1

Our strength is all gone into heaviness,3
That makes the weight: Had I great Juno's power,
The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,
And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little,-
Wishers were ever fools;-O, come, come, come;
[They draw ANTONY up.
And welcome, welcome! die, where thou hast liv'd:
Quicken with kissing; had my lips that power,
Thus would I wear them out.

All.

A heavy sight!
Ant. I am dying, Egypt, dying:

Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.

Cleo. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high, That the false housewife Fortune break her wheel, Provok'd by my offence.

Ant.

One word, sweet queen: Of Cæsar seek your honour, with your safety.-O! Cleo. They do not go together.

Ant.

Gentle, hear me:

None about Cæsar trust, but Proculeius.

Cleo. My resolution, and my hands, I'll trust; None about Cæsar.

Ant. The miserable change now at my end,

Lament nor sorrow at: but please your thoughts,
In feeding them with those my former fortunes
Wherein I liv'd, the greatest prince o'the world,
The noblest: and do now not basely die,
Nor cowardly; put off my helmet to
My countryman, a Roman, by a Roman
Valiantly vanquish'd. Now, my spirit is going;
'I can no more.

Cleo.

Noblest of men, woo't die?

Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide

In this dull world, which in thy absence is

3

[Dies.

into heaviness,] Heaviness is here used equivocally for sorrow and weight.

Quicken with kissing;] That is, Revive by my kiss.

*

No better than a stye?-O, see, my women,
The crown o'the earth doth melt:-My lord!-
O, wither'd is the garland of the war,

The soldier's pole is fallen; young boys, and girls, Are level now with men: the odds is gone,

And there is nothing left remarkable

Beneath the visiting moon.

Char.

O, quietness, lady!.

Iras. She is dead too, our sovereign.

Char.

Iras.

[She faints.

Lady,

Madam,

Royal Egypt!

Char. O madam, madam, madam!

Iras.

Empress!

Char. Peace, peace, Iras.

Cleo. No more, but e'en a woman; and com-
manded

By such poor passion as the maid that milks,
And does the meanest chares.It were for me
To throw my scepter at the injurious gods;
To tell them, that this world did equal theirs,
Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but naught;
Patience is sottish; and impatience does
Become a dog that's mad: Then is it sin,

To rush into the secret house of death,

Ere death dare come to us?-How do you, women? What, what? good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian?

My noble girls!-Ah, women, women! look,
Our lamp is spent, it's out:-Good sirs, take heart:-
To the Guard below.
We'll bury hiin: and then, what's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,

"The soldier's pole-] He at whom the soldiers pointed, as at a pageant held high for observation.

the meanest chares.] i. e. task-work. Hence our term chare-woman.

And make death proud to take us.

Come, away: This case of that huge spirit now is cold. Ah, women, women! come; we have no friend But resolution, and the briefest end.

[Exeunt; those above bearing off ANTONY'S Body.

ACT V.

SCENE I. Cæsar's Camp before Alexandria.

Enter CESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MECENAS, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, and Others.

Cæs. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield; Being so frustrate, tell him, he mocks us by The pauses that he makes.

Dol.

Cæsar, I shall. [Exit DOLABELLA.

Enter DERCETAS, with the Sword of ANTONY. Cas. Wherefore is that? and what art thou, that dar'st

Appear thus to us?

Der.

8

I am call'd Dercetas;

Mark Antony I serv'd, who best was worthy
Best to be serv'd: whilst he stood up, and spoke,
He was my master; and I wore my life,
To spend upon his haters: If thou please
To take me to thee, as I was to him
I'll be to Cæsar; if thou pleasest not,
I yield thee up my life.

Cæs.

What is't thou say'st?

7 Being so frustrate,-] Frustrate, for frustrated, was the language of Shakspeare's time.

8

hand.

thus to us?] i. e. with a drawn and bloody sword in thy

Der. I say, O Cæsar, Antony is dead.

Cas. The breaking of so great a thing should

make

A greater crack: The round world should have shook Lions into civil streets,

And citizens to their dens:-The death of Antony Is not a single doom; in the name lay

A moiety of the world.

Der.

He is dead, Cæsar;
Not by a publick minister of justice,

Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand,
Which writ his honour in the acts it did,

Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
Splitted the heart.-This is his sword,

I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd

With his most noble blood.

Cæs.
The gods rebuke me, but it is a tidings
To wash the eyes of kings.9

Agr.

Look you sad, friends?

And strange it is,

His taints and honours

A rarer spirit never

That nature must compel us to lament

Our most persisted deeds.

Mec.

Waged equal with him.

Agr. Did steer humanity: but you, gods, will give us Some faults to make us men. Cæsar is touch'd. Mec. When such a spacious mirror's set before him, He needs must see himself.

Cæs.

O Antony!

I have follow'd thee to this;-But we do lance
Diseases in our bodies: I must perforce

9 but it is a tidings

To wash the eyes of kings.] That is, May the gods rebuke me, if this be not tidings to make kings weep.

Diseases in vur bodies:] When we have any bodily complaint,

Have shown to thee such a declining day,
Or look on thine; we could not stall together
In the whole world: But yet let me lament,
With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
That thou, my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
Friend and companion in the front of war,
The arm of mine own body, and the heart
Where mine his thoughts" did kindle,-that our
stars,

Unreconciliable, should divide

Our equalness to this.3-Hear me, good friends,But I will tell you at some meeter season;

Enter a Messenger.

The business of this man looks out of him,
We'll hear him what he says.-Whence are you?
Mess. A poor Egyptian yet.

mistress,

The queen my

Confin'd in all she has, her monument,
Of thy intents desires instruction;
That she preparedly may frame herself
To the way she's forced to.

Cæs.

Bid her have good heart;

She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,
How honourable and how kindly we

Determine for her: for Cæsar cannot live
To be ungentle.

Mess.

So the gods preserve thee! [Exit.

that is curable by scarifying, we use the lancet; and if we neglect to do so, we are destroyed by it. Antony was to me a disease; and by his being cut off, I am made whole. We could not both have lived in the world together. MALONE.

his thoughts-] His is here used for its.

3 Our equalness to this.] That is, should have made us, in our equality of fortune, disagree to a pitch like this, that one of us must die.