world. But yet let me lament,
With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
That thou, my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
Friend and companion in the front of war,
The arm of mine own body, and the heart
Where mine his thoughts did kindle—that our stars,
Unreconciliable, should divide
Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends—
Enter an Egyptian
But I will tell you at some meeter season.
The business of this man looks out of him;
We’ll hear him what he says.—Whence are you?
EGYPTIAN
A poor Egyptian, yet the Queen my mistress,
Confined in all she has, her monument,
Of thy intents desires instruction,
That she preparèdly may frame herself
To th’ way she’s forced to.
CAESAR
Bid her have good heart.
She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,
How honourable and how kindly we
Determine for her. For Caesar cannot live
To be ungentle.
EGYPTIAN
So; the gods preserve thee! Exit
CAESAR
Come hither, Proculeius. Go, and say
We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts
The quality of her passion shall require,
Lest in her greatness, by some mortal stroke,
She do defeat us; for her life in Rome
Would be eternal in our triumph. Go,
And with your speediest bring us what she says
And how you find of her.
PROCULEIUS
Caesar, I shall. Exit
CAESAR
Gallus, go you along.
Exit Gallus
Where’s Dolabella,
To second Proculeius?
ALL BUT CAESAR
Dolabella!
CAESAR
Let him alone; for I remember now
How he’s employed. He shall in time be ready.
Go with me to my tent, where you shall see
How hardly I was drawn into this war,
How calm and gentle I proceeded still
In all my writings. Go with me, and see
What I can show in this.
Exeunt
5.2 Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Mardian
CLEOPATRA
My desolation does begin to make
A better life. ’Tis paltry to be Caesar.
Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave,
A minister of her will. And it is great
To do that thing that ends all other deeds,
Which shackles accidents and bolts up change,
Which sleeps and never palates more the dung,
The beggar’s nurse, and Caesar’s.
Enter Proculeius
PROCULEIUS
Caesar sends greeting to the Queen of Egypt,
And bids thee study on what fair demands
Thou mean’st to have him grant thee.
CLEOPATRA What’s thy name?
PROCULEIUS
My name is Proculeius.
CLEOPATRA
Antony
Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but
I do not greatly care to be deceived,
That have no use for trusting. If your master
Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him
That majesty, to keep decorum, must
No less beg than a kingdom. If he please
To give me conquered Egypt for my son,
He gives me so much of mine own as I
Will kneel to him with thanks.
PROCULEIUS
Be of good cheer.
You’re fall’n into a princely hand; fear nothing.
Make your full reference freely to my lord,
Who is so full of grace that it flows over
On all that need. Let me report to him
Your sweet dependency, and you shall find
A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness,
Where he for grace is kneeled to.
CLEOPATRA
Pray you, tell him
I am his fortune’s vassal, and I send him
The greatness he has got. I hourly learn
A doctrine of obedience, and would gladly
Look him i’th’ face.
PROCULEIUS
This I’ll report, dear lady;
Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied
Of him that caused it.
⌈Enter Roman soldiers from behind⌉
PROCULEIUS (to the soldiers)
You see how easily she may be surprised.
Guard her till Caesar come.
IRAS
Royal Queen-
CHARMIAN
O Cleopatra, thou art taken, Queen!
CLEOPATRA (drawing a dagger)
Quick, quick, good hands!
PROCULEIUS (disarming Cleopatra)
Hold, worthy lady, hold!
Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this
Relieved but not betrayed.
CLEOPATRA
What, of death too,
That rids our dogs of languish?
PROCULEIUS
Cleopatra,
Do not abuse my master’s bounty by
Th’undoing of yourself. Let the world see
His nobleness well acted, which your death
&nb
sp; Will never let come forth.
CLEOPATRA
Where art thou, death?
Come hither, come. Come, come, and take a queen
Worth many babes and beggars.
PROCULEIUS
O temperance, lady!
CLEOPATRA
Sir, I will eat no meat. I’ll not drink, sir.
If idle talk will once be necessary,
I’ll not sleep, neither. This mortal house I’ll ruin,
Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I
Will not wait pinioned at your master’s court,
Nor once be chastised with the sober eye
Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up
And show me to the shouting varletry
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave unto me; rather on Nilus’ mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the waterflies
Blow me into abhorring; rather make
My country’s high pyramides my gibbet,
And hang me up in chains.
PROCULEIUS
You do extend
These thoughts of horror further than you shall
Find cause in Caesar.
Enter Dolabella
DOLABELLA
Proculeius,
What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,
And he hath sent for thee. For the Queen,
I’ll take her to my guard.
PROCULEIUS
So, Dolabella,
It shall content me best. Be gentle to her.
(To Cleopatra) To Caesar I will speak what you shall
please,
If you’ll employ me to him.
CLEOPATRA
Say I would die.
Exit Proculeius
DOLABELLA
Most noble Empress, you have heard of me.
CLEOPATRA
I cannot tell.
DOLABELLA
Assuredly you know me.
CLEOPATRA
No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;
Is’t not your trick?
DOLABELLA
I understand not, madam.
CLEOPATRA
I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony.
O, such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man!
DOLABELLA
If it might please ye—
CLEOPATRA
His face was as the heav‘ns, and therein stuck
A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted
The little O o’th’ earth.
DOLABELLA
Most sovereign creature—
CLEOPATRA
His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm
Crested the world. His voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in’t; an autumn ’twas,
That grew the more by reaping. His delights
Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above
The element they lived in. In his livery
Walked crowns and crownets. Realms and islands were
As plates dropped from his pocket.
DOLABELLA
Cleopatra—
CLEOPATRA
Think you there was, or might be, such a man
As this I dreamt of?
DOLABELLA
Gentle madam, no.
CLEOPATRA
You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.
But if there be, or ever were one such,
It’s past the size of dreaming. Nature wants stuff
To vie strange forms with fancy; yet t‘imagine
An Antony were nature’s piece ’gainst fancy,
Condemning shadows quite.
DOLABELLA
Hear me, good madam: Your loss is as yourself, great, and you bear it
As answering to the weight. Would I might never
O’ertake pursued success but I do feel,
By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites
My very heart at root.
CLEOPATRA
I thank you, sir.
Know you what Caesar means to do with me?
DOLABELLA
I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.
CLEOPATRA
Nay, pray you, sir.
DOLABELLA
Though he be honourable—
CLEOPATRA
He’ll lead me then in triumph.
DOLABELLA
Madam, he will, I know’t.
Flourish. Enter Caesar, with Proculeius, Gallus, Maecenas, and others of his train
ALL
Make way, there! Caesar!
CAESAR
Which is the Queen of Egypt?
DOLABELLA (to Cleopatra)
It is the Emperor, madam.
Cleopatra kneels
CAESAR
Arise! You shall not kneel.
I pray you rise, rise, Egypt.
CLEOPATRA (rising)
Sir, the gods
Will have it thus. My master and my lord
I must obey.
CAESAR
Take to you no hard thoughts.
The record of what injuries you did us,
Though written in our flesh, we shall remember
As things but done by chance.
CLEOPATRA
Sole sir o’th’ world, I cannot project mine own cause so well
To make it clear, but do confess I have
Been laden with like frailties which before
Have often shamed our sex.
CAESAR
Cleopatra, know
We will extenuate rather than enforce.
If you apply yourself to our intents,
Which towards you are most gentle, you shall find
A benefit in this change; but if you seek
To lay on me a cruelty by taking
Antony’s course, you shall bereave yourself
Of my good purposes and put your children
To that destruction which I’ll guard them from,
If thereon you rely. I’ll take my leave.
CLEOPATRA
And may through all the world! ’Tis yours, and we,
Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall
Hang in what place you please. (Giving a paper) Here,
my good lord.
CAESAR
You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA
This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels
I am possessed of. ’Tis exactly valued,
Not petty things admitted. Where’s Seleucus?
⌈Enter Seleucus⌉
SELEUCUS Here, madam.
CLEOPATRA (to Caesar)
This is my treasurer. Let him speak, my lord,
Upon his peril, that I have reserved
To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.
SELEUCUS
Madam, I had rather seal my lips
Than to my peril speak that which is not.
CLEOPATRA What have I kept back?
SELEUCUS
Enough to purchase what you have made known.
CAESAR
Nay, blush not, Cleopatra. I approve
Your wisdom in the deed.
CLEOPATRA
See, Caesar! O, behold
How pomp is followed! Mine will now be yours,
And should we shift estates, yours would be mine.
The ingratitude of this Seleucus does
Even make me wild.—O slave, of no more trust
Than love that’s hired! What, goest thou back? Thou
shalt
Go back, I warrant thee; but I’ll catch thine eyes
Though they had wings. Slave, soulless villain, dog!
O rarely base!
CAESAR
Good Queen, let us entreat you.
CLEOPATRA
O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,
That thou vouchsafing here to visit me,
Doing the honour of thy lordliness
To one so meek—that mine own servant should
Parcel the sum of my disgraces by
Addition of his envy. Say, good Caesar,
That I some lady trifles have reserved,
Immoment toys, things of such dignity
As we greet modern friends withal; and say
Some nobler token I have kept apart
For Livia and Octavia, to induce
Their mediation—must I be unfolded
With one that I have bred? The gods! It smites me
Beneath the fall I have. (To Seleucus) Prithee, go hence,
Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through th’ashes of my chance. Wert thou a man
Thou wouldst have mercy on me.
CAESAR
Forbear, Seleucus.
Exit Seleucus
CLEOPATRA
Be it known that we, the greatest, are misthought
For things that others do; and when we fall
We answer others’ merits in our name,
Are therefore to be pitied.
CAESAR
Cleopatra,
Not what you have reserved nor what acknowledged
Put we i’th’ roll of conquest. Still be’t yours.
Bestow it at your pleasure, and believe
Caesar’s no merchant, to make prize with you
Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheered.
Make not your thoughts your prisons. No, dear
Queen;
For we intend so to dispose you as
Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed and sleep.
Our care and pity is so much upon you
That we remain your friend; and so adieu.
CLEOPATRA
My master and my lord!
CAESAR
Not so. Adieu.
Flourish. Exeunt Caesar and his train
CLEOPATRA
He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
Be noble to myself. But hark thee, Charmian.
She whispers to Charmian
IRAS
Finish, good lady. The bright day is done,
And we are for the dark.
CLEOPATRA (to Charmian) Hie thee again.
I have spoke already, and it is provided.
Go put it to the haste.
CHARMIAN
Madam, I will.
Enter Dolabella
DOLABELLA
Where’s the Queen?
CHARMIAN
Behold, sir.
Exit