Antonius

A Discourse of Life and Death. Written in French by Philippe Mornay. Antonius. A Tragedy written also in French by Robert Garnier. Both done in English by the Countess of Pembroke at London, printed for William Ponsonby, 1592.

 The Argument 

After the overthrow of Brutus and Cassius, the liberty of Rome being now utterly oppressed, and the Empire settled in the hands of Octavius Caesar and Marcus Antonius, (who for knitting a straighter bond of amity between them, had taken to wife Octavia the sister of Caesar) Antonius undertook a journey against the Parthians,
with intent to regain on them the honour won by them from the Romans, at the discomfiture and slaughter of Crassus. But coming in his journey into Syria, the places renewed in his remembrance the long intermitted love of Cleopatra queen of Egypt, who, before time, had both in Cilicia and at Alexandria entertained him with all the exquisite delights and sumptuous pleasures, which a great prince and voluptuous lover could to the uttermost desire. Whereupon omitting his enterprise, he made his return to Alexandria, again falling to his former loves, without any regard of his virtuous wife Octavia, by whom nevertheless he had excellent Children. This occasion Octavius took of taking arms against him, and preparing a mighty fleet, encountered him at Actium, who also had assembled to that place a great number of Gallies of his own, besides 60. Which Cleopatra brought with her from Egypt. But at the very beginning of the battle Cleopatra with all her Gallies betook her to flight, which Antony seeing could not but follow; by his departure leaving to Octavius the greatest victory which in any sea battle hath been heard off. Which he not negligent to pursue, follows them the next spring, and besiegeth them within Alexandria, where Antony finding all that he trusted to fail him, beginneth to grow jealous and to suspect Cleopatra. She thereupon enclosed herself with two of her women in a monument she had before caused to be built, thence sends him word she was dead: which he believing for truth, gave himself with his sword a deadly wound, but died not until a messenger came from Cleopatra to have him brought to her to the tomb which she not daring to open least she should be made a prisoner to the Romans, and carried in Caesar’s triumph, cast down a cord from an high window, by the which (her women helping her) she trussed up Antonius half dead, and so got him into the monument. The stage supposed Alexandria: the chorus first Egyptians and after Roman soldiers . The history to be read at large in Plutarch  in the life of Antonius.

The Actors.

Antonius.

Cleopatra.

Eras and Charmion, Cleopatra’s women.

Philostratus, a philosopher.

Lucilius.

Diomede, Secretary to Cleopatra.

Octavius Caesar.

Agrippa.

Euphron, teacher of Cleopatra’s children.

Children of Cleopatra.

Dircetus, the Messenger.

[Chorus of Egyptians]

[Chorus of Roman Soldiers] 

[1]

ANTONIUS

Since cruel heav’ns against me obstinate,

Since all misshapes of the round engine do

Conspire my harm: since men, since powers divine

Air, earth, and sea are all injurious,

And that my queen herself, in whom I liv’d,

The idol of my heart, doth me pursue;

It’s meet I die. For her have I forgone

My country, Caesar unto war provok’d

(For just revenge of Sisters wrong, my wife,

Who mov’d my queen, ay me! to jealousy).

For love of her, in her allurements caught

Abandon’d life, I honour have despised,

Disdain’d my friends, and of the stately Rome

Despoiled the Empire of her best attire,

Contemn’d that power that made me so much fear’d,

A slave become unto her feeble face.

   O cruel, traitress, woman most unkind,

Thou dost, forsworn, my love and life betray:

And giv’st me up to rageful enemy,

Which soon (O fool!) will plague thy perjury.

   Yielded Pelusium on this countries shore,

Yielded thou hast my ships and men of war,

That nought remains (so destitute am I)

But these same arms which on my back I wear.

Thou should’st have had them too, and me unarm’d

Yielded to Caesar naked of defence.

Which while I bear let Caesar never think

Triumph of me shall his proud chariot grace

Not think with me his glory to adorn,

On me alive to use his victory.

  Thou only Cleopatra triumph hast,

Thou only hast my freedom servile made,

Thou only hast me vanquisht: not by force

(For forced I cannot be) but by sweet baits

Of thy eyes graces, which did gain so fast

Upon my liberty, that nought remain’d.

None else henceforth, but thou my dearest queen,

Shall glory in commanding Antony.

    Have Caesar fortune and the Gods his friends,

To him have Jove and fatal sisters  given

The sceptre of the earth: he never shall

Subject my life to his obedience.

But when that death, my glad refuge, shall have

Bounded the course of my unsteadfast life,

And frozen corpse under a marble cold

Within tomb’s bosom, widow of my soul ,

Then at his will let him it subject make:

Then what he will let Caesar do with me:

Make me limb after limb be rent: make me

My burial take in sides of Thracian wolf.

    Poor Antony! Alas what was the day,

The days of loss that gained thee thy love!

Wretch Antony! Since then Megaera  pale

With snaky hairs enchain’d thy misery.

The fire thee burnt was never Cupid’s fire

(For Cupid bears not such a mortal brand)

It was some furies’ torch, Orestes’ torch ,

Which sometimes burnt his mother-murdering soul

(When wandering mad, rage boiling in his blood,

He fled his fault which follow’d as he fled)

Kindled within his bones by shadow pale

Of mother slain return’d from Stygian lake.

    Antony, poor Antony! Since that day

Thy olde good hap did far from thee retire.

Thy virtue dead, thy glory made alive

So oft by martial deeds is gone in smoke:

Since then, the bays so well thy forehead knew

To Venus myrtles yielded have their place,

Trumpets to pipes, field tents to courtly bowers,

Launces and pikes to dances and to feasts.

Since then, O wretch! Instead of bloody wars

Thou shouldst have made upon the Parthian Kings

For Roman honour filed  by Crassus’ foil 

Thou threw’st thy cuirass off, and fearful helm,

With coward courage unto Egypt’s queen

In haste to run, about her neck to hang

Languishing in her arms thy idol made:

In sum, given up to Cleopatra’s eyes.

Thou breakest at length from thence, as one encharm’d

Breaks from th’enchanter that him strongly held.

For thy first reason (spoiling of their force

The poisoned cups of thy fair sorceress)

Recur’d thy sprite, and then on every side

Thou mad’st again the earth with soldiers swarm,

All Asia hidden , Euphrates’ banks do tremble

To see at once so many Romans there

Breath horror, rage, and with a threatening eye

In mighty squadrons cross his swelling streams.

Nought seen but horse, and fire sparkling arms:

Nought heard but hideous noise of muttering troupes.

The Parth , the Mede , abandoning their goods

Hide them for fear in hills of Hircanie ,

Redoubting thee. Then willing to besiege

The great Phraate  head of Media,

Thou campedst at her walls with vain assault,

Thy engines fit (mishap!) not thither brought.

  So long thou stay’st, so long thou dost thee rest,

So long thy love with such things nourished

Reframes, reforms itself and stealingly

Retakes his force and rebecomes more great.

For of thy queen the looks, the grace, the words,

Sweetness, allurements, amorous delights,

Entered again thy soul, and day and night,

In watch, in sleep, her image follow’d thee:

Not dreaming but of her, repenting still

That thou for war hadst such a goddess left.

    Thou car’st no more for Parth, nor Parthian bow,

Sallies, assaults, encounters, shocks, alarms,

For diches, rampiers , wards, entrenched grounds:

Thy only care is sight of Nilus  streams,

Sight of that face whose guileful semblant doth

(Wandering in thee) infect thy tainted heart.

Her absence thee besots, each hour, each hour

Of stay, to thee impatient seems an age.

Enough of conquest, praise thou deem’st enough,

If soon enough the bristled fields thou see

Of fruit-full Egypt, and the stranger flood

Thy queen’s fair eyes (another Pharos) lights.

  Returned low, dishonoured, despised,

In wanton love a woman thee misleads

Sunk in foul sink, meanwhile respecting nought

Thy wife Octavia and her tender babes,

Of whom the long contempt against thee whets

The sword of Caesar now thy Lord become.

    Lost thy great Empire, all those goodly towns

Reverenc’d thy name as rebels now thee leave:

Rise against thee, and to the ensigns flock

Of conqu’ring Caesar, who enwalls thee round

Cag’d in thy hold, scarce master of thy self,

Late master of so many nations.

  Yet, yet, which is of grief extremest grief,

Which is yet of mischief highest mischief,

It’s Cleopatra alas! Alas, it’s she,

It’s she augments the torment of thy pain,

Betrays thy love, thy life alas! Betrays,

Caesar to please, whose grace she seeks to gain:

With thought her Crowne to save, and fortune make

Only thy foe which common ought have been.

  If her I always lov’d, and the first flame

Of her heart-killing love shall burn me last:

Justly complain I she disloyal is,

Nor constant is, even as I constant am,

To comfort my mishap, despising me

No more, then when the heavens favour’d me.

    But ah! By nature women wav’ring are,

Each moment changing and rechanging minds.

Unwise, who blind in them, thinks loyalty

Ever to find in beauties company. 

CHORUS [OF EGYPTIANS]

The boiling tempest still

Makes not sea waters foam

Nor still the northern blast

Disquiets quiet streams:

Nor who his chest to fill

Sayles to the morning beams,

On waves wind tosseth fast

Still keeps his ship from home.

Nor Jove still down doth cast

    Inflam’d with bloody ire

    On man, on tree, on hill,

    His darts of thundering fire.

  Nor still the heat doth last

    On face of parched plain,

  Nor wrinkled cold doth still

    On frozen furrows reign.

But still as long as we

    In this low world remain,

  Mishaps our daily mates

    Our lives do entertain

    And woes which bear no dates

    Still perch upon our heads,

  None go, but straight will be

    Some greater in their steads.

Nature made us not free

  When first she made us live:

    When we began to be,

    To be began our woe,

    Which growing evermore

    As dying life doth grow,

    Do more and more us grieve,

    And tire us more and more.

No stay in fading states,

    For more to height they retch,

  Their fellow miseries.

  The more to height do stretch.

    They cling even to the crown,

  And threatening furious wise

    From tyrannizing pates

    Do often pull it down.

In vain on waves untried

  To shun them go we should,

  To Scythes  and Massagetes 

  Who near the Pole reside:

  In vain to boiling sands

    Which Phoebus’ battery beats,

  For with us still they would

  Cut seas and compass lands.

The darkness no more sure

    To join with heavy night:

    The light which guilds the days

    To follow Titan pure:

  No more the shadow light

  The body to ensue,

    Then wretchedness always

  Us wretches to pursue.

O blest who never breath’d,

    Or whom with pity mov’de,

    Death from his cradle reav’de,

  And swaddled in his grave:

  And blessd also he

  (As curse may blessing have)

    Who low and living free

    No princes charge hath prov’de.

By stealing sacred fire

  Prometheus then unwise,

    Provoking Gods to ire,

  The heap of ills did stur ,

  And sickness pale and cold

  Our end which onward spur,

    To plague our hands too bold

    To filch the wealth of Skies.

In heavens hate since then

    Of ill with ill enchain’d

    We race of mortal men

  Full fraught our breasts have borne

  And thousand thousand woes

  Our heav’nly souls now thorn,

  Which free before from those

    No earthly passion pain’d.

War and war’s bitter cheer

  Now long time with us stay,

    And fear of hated foe

  Still still encreaseth sore:

    Our harms worse daily grow,

    Less yesterday they were 

   Then now, and will be more

   Tomorrow then today.

[2.1]

PHILOSTRATUS

   What horrible fury, what cruel rage,

O Egypt so extremely thee torments?

Hast thou the Gods so angered by thy fault?

Hast thou against them some such crime conceiv’d,

That their engrained hand lift up in threats

They should desire in thy heart blood to bathe?

And that their burning wrath which nought can quench,

Should pitiless on us still lighten down?

  We are not hew’n out of the monst’rous masse

Of Giants those, which heaven’s wrack conspir’d:

Ixion’s race , false prater of his loves:

Nor yet of him who feigned lightnings found :

Nor cruel Tantalus, nor bloody Atreus,

Whose cursed banquet for Thyestes plague

Made the beholding sun for horror turn

His back, and backward from his course return

And hastening his wing-footed horses’ race

Plunge him in sea for shame to hide his face,

While sullen night upon the wondering world

For midday’s light her starry mantle cast,

  But what we be, whatever wickedness

By us is done, alas! With what more plagues,

More eager torments could the gods declare

To heaven and earth that us they hateful hold?

With soldiers, strangers, horrible in arms

Our land is hid, our people drown’d in tears.

But terror here and horror, nought is seen:

And present death prizing our life each hour.

Hard at our ports and at our porches waits

Our conquering foe. Hearts fail us, hopes are dead,

Our queen laments, and this great emperor

Sometime (would now they did) whom worlds did fear,

Abandoned, betrayed, now minds no more

But from his evils by hast’ned death to passe.

  Come you poor people tir’de with ceaseless plaints

With tears and sighs make mournful sacrifice

On Isis altars. Not ourselves to save,

But soften Caesar and him piteous make

To us, his pray: that so his lenity

May change our death into captivity.

  Strange are the evils the fates on us have brought,

O but alas! How far more strange the cause!

Love, love (alas, whoever would have thought?)

Hath lost this realm inflamed with his fire.

Love, playing love, which men say kindles not

But in soft hearts, hath ashes made our towns.

And his sweet shafts, with whose shot none are kill’d,

Which ulcer not, with deaths our lands have fill’d.

  Such was the bloody, murdering, hellish love

Possessed thy heart fair, false guest Priam’s son,

Fi’ring a brand which after made to burn

The Trojan towers by Grecians ruinate.

By this love, Priam, Hector, Troilus,

Memnon, Deiphobus, Glaucus, thousands mo’ ,

Whom red Scamander’s armour clogged streams

Roll’d into seas, before their dates are dead.

So plaguey he, so many tempests raiseth,

So murdering he, so many Cities raiseth,

When insolent, blind, lawless, orderless,

With mad delight our sense he entertains.

    All knowing Gods our wracks did us foretell

By signs in earth, by signs in starry spheres:

Which should have mov’d us, had not destiny

With too strong hand warped our misery.

The Comets flaming through the scat’red clouds

With fiery beams, most like unbroaded  hairs:

The fearful dragon whistling at the banks,

And holy Apis  ceaseless bellowing

(As never erst) and shedding endless tears,

Blood raining down from heav’n in unknown showers:

Our gods’ dark faces overcast with woe,

And dead men’s ghosts appearing in the night.

Yea even this night while all the city stood

Oppressed with terror, horror, servile fear,

Deep silence over all: the sounds were heard

Of diverse songs, and divers instruments,

Within the void of air and howling noise,

Such as mad Bacchus priests in Bacchus feasts,

On Nisa make. And (seem’d) the company,

Our city lost, went to the enemy.

    So we, forsaken both of Gods and men,

So are we in the mercy of our foes

And we henceforth obedient must become

To laws of them who have us overcome.   

CHORUS [OF EGYPTIANS]

Lament we our mishaps,

    Drown we with tears our woe

    For lamentable haps

  Lamented easy grow:

   And much less torment bring

  Then when they first did spring.

We want that woeful song,

  Wherewith wood-musiques queen

  Doth ease her woes, among,

  fresh spring-time’s bushes green,

  On pleasant branch alone

    Renewing ancient moan.

We want that moanful sound,

    That prattling Progne  makes

    On fields of Thracian ground,

    Or streams of Thracian lakes:

  To empt  her breast of pain

  For Itys  by her slain.

Though Halcyons  do still,

    Bewailing Ceyx lot,

    The seas with plainings fill

    Which his dead limbs have got,

    Not ever other grave

    Then tomb of waves to have

And though the bird in death

    That most Meander  loves:

  So sweetly sighs his breath

    When death his fury proves,

   As almost softs his heart,

    And almost blunts his dart,

Yet all the plaints of those,

    Nor all their tearful larmes ,

    Cannot content our woes,

  Nor serve to wail the harms,

     In soul which we, poor we,

    To feel enforced be.

Nor they of Phoebus bred

  In tears can do so well,

  They for their brot1her shed,

    Who into Padus  fell,

     Rash guide of chariot clear

    Surveyor of the year.

Nor she whom heav’nly powers

    To weeping rock did turn ,

  Whose tears distil in showers,

  And shew she yet doth mourn,

     Wherewith his top to skies

   Mount Sipylus doth rise.

Nor weeping drops which flow

    From bark of wounded tree,

  That Myrrhas  shame do show

    With ours compar’d may be,

     To quench her loving fire

   Who durst embrace her sire.

Nor all the howlings made

    On Cybel’s sacred hill

    By eunuchs  of her trade,

    Who Atys , Atys still

    With doubled cries resound,

     Which Echo makes rebound.

Our plaints no limits stay,

    Nor more then do our woes:

  Both infinitely stray

  And neither measure knows

    In measure let them plain:

   Who measur’d griefs sustain.

[2.2]

Cleopatra. Eras. Charmion. Diomede.

CLEOPATRA

  That I have the betrayed, dear Antony,

My life, my soul, my sun? I had such thought?

That I have the betrayed my Lord, my King?

That I would break my vowed faith to thee?

Leave thee? Deceive thee? Yielded thee to the rage

Of mighty foe? I ever had that heart?

Rather sharp lightning lighten on my head,

Rather may I to deepest mischief fall,

Rather the opened earth devour me,

Rather fierce Tigers feed them on my flesh,

Rather, O rather let our Nilus send,

To swallow me quick, some weeping crocodile.

  And didst thou then suppose my royal heart

Had hatched, thee to ensnare, a faithless love?

And changing mind, as Fortune changed cheer,

I would weak thee, to win the stronger, loose?

O wretch! O caitive ! O too cruel hap!

And did not I sufficient loss sustain?

Losing my realm, losing my liberty,

My tender offspring, and the joyful light

Of beamy sun, and yet, yet losing more

Thee Antony my care, if I lose not

What yet remain’d? Thy love alas! Thy love,

More dear then sceptre, children, freedom, light.

  So ready I to row in Charon’s barge ,

Shall leese  the joy of dying in thy love:

So the sole comfort of my misery

To have one tomb with thee is me bereft.

So I in shady plains shall plain alone,

Not (as I hop’d) companion of thy moan,

O height of grief!

ERAS              Why with continual cries

Your griefful harms do you exasperate?

Torment yourself with murdering complaints;

Strain your weak breast so oft, so vehemently?

Water with tears this fair alabaster?

With sorrows sting so many beauties wound?

Come of so many kings want you the heart

Bravely, stoutly, this tempest to resist?

CLEOPATRA

My ev’lls are wholly unsupportable,

No human force can them withstand, but death.

ERAS

To him that strives nought is impossible.

CLEOPATRA

In striving lies no hope of my mishaps.

ERAS

All things do yield to force of lovely face.

CLEOPATRA

My face too lovely caus’d my wretched case.

My face hath so entrap’d, so cast us down,

That for his conquest Caesar may it thank,

Causing that Antony one army lost

The other wholly did to Caesar yield.

For not enduring (so his amorous sprite

Was with my beauty fir’de) my shameful flight,

Soon as he saw from rank wherein he stood

In hottest fight, my gallies making sail,

Forgetful of his charge (as if his soul

Unto his ladies soul had been enchain’d)

He left his men, who so courageously

Did leave their lives to gain him victory.

And careless both of fame and armies loss

My oared gallies follow’d with his ships

Companion of my flight, by this base part

Blasting his former flourishing renown.

ERAS

Are you therefore cause of his overthrow?

CLEOPATRA

I am sole cause: I did it, only I.

ERAS

Fear of a woman troubled so his sprite?

CLEOPATRA

Fire of his love was by my fear enflam’d.

ERAS

And should he then to war have led a queen?

CLEOPATRA

Alas! this was not his offence, but mine.

Antony (ay me! who else so brave a chief!)

Would not I should have taken seas with him,

But would have left me fearful woman far

From common hazard of the doubtful war.

    O that I had belev’d! Now, now of Rome

All the great empire at our beck should bend.

All should obey, the vagabonding Scythes,

The feard Germans, back-shooting Parthians ,

Wandering Numidians , Brittons far remov’d,

And tawny nations scorched with the sun.

But I car’d not: so was my soul possessed,

(To my great harm) with burning jealousy:

Fearing least in my absence Antony

Should leaving me retake Octavia.

CHARMION

Such was the rigour of your destiny.

CLEOPATRA

Such was my error and obstinacy.

CHARMION

But since gods would not, could you do withal?

CLEOPATRA

Always from gods good haps, not harms, do fall.

CHARMION

And have they not all power on men’s affaires?

CLEOPATRA

They never bow so low, as worldly cares.

But leave to mortal men to be dispos’d

Freely on earth whatever mortal is.

If we therein sometimes some faults commit,

We may them not to their high majesties,

But to ourselves impute; whose passions

Plunge us each day in all afflictions.

Wherewith when we our souls do thorned feel,

Flatt’ring ourselves we say they dest’nies are:

That Gods would have it so, and that our care

Could not impeach but that it must be so.

CHARMION

Things here below are in the heav’ns begot,

Before they be in this our world borne:

And never can our weakness turn awry

The stailes course of powerful destiny.

Nought here force, reason, human providence,

Holy devotion, noble blood prevails,

And Jove himself whose hand doth heavens rule,

Who both to gods, and men as king commands,

Who earth (our firm support) with plenty stores,

Moves air and sea with twinkling of his eye,

Who all can do, yet never can undo,

What once hath been by their hard laws decreed.

  When Trojan walls, great Neptune’s workmanship,

Environ’d were with Greeks, and Fortune’s wheel

Doubtful ten years now to the camp did turn,

And now again towards the town return’d,

How many times did force and fury swell

In Hector’s  veins egging him to the spoil

Of conquer’d foes, which at his blows did fly,

As fearful sheep at feared wolves approach,

To save (in vain: for why? It would not be)

Poor walls of Troy from adversaries’ rage,

Who died them in blood, and cast to ground,

Heap’d them with bloody burning carcases.

    No, Madame, think, that if the ancient crown

Of your progenitors that Nilus rul’d,

Force take from you; the Gods have will’d it so,

To whom oft times princes are odious.

They have to everything an end ordain’d;

All worldly greatness by them bounded is,

Some sooner, later some, as they think best,

None their decree is able to infringe.

But, which is more, to us disastered men

Which subject are in all things to their will,

Their will is hid, nor while we live, we know

How, or how long we must in life remain.

Yet must we not for that feed on despair,

And make us wretched ere  we wretched be,

But always hope the best, even to the last,

That from ourselves the mischief may not grow.

  Then, Madame, help yourself, leave off in time

Antony’s wrack, lest it your wrack procure:

Retire you from him, save from wrathful rage

Of angry Caesar both your realm and you.

You see him lost, so as your amity

Unto his evils can yield no more relief.

You see him ruin’d, so as your support

No more henceforth can him with comfort raise.

Withdraw you from the storm, persist not still

To lose yourself, this royal diadem

Regain of Caesar.

CLEOPATRA    Sooner shining light

Shall leave the day, and darkness leave the night,

Sooner moist currents of tempestuous seas

Shall wave in heaven, and the nightly troops

Of stars shall shine within the foaming waves,

Then I thee, Antony, leave in deep distress.

I am with thee, be it thy worthy soul

Lodge in thy breast, or from that lodging part

Crossing the joyless lake to take her place

In place prepared for men Demy-gods.

    Live, if thee please, if life be loathsome die,

Dead and alive, Antony, thou shalt see

Thy princess follow thee, follow, and lament,

Thy wrack, no less her own then was thy weal .

CHARMION

What helps his wrack this everlasting love?

CLEOPATRA

Help, or help not, such must, such ought I prove.

CHARMION

Ill done to lose yourself, and to no end.

CLEOPATRA

How ill think you to follow such a friend?

CHARMION

But this your love nought mitigates his pain.

CLEOPATRA

Without this love I should be inhumane.

CHARMION

Inhumane he, who his own death pursues.

CLEOPATRA

Not inhumane who miseries eschews.

CHARMION

Live for your sons.

CLEOPATRA     Nay for their father die.

CHARMION Hard-hearted mother!

CLEOPATRA                      Wife kind-hearted I.

CHARMION

Then will you them deprive of royal right?

CLEOPATRA

Do I deprive them? no, it’s dest’nies might.

CHARMION

Do you not them deprive of heritage,

That give them up to adversaries’ hands,

A man forsaken fearing to forsake,

Whom such huge numbers hold environed?

T’abandon one ’gainst whom the frowning world

Banded with Caesar makes conspiring war.

CLEOPATRA

The less ought I to leave him lest of all.

A friend in most distress should most assist.

If that when Antony great and glorious

His legions led to drink Euphrates’ streams,

So many Kings in train redoubting him;

In triumph rais’d as high as highest heaven;

Lord-like disposing as him pleased best,

The wealth of Greece, the wealth of Asia:

In that fair fortune had I him exchang’d

For Caesar, then, men would have counted me

Faithless, inconstant, light, but now the storm,

And blustering tempest driving on his face,

Ready to drown, alas! What would they say?

What would himself in Pluto’s mansion say?

If I, whom always more then life he lov’de,

If I, who am his heart, who was his hope,

Leave him, forsake him (and perhaps in vain?)

Weakly to please who him hath overthrown?

Not light, inconstant, faithless should I be,

But vile, forsworn, of treacherous cruelty.

CHARMION

Cruelty to shun, you self-cruel are:

CLEOPATRA

Self-cruel him from cruelty to spare.

CHARMION

Our first affection to ourselves is due.

CLEOPATRA

He is myself.

CHARMION   Next it extends unto

Our children, friends, and to our country soil.

And you for some respect of wifely love,

(Albee scarce wifely) lose your native land,

Your children, friends, and (which is more) your life,

With so strong charms doth love bewitch our wits,

So fast in us this fire once kindled flames.

Yet if his harm by yours redress might have,

CLEOPATRA

With mine it may be clos’de in darksome grave.

CHARMION

And that, as Alcest  to herself unkind,

You might exempt him from the laws of death.

But he is sure to die, and now his sword

Already moisted is in his warm blood,

Helpless for any succour you can bring

Against deaths sting, which he must shortly feel.

  Then let your love be like the love of olde

Which Carian queen  did nourish in her heart

Of her Mausolus , build for him a tomb

Whose stateliness a wonder new may make.

Let him, let him have sumptuous funerals:

Let grave thereon the horror of his fights:

Let earth be buri’d with unburied heaps.

Frame their Pharsaly , and discoulour’d stream’s

Of deep Enipeus  frame the grassy plain,

Which lodg’d his camp at siege of Mutina .

Make all his combats, and courageous acts:

And yearly plays to his praise institute,

Honour his memory, with doubled care

Breed and bring up the children of you both

In Caesar’s grace, who, as a noble prince,

Will leave them lords of this most glorious realm.

CLEOPATRA

What shame were that? ah Gods! what infamy?

With Antony in his good haps to share,

And overlive him dead: deeming enough

To shed some tears upon a widow tomb?

The after-livers justly might report

That I him only for his empire lov’d,

And high state , and that in hard estate

I for another did him lewdly leave?

Like to those birds wafted with wandering wings

From foreign lands in springtime here arrive:

And live with us so long as summer’s heat,

And their food lasts, then seek another soil.

And as we see with ceaseless fluttering

Flocking of seely flies a brownish cloud

To vintag’d wine yet working in the tonne:

Not parting thence while they sweet liquor taste:

After, as smoke, all vanish in the air,

And of the swarm not one so much appear.

ERAS

By this sharp death what profit can you win?

CLEOPATRA

I neither gain nor profit seek therein.

ERAS

What praise shall you of after-ages get?

CLEOPATRA

Nor praise, nor glory in my cares are set.

ERAS

What other end ought you respect, then this?

CLEOPATRA

My only end my only duty is.

ERAS

Your duty must upon some good be founded.

CLEOPATRA

On virtue it, the only good, is grounded.

ERAS

What is that virtue?

CLEOPATRA     That which us beseems.

ERAS

Outrage ourselves? who that beseeming deems?

CLEOPATRA

Finish I will my sorrows dying thus.

ERAS

Minish you will your glories doing thus.

CLEOPATRA

Good friends I pray you seek not to revoke

My fix’d intent of following Antony.

I will die. I will die. Must not his life,

His life and death by mine be followed?

    Meane while, dear sisters, live, and while you live,

Do often honour to our loved tombs.

Straw them with flowers and sometimes happily

The tender thought of Antony your Lorde

And me poor soul to tears shall you invite,

And our true loves your doleful voice commend.

CHARMION

And think you Madame, we from you will part?

Think you alone to feel death’s ugly dart?

Think you to leave us? And that the same sun

Shall see at once you dead, and us alive?

We’ll die with you and Clotho  pitiless

Shall us with you in hellish boat embark.

CLEOPATRA

Ah live, I pray you: this disastered woe

Which racks my heart, alone to me belongs,

My lot longs not to you servants to be

No shame, no harm to you, as is to me.

  Live sisters, live, and seeing his suspect

Hath causeless me in sea of sorrows drown’d,

And that I cannot live, if so I would,

Nor yet would leave this life, if so I could,

Without his love. Procure me, Diomed,

That ’gainst poor me he be no more incensed.

Wrest out of his conceit that harmful doubt,

That since his wrack he hath of me conceiv’d

Though wrong conceiv’d witness you reverent gods,

Barking Anubis , Apis bellowing.

Tell him, my soul burning, impatient,

Forlorn with love of him, for certain seal

Of her true loyalty my corpse hath left,

T’increase of dead the number numberless.

  Go then, and if as yet he me bewails,

If yet for me his heart one sigh fourth breathe

Blest shall I be: and far with more content

Depart this world, where so I me torment.

Mean season us let this sad tomb enclose,

Attending here till death conclude our woes.

DIOMEDE

I will obey your will.

CLEOPATRA     So the desert

The gods repay of thy true faithful heart.

DIOMEDE

    And is’t not pity, gods, ah gods of heav’n!

To see from love such hateful fruits to spring?

And is’t not pity that this firebrand so

Lays waste the trophies of Philippi  fields?

Where are those sweet allurements, those sweet looks,

Which Gods themselves right heart-sick would have made?

What doth that beauty, rarest gift of heav’n,

Wonder of earth? Alas! What do those eyes?

And that sweet voice all Asia understood,

And sunburnt Afrique wide in deserts spread?

Is their force dead? Have they no further power?

Cannot by them Octavius be supriz’d?

Alas! If Jove in midst of all his ire,

With thunderbolt in hand some land to plague,

Had cast his eyes on my queen, out of hand

His plaguing bolt had fallen out of his hand,

Fire of his wrath into vain smoke should turn,

And other fire within his breast should burn.

    Nought lives so fair. Nature by such a work

Herself, should seem, in workmanship hath past.

She is all heav’nly: never any man

But seeing her was ravish’d with her sight.

The alabaster covering of her face,

The coral colour her two lips engrains,

Her beamy eyes, two suns of this our world,

Of her fair hair the fine and flaming gold,

Her brave straight stature, and her winning parts

Are nothing else but fires, fetters, darts.

  Yet this is nothing th’e’nchanting skills

Of her celestial sp’rite, her training speech,

Her grace, her majesty, and forcing voice,

Whither she it with fingers speech consorts,

Or hearing sceptred king’s ambassadors

Answer to each in his own language make.

  Yet now at need it aides her not at all

With all these beauties, so her sorrow stings.

Darkened with woe her only study is

To weep, to sigh, to seek for loneliness.

Careless of all, her hair disordered hangs:

Her charming eyes whence murdering looks did fly,

Now rivers grown, whose well spring anguish is,

Do trickling wash the marble of her face.

Her fair discover’d breast with sobbing swollen

Self cruel she still martyreth with blows,

    Alas! It’s our ill hap, for if her tears

She would convert into her loving charms,

To make a conquest of the conqueror,

(As well she might, would she her force employ)

She should us safety from these ills procure,

Her crown to her, and to her race assure.

Unhappy he, in whom self-succour lies,

Yet self-forsaken wanting succour dies.

CHORUS [OF EGYPTIANS]

O sweet fertile land, wherein

    Phoebus did with breath inspire

    Man, who men did first begin,

    Formed first of Nilus mire.

    Whence of arts the eldest kinds,

    Earth’s most heavenly ornament,

    Were as from their fountain sent,

    To enlight our misty minds.

    Whose gross sprite from endless time,

    As in darkened prison pent,

    Never did to knowledge clime.

Where the Nile, our father good,

    Father-like doth never miss

    Yearly us to bring such food,

    As to life required is:

    Visiting each year this plain,

    And with fat slime cov’ring it,

   Which his seven mouths do spit,

    As the season comes again.

    Making thereby greatest grow

    Busy reapers joyful pain,

    When his floods do highest flow.

Wandering prince of rivers thou,

    Honour of the Ethiop’s land,

    Of a Lord and master  now

    Thou a slave in awe must stand.

    Now of Tiber which is spread

    Less in force, and less in fame

Reverence thou must the name,

    Whom all other rivers dread,

    For his children swollen in pride,

    Who by conquest seek to tread

    Round this earth on every side.

Now thou must begin to send

    Tribute of thy watery store,

    As sea paths thy steps shall bend,

    Yearly presents more and more.

    Thy fat scum, our fruitful corn,

    Pill’d from hence with thievish hands

    All uncloth’d shall leave our lands

    Into foreign country borne.

    Which puffed up with such a pray

    Shall thereby the praise adorn

    Of that sceptre Rome doth sway.

Nought thee helps thy horns to hide

    Far from hence in unknown grounds,

    That thy waters wander wide,

    Yearly breaking banks, and bounds.

    And that thy sky-colour’d brooks

    Through a hundred people pass,

    Drawing plots for trees and grass

    With a thousand turns and crooks.

    Whom all weary of their way

    Thy throats which in wideness pass

    Power into their mother sea.

“ Nought so happy hapless life

    “ In this world as freedom finds:

    “ Nought wherein more sparks are rife

    “ To inflame courageous minds.

    “ But if force must us enforce

    “ Needs a yoke to undergo,

    “ Under foreign yoke to go

    “ Still it proves a bondage worse.

    “ And doubled subjection

    “ See we shall, and feel, and know

    “ Subject to a stranger grown .

From hence forward for a king

    whose first being from this place

    Should his breast by nature bring

    Care of country to embrace,

We at surly face must quake

    Of some Roman madly bent:

    Who, our terror to augment,

    His proconsuls’ axe will shake.

    Driving with our kings from hence

    Our establish’d government,

    Justice sword, and Lawes defence.

Nothing worldly of such might

    But more mighty destiny,

    By swift times unbridled flight,

    Makes in end his end to see.

    Everything Time overthrows,

    Nought to end doth steadfast stay,

    His great scythe mows all away

    As the stalk of tender rose.

    Only immortality

    Of the Heav’ns doth it oppose

    ’Gainst his powerful deity.

One day there will come a day

    Which shall quail thy fortunes flower,

    And thee ruined low shall lay

    In some barb’rous prince’s power.

    When the pity-wanting fire

    Shall, O Rome, thy beauties burn,

    And to humble ashes turn

    Thy proud wealth, and rich attire,

    Those guilt roofs which turret wise,

    Justly making envy mourn,

    Threaten now to pierce skies.

As thy forces fill each land

    Harvests making here and there,

    Reaping all with ravening hand

    They find growing anywhere;

    From each land so to thy fall

    Multitudes repair shall make,

    From the common spoil to take

    What to each man’s share may fall.

    Fingered all thou shalt behold:

    No jot left for tokens sake,

    That thou wert so great of old.

Like unto the ancient Troy

    Whence deriv’de thy founders be,

    Conqu’ring foe shall thee enjoy,

    And a burning prey in thee.

    For within this turning ball

    This we see, and see each day:

    All things fixed ends do stay,

    Ends to first beginnings fall.

    And that nought, how strong or strange

    Changeless doth endure always,

But endureth fatal change.

[3.1]

Antonius, Lucilius.

ANTONIUS

    Lucil, sole comfort of my bitter case,

The only trust, the only hope I have,

In last despair: Ah! is not this the day

That death should me of life and love bereave?

What wait I for that have no refuge left,

But am sole remnant of my fortune left?

All leave me, fly me: none, no not of them

Which of my greatness greatest good receiv’d,

Stands with my fall: they seem as now asham’de

That heretofore they did me ought regard:

They draw them back, shewing they follow’d me,

Not to partake my harm’s, but cozen me.

LUCILIUS

In this our world nothing is steadfast found,

In vain he hopes, who here his hopes doth ground.

ANTONIUS

Yet nought afflicts me, nothing kills me so,

As that I so my Cleopatra see

Practise with Caesar, and to him transport

My flame, her love, more dear then life to me.

LUCILIUS

Believe it not: too high a heart she bears,

Too princely thoughts.

ANTONIUS       Too wise a head she wears,

Too much inflam’d with greatness, evermore

Gaping for our great empire’s government.

LUCILIUS

So long time you her constant love have tri’de.

ANTONIUS

But still with me good fortune did abide.

LUCILIUS

Her changed love what token makes you know?

ANTONIUS

Pelusium lost, and Actian  overthrown ,

Both by her fraud: my well appointed fleet,

And trusty soldiers in my quarrel arm’d,

Whom she, false she, instead of my defence,

Came to persuade, to yield them to my foe:

Such honour Thyre  done, such welcome given,

Their long close talks I neither knew, nor would,

And treacherous wrong Alexas  hath me done,

Witness too well her perjur’d love to me.

But you O Gods (if any faith regard)

With sharp revenge her faithless change reward.

LUCILIUS

The dole she made upon our overthrow,

Her realm given up for refuge to our men,

Her poor attire when she devoutly kept

The solemn day of her nativity,

Again the cost and prodigal expense

Show’d when she did your birthday celebrate,

Do plain enough her heart unfeigned prove,

Equally touched, you loving, as you love.

ANTONIUS

Well, be her love to me or false, or true,

Once in my soul a cureless wound I feel.

I love, nay burn in fire of her love:

Each day, each night her image haunts my mind,

Herself my dreams, and still I tired am,

And still, I am with burning pincers nipped.

Extreme my harm, yet sweeter to my sense

Then boiling torch of jealous torments fire:

This grief, nay rage, in me such stur  doth keep,

And thorns me still, both when I wake and sleep.

    Take Caesar conquest, take my goods, take he

Th’honour to be Lord of the earth alone,

My sons, my life bent headlong to mishaps,

No force, so not my Cleopatra take.

So foolish I, I cannot her forget,

Though better were I banisht her my thought.

Like to the sick, whose throt the fevers’ fire

Hath vehemently with thirsty drought enflam’d,

Drinks still, albeit the drink he still desires

Be nothing else but fuel to his flame.

He cannot rule himself: his health’s respect

Yeldeth to his distempered stomach’s heat.

LUCILIUS

Leave of this love, that thus renews your woe.

ANTONIUS

I do my best, but ah! cannot do so.

LUCILIUS

Think how you have so brave a captain been,

And now are by this vain affection fallen.

ANTONIUS

The ceaseless thought of my felicity

Plunges me more in this adversity.

For nothing so a man in ill torments,

As who to him his good state represents.

This makes my rack, my anguish, and my woe

Equal unto the hellish passions grow,

When I to mind my happy puissance call

Which erst I had by warlike conquest won,

And that good fortune which me never left,

Which hard disaster now hath me bereft.

    With terror tremble all the world I made

At my sole word, as rushes in the streams

At waters will: I conquer’d Italy,

I conquer’d Rome, that Nations so redoubt.

I bare (meanwhile besieging Mutina)

Two consuls’ armies for my ruin brought.

Bath’d in their blood, by their deaths witnessing

My force and skill in matters martial.

    To wreak thy uncle , unkind Caesar, I

With blood of enemies the banks embru’d

Of stain’d Enipeus, hindering his course

Stopped with heaps of piled carcases:

When Cassius and Brutus ill betide

Marcht against us, by us twice put to flight,

But by my sole conduct: for all the time

Caesar heart-sick with fear and fever lay.

Who knows it not? And how by everyone

Fame of the fact was giv’n to me alone.

    There sprang the love, the never changing love,

Wherein my heart hath since to yours been bound:

There was it, my Lucil, you Brutus sav’de,

And for your Brutus Antony you found.

Better my hap in gaining such a friend,

Then in subduing such an enemy.

Now former virtue dead doth me forsake,

Fortune engulfs me in extreme distress:

She turns from me her smiling countenance,

Casting on me mishap upon mishap,

Left and betrayed of thousand thousand friends,

Once of my suit, but you Lucil are left,

Remaining to me steadfast as a tower

In holy love, in spite of fortune’s blasts.

But if of any God my voice be heard,

And be not vainly scatt’red in the heav’ns,

Such goodness shall not gloriless be lost.

But coming ages still thereof shall boast.

LUCILIUS

Men in their friendship ever should be one,

And never ought with fickle Fortune shake,

Which still removes, nor will, nor knows the way,

Her rolling bowl in one sure state to stay.

Wherefore we ought as borrow’d things receive

The goods light she lends us to pay again:

Not hold them sure, nor on them build our hopes

As on such goods as cannot fail, and fall:

But think again, nothing is durable,

Virtue except, our never failing host:

So bearing sail when favouring winds do blow,

As frowning tempests may us least dismay

When they on us do fall: not over-glad

With good estate, or over-griev’d with bad.

Resist mishap.

ANTONIUS   Alas! it is too strong.

Mishaps oft times are by some comfort borne,

But these, ay me! Whose weights oppress my heart,

Too heavy lie, no hope can them relieve.

There rests no more, but that with cruel blade

For lingering death a hasty way be made.

LUCILIUS

Caesar, as heir unto his father’s state:

So will his father’s goodness imitate,

To you ward, whom he know’s allied in blood,

Allied in marriage, ruling equaly

Th’empire with him, and with him making war,

Have purg’d the earth of Caesars murderers.

You into portions parted have the world

Even like coheirs their heritages part,

And now with one accord so many years

In quiet peace both have your charges rul’d.

ANTONIUS

Blood and alliance nothing do prevail

To cool the thirst of hot ambitious breasts:

The son his father hardly can endure,

Brother his brother, in one common realm.

So fervent this desire to command,

Such jealousy it kindleth in our hearts.

Sooner will men permit another should

Love her they love, then wear the crowne they wear.

All laws it breaks, turns all things upside down:

Amity, kindred, nought so holy is

But it defiles. A monarchy to gain

None cares which way, so he may it obtain.

LUCILIUS

Suppose he monarch be and that this world

No more acknowledge sundry emperors.

That Rome him only fear, and that he join

The east with west, and both at once do rule:

Why should he not permit you peaceably

Discharg’d of charge and empire’s dignity,

Private to live reading philosophy,

In learned Greece, Spain, Asia, any land?

ANTONIUS

Never will he his empire think assur’de

While in this world Mark Antony shall live.

Sleepless suspicion, pale distrust, cold fear

Always to princes company do bear

Bred of reports: reports which night and day

Perpetual guests from court go not away.

LUCILIUS

He hath not slain your brother Lucius,

Nor shortened hath the age of Lepidus,

Albeit both into his hands were fallen,

And he with wrath against them both enflam’d.

Yet one, as Lord in quiet rest doth bear,

The greatest sway in great Iberia:

The other with his gentle prince retains

Of highest priest the sacred dignity.

ANTONIUS

He fears not them, their feeble force he knows.

LUCILIUS

He fears no vanquisht overfill’d with woes.

ANTONIUS

Fortune may change again.

LUCILIUS          A down-cast foe

Can hardly rise, which once is brought so low.

ANTONIUS

All that I can, is done: for last assay

(When all means fail’d) I to entreaty fell,

(Ah coward creature! ) whence again repulsed

Of combat I unto him proffer made:

Though he in prime, and I by feeble age

Mightily weakened both in force and skill.

Yet could not he his coward heart advance

Basely afraid to try so praiseful chance.

This makes me plain, makes me myself accuse,

Fortune in this her spiteful force doth use

’Gainst my grey hairs: in this unhappy I

Repine at heav’ns in my haps pitiless.

A man, a woman both in might and mind,

In Mars’ school who never lesson learn’d,

Should me repulse, chase, overthrow, destroy,

Me of such fame, bring to so low an ebb?

Alcides’ blood, who from my infancy

With happy prowess crowned have my praise

Witness thou Gaul unus’d to servile yoke,

Thou valiant Spain, you fields of Thessaly

With millions of mourning cries bewail’d,

Twice watered now with blood of Italy.

LUCILIUS

Witness may Afrique, and of conquer’d world

All four quarters witnesses may be.

For in what part of earth inhabited,

Hungry of praise have you not ensigns spread?

ANTONIUS

Thou know’st rich Egypt (Egypt of my deeds

Fair and foul subject) Egypt ah! Thou know’st

How I behav’d me fighting for thy king,

When I regained him his rebellious realm:

Against his foes in bataile  showing force,

And after fight in victory remorse.

    Yet if to bring my glory to the ground,

Fortune had made me overthrown by one

Of greater force, of better skill than I;

One of those captains feared so of old,

Camill , Marcellus , worthy Scipio ,

This late great Caesar , honour of our state,

Or that great Pompei  aged grown in arms;

That after harvest of a world of men

Made in a hundred battles, fights, assaults,

My body thorough pierced with push of pike

Had vomited my blood, in blood my life,

In midst of millions fellows in my fall:

The less her wrong, the less should my woe:

Nor she should pain, nor I complain me so.

    No, no, whereas I should have died in arms,

And vanquisht oft new armies should have arm’d,

New battles given, and rather lost with me

All this whole world submitted unto me:

A man who never saw enlaced pikes

With bristled points against his stomach bent,

Who fears the field, and hides him cowardly

Dead at the very noise the soldiers make.

    His virtue, fraud, deceit, malicious guile,

His arms the arts that false Ulysses us’de,

Known at Modena, where the consuls both

Death-wounded were, and wounded by his men

To get their army, war with it to make

Against his faith, against his country soil.

Of Lepidus, which to his succours came,

To honour whom he was by duty bound,

The empire he usurped: corrupting first

With baits and bribes the most part of his men.

Yet me hath overcome, and made his pray,

And state of Rome, with me hath overcome.

Strange! One disordered act at Actium

The earth subdu’de, my glory hath obscur’d.

For since, as one whom heaven’s wrath attaints,

With fury caught, and more then furious

Vex’d with my evils, I never more had care

My armies lost, or lost name to repair:

I did no more resist.

LUCILIUS      All war’s affaires,

But battles most, daily have their success

Now good, now ill, and though that fortune have

Great force and power in every worldly thing,

Rule all, do all, have all things fast enchained

Unto the circle of her turning wheel,

Yet seems it more then any practise else

She doth frequent Bellona’s  bloody trade,

And that her favour, wavering as the wind,

Her greatest power therein doth often show.

Whence grows, we daily see, who in their youth

Got honour there, do lose it in their age,

Vanquisht by some less warlike then themselves,

Whom yet a meaner man shall overthrow.

Her use is not to lend us still her hand,

But sometimes headlong back again to throw,

Where by her favour she hath us extolled

Unto the top of highest happiness.

ANTONIUS

Well ought I curse within my grieved soul,

Lamenting day and night, this senseless love,

Whereby my fair enticing foe entrap’d

My heedless reason, could no more escape.

It was not Fortune’s ever changing face:

It was not Dest’ny’s changeless violence

Forg’d my mishap. Alas! Who doth not know

They make, nor mar nor anything can do.

Fortune, which men so fear, adore, detest,

Is but a chance whose cause unknow’n doth rest.

Although oft times the cause is well perceiv’d,

But not th’effect the same that was conceiv’d.

Pleasure, nought else, the plague of this our life,

Our life which still a thousand plagues pursue,

Alone hath me this strange disaster spun,

Fallen from a soldier to a chamberer,

Careless of virtue, careless of all praise.

Nay, as the fatted swine in filthy mire

With glutted heart I wallow’d in delights,

All thoughts of honour trodden under foot.

So I me lost: for finding this sweet cup

Pleasing my taste, unwise I drunk my fill,

And through the sweetness of that poisons power

By steps I drove my former wits astray.

I made my friends, offended me forsake,

I helped my foes against myself to rise.

I robbed my subjects, and for followers

I saw myself beset with flatterers.

Mine idle arms faire wrought with spiders’ work,

My scattered men without their ensigns stray’d,

Caesar meanwhile who never would have dar’de

To cope with me, me suddenly despis’de,

Tooke heart to fight, and hop’de for victory

On one so gone, who glory had forgone.

LUCILIUS

Enchanting pleasure Venus sweet delights

Weaken our bodies, over-cloud our sprights,

Trouble our reason, from our hearts out chase

All holy virtues lodging in their place:

Like as the cunning fisher takes the fish

By traitor bait whereby the hook is hid,

So pleasure serves to vice instead of food

To bait our souls thereon too liquorish.

This poison deadly is alike to all,

But on great kings doth greatest outrage work.

Taking the royal sceptres from their hands,

Thence forward to be by some stranger borne.

While that their people charg’d with heavy loads

Their flatt’rers pill, and suck their mary  dry,

Not ru’lde but left to great men as a pray,

While this fond prince himself in pleasur’s drowns:

Who hears nought, sees nought, doth nought of a king

Seeming himself against himself conspired.

Then equal Justice wandreth banished,

And in her seat sits greedy Tyranny.

Confus’d disorder troubleth all estates,

Crimes without fear and outrages are done.

Then mutinous rebellion shows her face,

Now hid with this, and now with that pretence,

Provoking enemies, which on each side

Enter at ease, and make them lords of all.

The hurtful works of pleasure here behold.

ANTONIUS

The wolf is not so hurtful to the fold,

Frost to the grapes, to ripened fruits the rain,

As pleasure is to princes full of pain.

LUCILIUS

There needs no proof, but by th’Assyrian king,

On whom that monster woeful wrack did bring.

ANTONIUS

Yet hath this ill so much the greater force,

As scarcely any do against it stand:

No, not the Demy-gods the old world knew,

Who all subdu’de, could Pleasures power subdue.

    Great Hercules, Hercules once that was

Wonder of earth and heav’n, matchless in might,

Who Antaeus, Lycus, Geryon overcame ,

Who drew from hell the triple-headed dog ,

Who Hydra  kill’d, vanquished Achelous,

Who heavens’ weight on his strong shoulders bare :

Did he not under pleasure’s burthen bow?

Did he not captive to this passion yield,

When by his captive, so he was inflam’de,

As now yourself in Cleopatra burn?

Slept in her lap, her bosom kissed and kissed,

With base unseemly service bought her love,

Spinning at distaff, and with sinewy hand

Winding on spindles thread, in maids attire?

His conqu’ring club at rest on wall did hang:

His bow unstringed he bent not as he us’de:

Upon his shafts the weaving spiders spun,

And his hard cloak the fretting moths did pierce.

The monsters free and fearless all the time

Throughout the world the people did torment,

And more and more increasing day by day

Scorn’d his weak heart become a mistress play.

ANTONIUS

In only this like Hercules am I,

In this I prove me of his lineage right,

In this himself, his deeds I shew in this,

In this, nought else, my ancestor he is.

    But go we: die I must, and with brave end

Conclusion make of all foregoing harms.

Die, die I must: I must a noble death,

A glorious death unto my succour call:

I must deface the shame of time abus’d,

I must adorn the wanton loves I us’de,

With some courageous act that my last day

By mine own hand my spots may wash away.

    Come dear Lucill: alas! Why weep you thus!

This mortal lot is common to us all.

We must all die, each doth in homage owe

Unto that God that shar’d the realms below.

Ah sigh no more, alas! Appease your woes,

For by your grief my grief more eager grows.

CHORUS [OF EGYPTIANS]

Alas, with what tormenting fire

Us martireth this blind desire

   To stay our life from flying!

How ceaselessly our minds doth rack,

How heavy lies upon our back

    This dastard fear of dying!

Death rather healthful succour gives,

Death rather all mishaps relieves

    That life upon us throweth:

And ever to us death unclose

The door, whereby from cureless woes

   Our weary soul out goeth.

What goddess else more mild then she

To bury all our pain can be,

    What remedy more pleasing?

Our pained hearts when dolour stings,

And nothing rest, or respite brings,

    What help have we more easing?

Hope which to us doth comfort give,

And doth our fainting hearts revive,

    Hath not such force in anguish:

For promising a vain relief

She oft us fails in midst of grief,

    And helpless lets us languish.

But Death who call on her at need

Doth never with vain semblant feed,

    But when them sorrow paineth,

So rids their souls of all distress

Whose heavy weight did them oppress,

    That not one grief remaineth.

Who fearless and with courage bold

Can Acheron’s black face behold,

    Which muddy water bearth,

And crossing over, in the way

Is not amaz’d at peruke  grey

    Old rusty Charon weareth?

Who void of dread can look upon

The dreadful shades that roam alone,

    On banks where sound no voices;

Whom with her fire-brands and her snakes

No whit afraid Alecto makes,

    Nor triple-barking noises;

Who freely can himself dispose

Of that last hour which all must close,

    And leave this life at pleasure.

This noble freedom more esteems,

And in his heart more precious deems,

    Then crown and kingly treasure.

The waves which Boreas’  blasts turmoil

And cause with foaming fury boil,

    Make not his heart to tremble,

Nor brutish broil, when with strong head

A rebel people madly led

    Against their lords assemble:

Nor fearful face of tyrant wood,

Who breaths but threats, and drinks but blood,

    No, nor the hand which thunder,

The hand of Jove which thunder bears,

And ribs of rock in sunder tears,

    Tears mountains sides in sunder;

Nor bloody Mars’s butchering hands,

Whose lightnings desert lay the lands

    Whom dusty clouds do cover:

From of whose armour sun-beams fly,

And under them make quaking lie

  The plains whereon they hover,

Nor yet the cruel murd’ring blade

Warm in the moisty bowels made

    of people pell-mell dying

In some great city put to sack

By savage tyrant brought to wrack,

    At his cold mercy lying.

How abject him, how base think I,

Who wanting courage cannot die

    When need him thereto calleth?

From whom the dagger drawn to kill

The cureless griefs that vex him still

    For fear and faintness falleth?

O Antony with thy dear mate

Both in misfortunes fortunate!

    Whose thoughts to death aspiring

Shall you protect from victors’ rage,

Who on each side doth you encage,

    To triumph much desiring.

That Caesar may you not offend

Nought else but Death can you defend,

    which his weak force derideth,

And all in this round earth contained,

Powr’less on them whom once enchained

    Avernus’ prison  hideth:

Where great Psammetich’s ghost doth rest,

Not with infernal pain possessed,

   But in sweet fields detained:

And olde Amasis soul likewise,

And all our famous Ptolemies

    That whilom  on us reigned.

[4]

Caesar, Agrippa, Dircetus the Messenger.

CAESAR

    You ever-living gods which all things hold

Within the power of your celestial hands,

By whom heat, cold, the thunder, and the wind,

The properties of interchanging mon’ths

Their course and being have, which do set down

Of empires by your destined decree

The force, age, time, and subject to no change

Change all, reserving nothing in one state:

You have advanced, as high as thundering heav’n

The Romans’ greatness by Bellona’s might:

Mastering the world with fearful violence,

Making the world widow of liberty.

Yet at this day this proud exalted Rome

Despoil’d, captiv’d, at one man’s will doth bend:

Her empire mine, her life is in my hand,

As monarch I both world and Rome command;

Do all, can all; fourth my command’ment cast

Like thundering fire from one to other Pole

Equal to Jove: bestowing by my word

Haps and mishaps, as Fortune’s king and lord.

   No town there is, but up my image sets,

But sacrifice to me doth daily make:

Whither where Phæbus join his mourning steeds,

Or where the night them weary entertains,

Or where the heat the Garamants  doth scorch,

Or where the cold from Boreas’ breast is blown,

All Caesar do both awe and honour bear,

And crowned kings his very name doth fear.

   Antony knows it well, for whom not one

Of all the princes all this earth do rule,

Arms against me, for all redoubt the power

Which heav’nly powers on earth have made me bear.

    Antony, he poor man with fire inflam’de

A woman’s beauties kindled in his heart,

Rose against me, who longer could not bear

My sister’s wrong he did so ill entreat:

Seeing her left while that his leud delights

Her husband with his Cleopatra took

In Alexandria, where both nights and days

Their time they pass’d in nought but loves and plays.

    All Asia’s forces into one he drew,

And forth he set upon the azur’d waves

A thousand and a thousand ships, which fill’d

With soldiers, pikes, with targets, arrows, darts,

Made Neptune quake, and all the watery troupes

Of glauques, and tritons  lodg’d at Actium,

But mighty gods, who still the force withstand

Of him, who causeless doth another wrong,

In less then moments, space redus’d to nought

All that proud power by Sea or land he brought.

AGRIPPA

Presumptuous pride of high and haughty sprite,

Voluptuous care of fond and foolish love,

Have justly wrought his wrack: who thought he held

(By overweening) Fortune in his hand.

Of us he made no count, but as to play,

So fearless came our forces to assay.

    So sometimes fell to sons of mother earth,

Which crawl’d to heav’n war on the gods to make,

Olymp on Pelion, Ossa on Olymp,

Pindus on Ossa loading by degrees :

That at hand strokes with mighty clubs the might

On mossy rocks the gods make tumble down:

When mighty Jove with burning anger chas’d,

Distrained with him Gyges and Briareus ,

Blunting his darts upon their bruised bones.

For no one thing the gods can less abide

In deeds of men, then arrogance and pride.

And still the proud, which too much takes in hand,

Shall foulest fall, where best he thinks to stand.

CAESAR

Right as some palace, or some stately tower,

Which over-looks the neighbour buildings round

In scorning wise, and to the stars up grows,

Which in short time his own weight overthrows.

    What monstrous pride, nay what impiety

Incensed him onward to the gods’ disgrace?

When his two children, Cleopatra’s brats,

To Phoebe and her brother he compar’d,

Latona’s race, causing them to be call’d

The sun and moon? Is not this folly right?

And is not this the gods to make his foes?

And is not this himself to work his woes?

AGRIPPA

In like proud sort he caus’d his head to lose

The Jewish king Antigonus, to have

His realm for balm, that Cleopatra lov’d,

As though on him he had some treason prov’d.

CAESAR

Lydia to her, and Syria he gave,

Cyprus of gold, Arabia rich of smells:

And to his children more Cilicia,

Parths, Medes, Armenia, Phoenicia,

The kings of kings proclaiming them to be,

By his own word, as by a sound decree.

AGRIPPA

What? Robbing his own country of her due

Triumph’d he not in Alexandria,

Of Artabasus the Armenian King,

Who yielded on his perjur’d word to him?

CAESAR

Nay, never Rome more injuries receiv’d,

Since thou, O Romulus, by flight of birds

With happy hand the Roman walls did’st build,

Then Antony’s fond loves to it hath done.

Nor ever war more holy, nor more just,

Nor undertaken with more hard constraint,

Then is this war, which were it not, our state

Within small time all dignity should lose,

Though I lament (thou sun my witness art,

And thou great Jove) that it so deadly proves:

That Roman blood should in such plenty flow,

Watering the fields and pastures where we go.

What Carthage in old hatred obstinate,

What Gaule still barking at our rising state,

What rebel Samnite , what fierce Phyrrus’  power,

What cruel Mithridates , what Parth hath wrought

Such woe to Rome ? Whose common wealth he had,

(Had he been victor) into Egypt brought.

AGRIPPA

Surely the gods, which have this city built

Steadfast to stand as long as time endures,

Which keep the Capitol , of us take care,

And care will take of those shall after come,

Have made you victor, that you might redress

Their honour grown by passed mischiefs less.

CAESAR

The seely man when all the Greekish Sea

His fleet had hid, in hope me sure to drown,

Me battle gave: where fortune, in my stead,

Repulsing him his forces disarrayed.

Himself took flight, soon as his love he saw

All wan through fear with full sails fly away.

His men, though lost, whom none did now direct,

With courage fought fast grappled ship with ship,

Charging, resisting, as their oars would serve,

With darts, with swords, with pikes, with fiery flames.

So that the darkened night her starry veil

Upon the bloody sea had over-spread,

Whilst yet they held, and hardly, hardly then

They fell to flying on the wavy plain.

All full of soldiers overwhelm’d with waves,

The air throughout with cries and groans did sound,

The sea did blush with blood; the neighbour shores

Groaned, so they with shipwrecks pestered were,

And floating bodies left for pleasing food

To birds, and beasts, and fishes of the sea.

You know it well Agrippa. 

AGRIPPA          Meet it was

The Roman empire so should ruled be,

As heav’n is rul’d: which turning over us,

All under things by his example turns.

Now as of heav’n one only Lord we know:

One only lord should rule this earth below.

When one self pow’r is common made to two,

Their duties they nor suffer will, nor doe.

In quarrel still, in hate, in fear;

Meane while the people all the smart do bear.

CAESAR

Then to the end none, while my days endure,

Seeking to raise himself may succours find,

We must with blood mark this our victory,

For just example to all memory.

Murder we must, until not one we leave,

Which may hereafter us of rest bereave.

AGRIPPA

Mark it with murders? Who of that can like?

CAESAR

Murders must use, who doth assurance seek.

AGRIPPA

Assurance call you enemies to make?

CAESAR

I make no such, but such away I take.

AGRIPPA

Nothing so much as rigour doth displease.

CAESAR

Nothing so much doth make me live at ease.

AGRIPPA

What ease to him that feared is of all?

CAESAR

Feared to be, and see his foes to fall.

AGRIPPA

Commonly fear doth breed and nourish hate.

CAESAR

Hate without pow’r, comes commonly too late.

AGRIPPA

A feared prince hath oft his death desir’d.

CAESAR

A prince not fear’d hath oft his wrong conspir’de.

AGRIPPA

No guard so sure, no forte so strong doth prove,

No such defence, as is the people’s love.     

CAESAR

Nought more unsure more weak, more like the wind,

Then people’s favour still to change inclined.

AGRIPPA

Good gods! what love to gracious prince men bear!

CAESAR

What honour to the prince that is severe!

AGRIPPA

Nought more divine then is benignity.

CAESAR

Nought likes the gods as doth severity.

AGRIPPA

Gods all forgive.

CAESAR      On faults they pains do lay.

AGRIPPA

And give their goods.

CAESAR       Oft times they take away.

AGRIPPA

They wreak them not, O Caesar, at each time

That by our sins they are to wrath provok’d.

Neither must you (believe, I humbly pray)

Your victory with cruelty defile.

The gods it gave, it must not be abus’d,

But to the good of all men mildly us’d,

And they be thank’d: that having giv’n you grace

To reign alone, and rule this earthly mass,

They may hence-forward hold it still in rest,

All scattered power united in one breast.

CAESAR

But what is he, that breathless comes so fast,

Approaching us, and going in such hast?

AGRIPPA

He seems afraid, and under his arm I

(But much I err) a bloody sword espy.

CAESAR

I long to understand what it may be.

AGRIPPA

He hither comes: it’s best we stay and see.

DIRCETUS

What good god now my voice will reinforce,

That tell I may to rocks, and hills, and woods,

To waves of sea, which dash upon the shore,

To earth, to heav’n, the woeful news I bring?

AGRIPPA

What sudden chance thee toward us hath brought?

DIRCETUS

A lamentable chance. O wrath of heav’ns!

O gods too pitiless!

CAESAR       What monstrous hap

Wilt thou recount?

DIRCETUS     Alas too hard mishap!

When I but dream of what mine eyes beheld,

My heart doth freeze, my limbs do quivering quake,

I senseless stand, my breast with tempest tossed

Kills in my throat my words, ere fully borne.

Dead, dead he is: be sure of what I say,

This murdering sword hath made the man away.

CAESAR

Alas my heart doth cleave, pity me racks,

My breast doth pant to hear this doleful tale.

Is Antony then dead? To death, alas!

I am the cause despair him so compelled.

But soldier of his death the manner show,

And how he did this living light forgo.

DIRCETUS

When Antony no hope remaining saw

How war he might, or how agreement make,

Saw him betrayed by all his men of war

In every fight as well by sea, as land;

That not content to yield them to their foes

They also came against himself to fight:

Alone in court he gan himself torment,

Accuse the queen, himself of her lament,

Call’d her untrue and traitress, as who sought

To yield him up she could no more defend:

That in the harms which for her sake he bare,

As in his blissful state, she might not share.

    But she again, who much his fury fear’d,

Got to the tombs, dark horrors dwelling place:

Made lock the doors, and pull the hearses down.

Then fell she wretched, with herself to fight.

A thousand plaints, a thousand sobs she cast

From her weak breast which to the bones was torn.

Of women her the most unhappy call’d,

Who by her love, her woeful love, had lost

Her realm, her life, and more the love of him,

Who while he was, was all her woes support.

But that she faultless was she did invoke

For witness heav’n, and air, and earth, and sea.

Then sent him word, she was no more alive,

But lay enclosed dead within her tomb.

This he believ’d; and fell to sigh and groan,

And crossed his arms, then thus began to moan.

CAESAR

Poor hopeless man!

DIRCETUS       “What dost thou more attend?

Ah Antony! Why dost thou death defer:

Since fortune thy professed enemy,

Hath made to die, who only made thee live?”

Soon as with sighs he had these words up clos’d,

His armour he unlaced and cast it of,

Then all disarm’d he thus again did say:

“My queen, my heart, the grief that now I feel,

Is not that I your eyes, my sun, do lose,

For soon again one tomb shall us conjoin:

I grieve, whom men so valorous did deem,

Should now, then you, of lesser valour seem”.

    So said, forthwith he Eros to him call’d,

Eros his man; summoned him on his faith

To kill him at his need. He took the sword,

And at that instant stab’d therewith his breast,

And ending life fell dead before his feet.

“O Eros thanks” (quoth Antony) “for this

Most noble act, who pow’rles me to kill,

On thee hast done, what I on me should do”.

    Of speaking thus he scarce had made an end,

And taken up the bloody sword from ground,

But he his body pierc’d; and of redd blood

A gushing fountain all the chamber fill’d.

He staggered at the blow, his face grew pale,

And on a couch all feeble down he fell,

Sounding with anguish: deadly cold him took,

As if his soul had then his lodging left

But he reviv’d, and marking all our eyes

Bathed in tears, and how our breasts we beat

For pity, anguish, and for bitter grief,

To see him plong’d in extreme wretchedness:

He pray’d us all to haste his lingr’ing death:

But no man willing, each himself withdrew.

Then fell he new to cry and vex himself,

Until a man from Cleopatra came,

Who said from her he had commandment

To bring him to her to the monument.

    The poor soul at these words even rapt with joy

Knowing she liv’d, prai’d us him to convey

Unto his lady. Then upon our arms

We bare him to the tomb, but entered not.

For she, who feared captive to be made,

And that she should to Rome in triumph go,

Kept close the gate: but from a window high

Cast down a cord, wherein he was impacked.

Then by her women’s help the corpse she rais’d,

And by strong arms into her window drew.

    So pitiful a sight was never seen.

Little and little Antony was pull’d,

Now breathing death: his beard was all unkempt,

His face and breast all bathed in his blood.

So hideous yet, and dying as he was,

His eyes half-clos’d upon the queen he cast:

Held up his hands, and holp  himself to raise,

But still with weakness back his body fell.

The miserable lady with moist eyes,

With hair which careless on her forehead hung,

With breast which blows had bloodily benumb’d,

With stooping head, and body downward bent,

Enlaced her in the cord, and with all force

This life-dead man courageously uprais’de,

The blood with pain into her face did flow,

Her sinews stiff, herself did breathless grow.

    The people which beneath in flocks beheld,

Assisted her with gesture, speech, desire:

Cri’de and encourag’d her, and in their souls

Did sweat, and labour, no whit less then she.

Who never tir’d in labour, held so long

Helped by her women, and her constant heart,

That Antony was drawn into the tomb,

And there (I think) of dead augments the sum.

    The city all to tears and sighs is turn’d,

To plaints and outcries horrible to hear:

Men, women, children, hoary-headed age

Do all pell-mell in house and street lament,

Scratching their faces, tearing of their hair,

Wringing their hands, and martyring their breasts.

Extreme their dole, and greater misery

In sacked towns can hardly ever be.

Not if the fire had scal’de the highest towers:

That all things were of force and murder full;

That in the streets the blood in rivers stream’d;

The son his sire saw in his bosom slain,

The sire his son: the husband reft  of breath

In his wife’s arms, who furious runs to death.  

Now my breast wounded with their piteous plaints

I left their town, and took with me this sword,

Which I took up at what time Antony

Was from his chamber carried to the tomb:

And brought it you, to make his death more plain,

And that thereby my words may credit gain.

CAESAR

Ah gods what cruel hap! Poor Antony.

Alas hast thou this sword so long time borne

Against thy foe, that in the end it should

Of thee his Lord the cursed murdr’er be?

O Death how I bewail thee! We (alas!)

So many wars have ended, brothers, friends,

Companions, cousins, equals in estate:

And must it now to kill thee be my fate?

AGRIPPA

Why trouble you yourself with bootless grief?

For Antony why spend you tears in vain?

Why darken you with dole your victory?

Me seems yourself your glory do envy.

Enter the town, give thanks unto the gods.

CAESAR

I cannot but his tearful chance lament,

Although not I, but his own pride the cause,

And unchaste love of this Egyptian.

AGRIPPA

But best we sought into the tomb to get,

Lest she consume in this amazed case

So much rich treasure, with which happily

Despair in death may make her feed the fire:

Suffering the flames her jewels to deface,

You to defraud, her funeral to grace.

Send then to her, and let some mean be us’d

With some devise so hold her still alive,

Some fair large promises, and let them mark

Whither they may by some fine cunning slight

Enter the tombs.

CAESAR     Let Proculeius go,

And feed with hope her soul disconsolate.

Assure her so, that we may wholly get

Into our hands her treasure and herself.

For this of all things most I do desire

To keep her safe until our going hence:

That by her presence beautified may be

The glorious triumph Rome prepares for me.

Chorus of Roman soldiers.

Shall ever civil bate

    Gnaw and devour our state?

    Shall never we this blade,

    Our blood hath bloody made,

    Lay down? These arms down lay

    As robes we wear always?

    But as from age to age.

    So pass from rage to rage?

Our hands shall we not rest

    To bath in our own breast?

    And shall thick in each land

    Our wretched trophies stand,

    To tell posterity,

    What mad impiety

    Our stony stomachs led

    Against the place us bred?

Then still must heaven view

    The plagues that us pursue.

    And everywhere descry

    Heaps of us scattered lie,

Making the stranger plains

   Fat with our bleeding rains,

   Proud that on them their grave

   So many legions have.

And with our fleshes still

   Neptune his fishes fill

   And drunk with blood from blue

   The sea take blushing hue:

   As juice of Tyrian shell,

   When clarified well

   To wool of finest fields

   A purple gloss it yields .

But since the rule of Rome,

   To one man’s hand is come,

   Her now united state,

   Late jointly ruled by three

   Envying mutually,

   Whose triple yoke much woe

   On Latins’ necks did throw:

I hope the cause of jar,

   And of this bloody war,

   And deadly discord gone

   By what we last have done:

   Our banks shall cherish now

   The branchy pale-hew’d bow

   Of Olive, Pallas praise ,

   Instead of barren bays.

And that his temple door,

   Which bloody Mars before

   Held open, now at last

   Old Janus  shall make fast:

And rust the sword consume,

    And spoiled of waving plume,

    The useless morion  shall

    On crook hang by the wall.

At least if war return

    It shall not here sojourn,

    To kill us with those arms

    Were forg’d for others’ harms;

    But have their points addressed,

    Against the Germans’ breast,

    The Parthians’ feigned flight,

    The Biscains  martial might.

Old Memory doth there

    Painted on forehead wear

    Our fathers’ praise thence torn

    Our triumphs’ bays have worn:

    Thereby our matchless Rome

    Whilom of shepherds come

    Rais’d to this greatness stands,

    The queen of foreign lands.

Which now even seems to face

    The heav’ns, her glories place:

    Nought resting under Skies

    That dares affront her eyes.

    So that she needs but fear

    The weapons Jove doth bear,

    Who angry at one blow

   May her quite overthrow.

[5]

Cleopatra, Euphron, Children of Cleopatra, Charmion, Eras.

CLEOPATRA

    O cruel Fortune! O accursed lot!

O plaguy love! O most detested brand!

O wretched joys! O beauties miserable!

O deadly state! O deadly royalty!

O hateful life! O queen most lamentable!

O Antony by my fault buriable!

O hellish work of heav’n! Alas! The wrath

Of all the gods at once on us is fallen.

Unhappy queen! O would I in this world

The wandering light of day had never seen?

Alas! Of mine the plague and poison I

The crown have lost my ancestors me left,

This realm I have to strangers subject made,

And robbed my children of their heritage.

    Yet this is nought (alas!) unto the price

Of you dear husband, whom my snares entrap’d:

Of you, whom I have plagu’d, whom I have made

With bloody hand a guest of mouldy tomb:

Of you, whom I destroyed, of you, dear Lord,

Whom I of empire, honour, life have spoil’d.

    O hurtful woman! and can I yet live,

Yet longer live in this ghost-haunted tomb?

Can I yet breathe! Can yet in such annoy,

Yet can my soul within this body dwell?

O sisters you that spin the threads of death !

O Styx! O Plegethon! You brooks of hell!

O imps of Night!

EUPHRON     Live for your children’s sake:

Let not your death of kingdom them deprive.

Alas what shall they do? Who will have care?

Who will preserve this royal race of yours?

Who pity take? Even now me seems I see

These little souls to servile bondage fallen,

And borne in triumph.

CLEOPATRA     Ah most miserable!

EUPHRON

Their tender arms with cursed cord fast bound

At their weak backs.

CLEOPATRA      Ah Gods what pity more!

EUPHRON

Their seelie necks to ground with weakness bend.

CLEOPATRA

Never on us, good Gods, such mischief send.

EUPHRON

And pointed at with fingers as they go.

CLEOPATRA

Rather a thousand deaths.

EUPHRON        Lastly his knife

Some cruel caitive  in their blood imbrue.

CLEOPATRA

Ah my heart breaks. By shady banks of hell,

By fields whereon the lonely ghosts do tread,

By my soul, and the soul of Antony

I you beseech, Euphron, of them have care.

Be their good father, let your wisdom let

That they fall not into this tyrant’s hands.

Rather conduct them where their frizzed  locks

Black Ethiops to neighbour sun do show;

On wavy ocean at the waters will;

On barren cliffs of snowy Caucasus;

To tiger swift, to lions, and to bears;

And rather, rather unto every coast,

To eu’ry land and sea: for nought I fear

As rage of him, whose thirst no blood can quench.

    Adieu dear children, children dear adieu:

Good Isis you to place of safety guide,

Far from our faces, where you your lives may lead

In free estate devoid of servile dread.

    Remember not, my children, you were borne

Of such a princely race, remember not

So many brave kings which have Egypt rul’d

In right descent your ancestors have been:

That this great Antony your father was,

Hercules blood, and more then he in praise.

For your high courage such remembrance will,

Seeing your fall with burning rages fill.

    Who knows if that your hands, false Destiny,

The sceptres promis’d of imperious Rome,

Instead of them shall crooked sheephookes bear,

Needles or forks, or guide the carte, or plough?

Ah learn t’endure: your birth and high estate

Forget, my babes, and bend to force of fate.

    Farewell, my babes, farewell, my heart is clos’d,

With pity and pain, myself with death enclos’d,

My breath doth fail. Farwell for evermore,

Your sire and me you shall see never more.

Farewell sweet care, farewell.

CHILDREN          Madame Adieu.

CLEOPATRA

Ah this voice kills me. Ah good Gods! I swound .

I can no more, I die.

ERAS         Madame, alas!

And will you yield to woe? Ah speak to us.  

EUPHRON

Come children.

CHILDREN   We come.

EUPHRON         Follow we our chance.

The Gods shall guide us.

CHARMION       O too cruel lot!

O too hard chance! Sister what shall we do,

What shall we do, alas! If murdering dart

Of death arrive while that in slumbering swound

Half dead she lie with anguish overgone?

ERAS

Her face is frozen.

CHARMION     Madame for god’s love

Leave us not thus: bid us yet first farewell.

Alas! Weep over Antony, Let not

His body be without due rites entomb’d.

CLEOPATRA

Ah, ah.

CHARMION Madame.

CLEOPATRA         Ay me!

CHARMION                   How faint she is!

CLEOPATRA

My sisters, hold me up. How wretched I,

How cursed am! And was there ever one

By Fortune’s hate into more dolours thrown?

    Ah, weeping Niobe , although thy heart

Beholds itself enwrap’d in causeful woe

For thy dead children, that a senseless rock

With grief become, on Sipylus  thou stand’st

In endless tears, yet didst thou never feel

The weights of grief that on my heart do lie.

Thy children thou, mine I poor soul have lost,

And lost their father, more than them I wail,

Lost this fair realm; yet me the heavens wrath

Into a stone not yet transformed hath.

    Phaëton’s sisters , daughters of the Sun,

Which wail your brother fallen into the streams

Of stately Po: the Gods upon the banks

Your bodies to bank-loving alders turn’d.

For me, I sigh, I ceaseless weep, and wail,

And heaven pitiless laughs at my woe,

Revives, renews it still: and in the end

(Oh cruelty!) doth death for comfort lend.

    Die Cleopatra then, no longer stay

From Antony, who thee at Styx attends:

Go join thy ghost with his, and sob no more

Without his love within these tombs enclos’d.

ERAS

Alas! Yet let us weep, lest sudden death

From him our tears, and those last duties take

Unto his tomb we owe.

CHARMION       Ah let us weep

While moisture lasts, then die before his feet.

CLEOPATRA

Who furnish will mine eyes with streaming tears

My boiling anguish worthily to wail,

Wail thee Antony, Antony my heart?

Alas, how much I weeping liquor want!

Yet have mine eyes quite drawn their conduits dry

By long beweeping my disastered harms.

Now reason is that from my side they suck

First vital moisture, then the vital blood.

Then let the blood from my sad eyes out flow,

And smoking yet with thine in mixture grow.

Moist it, and heat it new, and never stop,

All watering thee, while yet remains one drop.

CHARMION

Antony take our tears: this is the last

Of all the duties we to thee can yield,

Before we die.

ERAS      These sacred obsequies

Take Antony, and take them in good part.

CLEOPATRA

O goddess thou whom Cyprus doth adore,

Venus of Paphos , bent to work us harm

For old Iulus’  brood, if thou take care

Of Caesar, why of us tak’st thou no care?

Antony did descend, as well as he,

From thine own son by long enchained line,

And might have rul’d by one and self-same fate,

True Trojan blood, the stately Roman state.

    Antony, poor Antony, my dear soul,

Now but a block, the booty of a tomb,

Thy life, thy heat is lost, thy colour gone,

And hideous paleness on thy face hath seaz’d.

Thy eyes, two suns, the lodging place of love,

Which yet for tents to warlike Mars did serve,

Lock’d up in lids (as fair days cheerful light

Which darkness flies) do winking hide in night.

    Antony by our true loves I thee beseech,

And by our hearts sweet sparks have set on fire,

Our holy marriage, and the tender ruth

Of our dear babes, knot of our amity:

My doleful voice thy ear let entertain,

And take me with thee to the hellish plain,

Thy wife, thy friend; hear Antony, O hear

My sobbing sighs, if here thou be, or there.

    Lived thus long, the winged race of years

Ended I have as Destiny decreed,

Flourish’d and reign’d, and taken just revenge

Of him who me both hated and despised.

Happy, alas too happy! If of Rome

Only the fleet had hither never come.

And now of me an image great shall go

Under the earth to bury there my woe.

What say I? Where am I? O Cleopatra,

Poor Cleopatra, grief thy reason reaves.

No, no, most happy in this hapless case,

To die with thee, and dying thee embrace:

My body joined with thine, my mouth with thine,

My mouth, whose moisture burning sighs have dried

To be in one self tomb, and one self chest,

And wrapped with thee in one self sheet to rest.

    The sharpest torment in my heart I feel

Is that I stay from thee, my heart, this while.

Die will I straight now, now straight will I die,

And straight with thee a wandering shade will be,

Under the cypress trees thou haunt’st alone,

Where brooks of hell do falling seem to moan.

But yet I stay, and yet thee overlive,

That ere I die due rites I may thee give.

    A thousand sobs I from my breast will tear,

With thousand plaints thy funerals adorn:

My hair shall serve for thy oblations,

My boiling tears for thy effusions,

Mine eyes thy fire, for out of them the flame

(Which burnt thy heart on me enamour’d) came.

   Weep my companions, weep, and from your eyes

Raine down on him of tears a brinish stream.

Mine can no more, consumed by the coals

Which from my breast, as from a furnace, rise.

Martyr your breasts with multiplied blows,

With violent hands tear of your hanging hair,

Outrage your face! Alas! Why should we seek

(Since now we die) our beauties more to keep?

    I spent in tears, not able more to spend,

But kiss him now, what rests me more to do?

Then let me kiss you, you fair eyes, my light,

Front seat of honour, face most fierce, most fair!

O neck, O arms, O hands, O breast where death

(Oh mischief) comes to choke up vital breath.

A thousand kisses, thousand thousand more

Let you my mouth for honours farewell give:

That in this office weak my limbs may grow,

Fainting on you, and fourth my soul may flow.

At Ramsbury, 26^th of November 1590.