Enter DERCETAS and Guard. 1 Guard. Dido and her Æneas' shall want troops, Eros. What would my lord? Since Cleopatra died, Disgrace and horror, that, on my command, The gods withhold me! Eros. Shall I do that, which all the Parthian darts, Though enemy, lost aim, and could not? Ant. Would'st thou be window'd in great Rome, and see Eros, Thy master thus with pleach'd' arms, bending down To penetrative shame; whilst the wheel'd seat I would not see't. Eros. cur'd. Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn Most useful for thy country. Eros. O, sir, pardon me. Ant. When I did make thee free, swor'st thou not then To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once; But accidents unpurpos'd. Draw, and come. Then let it do at once My dear master, My captain and my emperor! let me say, Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell. Ant. 'Tis said, man ;--and farewell. Eros. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now? Ant. Now, Eros. Eros. Why, there, then :-[Falls on his Sword.] Thus do I escape the sorrow Of Antony's death. Ant. Thrice nobler than myself! Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what [Dies. I should, and thou could'st not. My queen and Eros [Falling on his Sword. I learn'd of thee. How! not dead? not dead?The guard!-ho!-O, despatch me. 1 Warburton remarks that Dido and Æneas were not likely to be found thus lovingly associated, where souls do couch on flowers. Either the poet forgot Virgil's celebrated description in the sixth book of the Eneid, or confounded Eneas with Sichæus inadvertently. 2 Less noble mind' must be accepted as if it was written less nobly minded. The termination bly is often written ble by old writers, and is frequently to be found so in Shakspeare. To mind or purpose is a verb extensively used in former times. We have it in the Third Part of King Henry VI. : 'Belike she minds to play the amazon.' And in another place : But if you mind to hold your true obedience,' So Baret: I am fully purposed, minded, or deter mined, so to do.' The passage in North's Plutarch, which Shakspeare copied, runs thus:-'I am sorrie What's the noise? Ant. I have done my work ill, friends; O, make an end Dio. Ant. Now, my lord. Where is she? Dio. Lock'd in her monument. She had a pro Of what hath come to pass: for when she saw phesying fear she hath dispos'd with Cæsar, and that your rage (Which never shall be found) you did suspect Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was But, fearing, since, how it might work, hath sent dead; Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come, I dread, too late. [pr'ythee. Ant. Too late, good Diomed:-Call my guard, I Dio. What, ho! the emperor's guard! The guard, what, ho! Come, your lord calls. grace it with your sorrows: bid that welcome Which comes to punish us, and we punish it, Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up: I have led you oft; carry me now, good friends, [Exeunt bearing ANTONY. SCENE XIII. The same. A Monument. Enter above, CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and IRAS. Cleo. O, Charmian, I will never go from hence. Char. Be comforted, dear madam. that having beene so great a captaine and emperour, I am indeed condemned to be judged of lesse corage and noble minde than a woman.' 3 i. e. arms folded in each other. 4 Corrigible for corrected, and afterwards penetratire for penetrating. So Virgil has 'penetrabile frigus' for penetrans frigus,' in his Georgics. 5 Branded with baseness the poor wretch that followed. 6 i. e. the honour, the dignity. 7 This thought occurs in Measure for Measure:- 8 i. e. arranged with him, agreed with him. The word is used in this sense in Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. Sc. 3: Agam. What's his excuse? Ulyss. He doth rely on none, But carries on the stream of his dispose Without observance or respect of any.' (Dear my lord, pardon,) I dare not, Lest I be taken: not the imperious show Of the full-fortun'd Cæsar ever shall Be brooch'd' with me; if knife, drugs, serpents, have Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe:. Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes, Ant. Gentle, hear me: None about Cæsar trust, but Proculerus Cleo. My resolution, and my hands, I'll trust; Ant. The miserable change now at my end, Cleo. [Dies. Noblest of men, woo't die? The soldier's pole is fallen; young boys and girls, [She faints. Char. Lady, Iras. Madam, Empress! Char. Peace, peace, Iras. Cleo. No more, but e'en a woman;1" and com- By such poor passion as the maid that milks Demuring upon me.-But come, come, Antony,-To tell them that this world did equal theirs, Ant. Our strength is all gone into heaviness, All. A heavy sight! Cleo. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high, Ant. One word, sweet queen: Of Cæsar seek your honour with your safety.--O! Cleo. They do not go together. 1 It should be remembered that, according to the old philosophy, the sun was accounted a planet, and thought to be whirled round the earth by the motion of a solid sphere in which it was fixed. Supposing this consumed, the sun must wander in endless space, and the earth be involved in endless night. 2 Cleopatra means that she dare not come down out of the monument to Antony. Ritson proposed to read: (Dear my lord, pardon) I dare not come down.' 3 Brooch'd here must mean ornamented, adorned. Any ornamental jewel was called a brooch - Honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.'-Ben Jonson's Poetaster. And love to Richard Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.' King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 5. 4 Sedate determination; silent coolness of resolution.' 5 Cleopatra by these words seems to contrast the melancholy task in which they are now engaged with their former sports. 6 i. e. revive by my kiss. To quicken, according to Baret, is to make livelie and lustie; to make strong and sound, to refresh.' Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but naught; My noble girls!--Ah, women, women! look, 10 Iras has just said, 'Royal Egypt, Empress ! Cleopatra completes the sentence, (without taking notice of the intervening words of Charmian,) Empress "no more; but e'en a woman,' now on a level with the meanest of my sex. The old copy reads but in a woman.' Dr. Johnson made the correction. 11 i. e. task-work. She, like a good wife, is teaching her servants sundry chares.'-Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613. And at my crummed messe of milke, each night from To do their chares as they supposed,' &c. SCENE I. ACT V. Cæsar's Camp before Alexandria. Dol. Cæsar, I shall. [Exit DOLABELLA. dar'st Appear thus to us ?2 make life. A greater crack: The round world should have shook And citizens to their dens :-The death of Antony He is dead, Cæsar; Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand, Diseases in our bodies: I must perforce The business of this man looks out of him, Confin'd in all she has, her monument, Cæs. She soon shall know of us, by some of ours, Mess. So the gods preserve thee! Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, And, with your speediest, bring us what she says, Splitted the heart.-This is his sword, 1 robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd With his most noble blood. Cas. Look you sad, friends? The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings And strange it is, His taints and honours A rarer spirit never Waged equal with him. He needs must see himself. Cæs. O, Antony! I have follow'd thee to this ;-But we do lance 1 Frustrate for frustrated was the language of Shakspeare's time; and we find contaminate for contaminated, consummate for consummated, &c. Thus in The Tempest : and the sea mocks Our frustrate search by land.' The two last words in this line, us by, are not in the old copy, in which something seems omitted, and these words, which suit the context well, were supplied by Malone, who has justified his selection of them by instances of similar phraseology in other passages of these plays. 2 i. e. with a drawn and bloody sword in thy hand. Should have shook lions into civil streets, The second line is evidently defective, some word or SCENE II. Alexandria. A Room in the Monument. Enter CLEOPATRA,'2 CHARMIAN, and IRAS. Cleo. My desolation does begin to make A better life: 'Tis paltry to be Cæsar; make kings weep.' But again in its exceptive sense. 4 May the gods rebuke me if this be not tidings to 5 Waged here must mean to be opposed, as equal stakes in a wager; unless we suppose that weighed is meant. The second folio reads way. 6 Launch, the word in the old copy, is only the obsolete spelling of lance. 7 His for its. 8 That is, should have made us, in our equality of fortune, disagree to a pitch like this, that one of us must die. 9 i. e. yet an Egyptian, or subject of the queen of Egypt, though soon to become a subject of Rome.' 10 I have before observed that the termination ble was anciently often used for bly. This Malone calls using adjectives adverbially, or using substantives adjec tively, as the case may be. I doubt whether it be any thing more than the laxity of old orthography. We have honourable for honourably again in Julius Cæ sar :- Young man, thou could'st not die more honourable. 11 If I send her in triumph, to Rome, her memory and my glory will be eternal. Thus in The Scourge of Venus, 1614 :- If some foule-swelling ebon cloud would fall 12 The poet here has attempted to exhibit at once the outside and the inside of a building. It would be difficult to represent this scene on the stage in any other way than making Cleopatra and her attendants speak all their speeches, till the queen is seized within the mo nument Cleo. [Within.] What's thy name? Antony Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but That have no use for trusting. If your master Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him, No less beg than a kingdom: if he please Pro. Cleo. [Within.] Pray you, tell him I am his fortune's vassal, and I send him The greatness he has got. I hourly learn A doctrine of obedience; and would gladly Look him i' the face. Pro. This I'll report, dear lady. Have comfort; for, I know, your plight is pitied Of him that caus'd it. Gal. You see how easily she may besurpris'd; [Here PROCULEIUS, and two of the Guard, ascend the Monument by a Ladder placed against a Window, and having descended, come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of the Guard unbar and open the Gates. Guard her till Cæsar come. [To PROCULEIUS and the Guard. Exit GALLUS. Iras. Royal queen! 1 Servant. 2 Voluntary death (says Cleopatra) is an act which bolts up change; it produces a state- Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung, The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's.' Do not abuse my master's bounty, by Cleo. Pro. O, temperance, tady! Cleo. Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir, (If idle talk will once be necessary;") I'll not sleep neither: This mortal house I'll ruin, Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt You do extend Which has no longer need of the gross and terrene sus-nument with two of his men, hard by the gate, where tenance, in the use of which Caesar and the beggar are on a level. It has been already said in this play, thatour dungy earth Feeds man as beast.' The Ethiopian king (in Herodotus, b. iii.) upon hearing a description of the nature of wheat, replied, that he was not at all surprised if men, who eat nothing but dung, did not attain a longer life." 3 Mason would change as I, to and I; but I have shown in another place that as was used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries for that. 4 Praying in aid is a term used for a petition made in a court of justice for the calling in of help from another that hath an interest in the cause in question. Cleopatra stood to hear what Gallus said unto her. One of her women shrieked out, O poore Cleopatra, thou art taken. Then when she sawe Proculeius behind her, as she came from the gate, she thought to have stabbed herself with a short dagger she wore of purpose by her side. But Proculeius came sodainly upon her, and taking her by both the hands, sayd unto her, Cleopatra, first thou shalt doe thyselfe greate wrong, and secondly unto Caesar, to deprive him of the occasion and opportunitie openlie to shew his vauntage and mercie, and to give his enemies cause to accuse the most courteous and noble prince that ever was, and to appeach him as though he were a cruel and mercilesse man that were not to be trusted. So even as he spake the word he tooke her dagger from her, and shooke her clothes for fear of any poison hid aboute her.' The speech given Gallus here is given by mistake to Proculeius in the old copy. 5 By these words Cleopatra means--In yielding to him I only give him that honour which he himself achieved. A kindred idea seems to occur in The Tem-to pest:- Then as my gift, and thy own acquisition, Worthily purchased, take thou my daughter. 6 There is no stage direction in the old copy, that which is now inserted is formed on the old translation of Plutarch: Proculeins came to the gates, that were very thicke and strong, and surely barred; but yet there were some cranews through the which her royce might he heard, and so they without understood that Cleopatra demanded the kingdome of Egypt for her sonnes; and that Proculeius aunswered her, that she should be of good cheere, and not be affrayed to refer all unto Cæsar. After he had viewed the place very well, he came and 7 It should be remembered that once is used as once for all by Shakspeare. I take the meaning of this line, which is evidently parenthetical, to be, 'Once for all, if idle talk be necessary about my purposes.' Johnson has shown that will be is often used in conversation without relation to the future. I have placed this line in a parenthesis, by which the sense of the passage is now rendered sufficiently clear, without having recourse to supplementary words, as Malone and Ritson proposed. 8 Pyramides is so written and used as a quadrisyllable by Sandys and by Drayton. The little Ŏ, the earth.' Dol. Most sovereign creature,- Cleo. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods. It's past the size of dreaming: Nature wants stuff Dol. Cleo. I thank you, sir. Know you, what Cæsar means to do with me? Cleo. Nay, pray you, sir,— Dol. Though he be honourable,- I know it. Madam, he will; Within. Make way there!-Cæsar! Which is the queen Cæs. 'Tis the emperor, madam. Cæs. [CLEOPATRA kneels. You shall not kneel: I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt. Cleo. Sir, the gods Will have it thus; my master and my lord Take to you no hard thoughts: Cleo. I cannot projects mine own cause so well Cleopatra, know, find Go back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes, Cæs. To one so meek, that mine own servant should Steevens should have expunged a note that appeared in 1 Shakspeare uses O for an orb or circle. Thus in beautiful passage from Ben Jonson's New Inn, on the 3 Dr. Percy thinks that 'this is an allusion to some of the old crests in heraldry, where a raised arm on wreath was mounted on the helmet. To crest is to surmount. 4 Plates means silver money:- In heraldry, the roundiets in an escutcheon, if or, or |