Complete Plays, The
Page 126
Pompey the Great and all his dignities
Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
The sides o’ the world may danger: much is breeding,
Which, like the courser’s hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent’s poison. Say, our pleasure,
To such whose place is under us, requires
Our quick remove from hence.
Domitius Enobarbus
I shall do’t.
Exeunt
SCENE III. THE SAME. ANOTHER ROOM.
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Alexas
Cleopatra
Where is he?
Charmian
I did not see him since.
Cleopatra
See where he is, who’s with him, what he does:
I did not send you: if you find him sad,
Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick: quick, and return.
Exit Alexas
Charmian
Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,
You do not hold the method to enforce
The like from him.
Cleopatra
What should I do, I do not?
Charmian
In each thing give him way, cross him nothing.
Cleopatra
Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him.
Charmian
Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear:
In time we hate that which we often fear.
But here comes Antony.
Enter Mark Antony
Cleopatra
I am sick and sullen.
Mark Antony
I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose,—
Cleopatra
Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall:
It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature
Will not sustain it.
Mark Antony
Now, my dearest queen,—
Cleopatra
Pray you, stand further from me.
Mark Antony
What’s the matter?
Cleopatra
I know, by that same eye, there’s some good news.
What says the married woman? You may go:
Would she had never given you leave to come!
Let her not say ’tis I that keep you here:
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
Mark Antony
The gods best know,—
Cleopatra
O, never was there queen
So mightily betray’d! yet at the first
I saw the treasons planted.
Mark Antony
Cleopatra,—
Cleopatra
Why should I think you can be mine and true,
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
Which break themselves in swearing!
Mark Antony
Most sweet queen,—
Cleopatra
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.
Mark Antony
How now, lady!
Cleopatra
I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst know
There were a heart in Egypt.
Mark Antony
Hear me, queen:
The strong necessity of time commands
Our services awhile; but my full heart
Remains in use 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
Breed scrupulous faction: the hated, grown to strength,
Are newly grown to love: the condemn’d Pompey,
Rich in his father’s honour, 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 my going,
Is Fulvia’s death.
Cleopatra
Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness: can Fulvia die?
Mark Antony
She’s dead, my queen:
Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read
The garboils she awaked; at the last, best:
See when and where she died.
Cleopatra
O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,
In Fulvia’s death, how mine received shall be.
Mark Antony
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.
Cleopatra
Cut my lace, Charmian, come;
But let it be: I am quickly ill, and well,
So Antony loves.
Mark Antony
My precious queen, forbear;
And give true evidence to his love, which stands
An honourable trial.
Cleopatra
So Fulvia told me.
I prithee, 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
Life perfect honour.
Mark Antony
You’ll heat my blood: no more.
Cleopatra
You can do better yet; but this is meetly.
Mark Antony
Now, by my sword,—
Cleopatra
And target. Still he mends;
But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,
How this Herculean Roman does become
The carriage of his chafe.
Mark Antony
I’ll leave you, lady.
Cleopatra
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 oblivion is a very Antony,
And I am all forgotten.
Mark Antony
But that your royalty
Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
For idleness itself.
Cleopatra
’Tis sweating labour
To bear such idleness so near the heart
As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;
Since my becomings kill me, when they do not
Eye well to you: your honour calls you hence;
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly.
And all the gods go with you! upon your sword
Sit laurel victory! and smooth success
Be strew’d before your feet!
Mark Antony
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. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S HOUSE.
Enter Octavius Caesar, reading a letter, Lepidus, and their Train
Octavius Caesar
You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate
Our great competitor: from Alexandria
This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel; is not more man-like
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
A man who is the abstract of all faults
That all men follow.
Lepidus
I must not think there are
Evils enow to darken all his goodness:
His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,
More fiery by night’s blackness; hereditary,
Rather than purchased; what he cannot change,
Than what he chooses.
Octavius Caesar
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 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.
Enter a Messenger
Lepidus
Here’s more news.
Messenger
Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,
Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report
How ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;
And it appears he is beloved of those
That only have fear’d Caesar: to the ports
The discontents repair, and men’s reports
Give him much wrong’d.
Octavius Caesar
I should have known no less.
It hath been taught us from the primal state,
That he which is was wish’d until he were;
And the ebb’d man, ne’er loved till ne’er worth love,
Comes dear’d by being lack’d. This common body,
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.
Messenger
Caesar, I bring thee word,
Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
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
Lack blood 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.
Octavius Caesar
Antony,
Leave thy lascivious wassails. 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
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed’st; on the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this —
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now —
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank’d not.
Lepidus
’Tis pity of him.
Octavius Caesar
Let his shames quickly
Drive him to Rome: ’tis time we twain
Did show ourselves i’ the field; and to that end
Assemble we immediate council: Pompey
Thrives in our idleness.
Lepidus
To-morrow, Caesar,
I shall be furnish’d to inform you rightly
Both what by sea and land I can be able
To front this present time.
Octavius Caesar
Till which encounter,
It is my business too. Farewell.
Lepidus
Farewell, my lord: what you shall know meantime
Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,
To let me be partaker.
Octavius Caesar
Doubt not, sir;
I knew it for my bond.
Exeunt
SCENE V. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Mardian
Cleopatra
Charmian!
Charmian
Madam?
Cleopatra
Ha, ha!
Give me to drink mandragora.
Charmian
Why, madam?
Cleopatra
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.
Charmian
You think of him too much.
Cleopatra
O, ’tis treason!
Charmian
Madam, I trust, not so.
Cleopatra
Thou, eunuch Mardian!
Mardian
What’s your highness’ pleasure?
Cleopatra
Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure
In aught an eunuch has: ’tis well for thee,
That, being unseminar’d, thy freer thoughts
May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?
Mardian
Yes, gracious madam.
Cleopatra
Indeed!
Mardian
Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing
But what indeed is honest to be done:
Yet have I fierce affections, and think
What Venus did with Mars.
Cleopatra
O Charmian,
Where think’st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?
Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse! for wot’st thou whom thou movest?
The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now,
Or murmuring ‘Where’s my serpent of old Nile?’
For so he calls me: now I feed myself
With most delicious poison. Think on me,
That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black,
And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,
When thou wast here above the ground, I was
A morsel for a monarch: and great Pompey
Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;
There would he anchor his aspect and die
With looking on his life.
Enter Alexas, from Octavius Caesar
Alexas
Sovereign of Egypt, hail!
Cleopatra
How much unlike art thou
Mark Antony!
Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath
With his tinct gilded thee.
How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?
Alexas
Last thing he did, dear queen,
He kiss’d,— the last of many doubled kisses,—
This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.
Cleopatra
Mine ear must pluck it thence.
Alexas
‘Good friend,’ quoth he,
’say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends
This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,
To mend the petty present, I will piece
Her opulent throne with kingdoms; all the east,
Say thou, shall call her mistress.’ So he nodded,
And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
Who neigh’d so high, that what I would have spoke
Was beastly dumb’d by him.
Cleopatra
What, was he sad or merry?
Alexas
Like to the time o’ the year between the extremes
Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.
Cleopatra
O well-divided disposition! Note him,
Note him good Charmian, ’tis the man; but note him:
He was not sad, for he would shine on those
That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
Which seem’d to tell them his remembrance lay
In Egypt with his joy; but between both:
O heavenly mingle! Be’st thou sad or merry,
The violence of either thee becomes,
So does it no man else. Met’st thou my posts?
Alexas
Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick?
Cleopatra
Who’s born that day
When I forget to send to Antony,
Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Caesar so?
Charmian
O that brave Caesar!
Cleopatra
Be choked with such another emphasis!
Say, the brave Antony.
Charmian
The valiant Caesar!
Cleopatra
By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
If thou with Caesar paragon again
My man of men.
Charmian
By your most gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.
Cleopatra
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then! But, come, away;
Get me ink and paper:
He shall have every day a several greeting,
Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.
Exeunt
ACT II
SCENE I. MESSINA. POMPEY’S HOUSE.
Enter Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas, in warlike manner
Pompey
If the great gods be just, they shall assist
The deeds of justest men.