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Vol. Not so, my lord.

5

Bru. Nay, I am sure it is, Volumnius.
Thou see'st the world, Volumnius, how it goes;
Our enemies have beat us to the pit: [Alarum.
It is more worthy, to leap in ourselves,
Than tarry 'till they push us. Good Volumnius,
Thou know'st,that we two went to school together;
Even for that our love of old, I pray thee,
Hold thou my sword's hilt, whilst I run on it.
Vol. That's not an office for a friend, my lord. 10
[Alarun still.

Cli. Fly, fly, my lord; there is no tarrying here.
Bru. Farewell to you;-and you;—and you,
Volumnius.-

Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;
Farewell to thee too, Strato.-Countrymen,
My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life,
I found no man, but he was true to ine.
I shall have glory by this losing day,
More than Octavius, and Mark Antony,
By this vile conquest shall attain unto.
So, fare you well at once; for Brutus' tongue
Hath almost ended his life's history: [rest,
Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would
That have but labour'd to attain this hour.

[Alarum. Cry within, Fly, fly, fly. Cli.Fly, my lord,tly.[Exeunt Clitus, Dar.andVol. Bru. Hence; I will follow.

I pr'ythee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord:
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;

Thy life hath had some smack of honour in it:
Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?

Stra. Give me your hand first: Fare you well,
my lord.

Bru.Farewell,goodStrato.Cæsar, now be still;

kill'd not thee with half so good a will.
[He runs on his sword, and dies
Alarum. Retreat. Enter Octavius, Aniony, Mes
sala, Lucilius, and the Army.

Octa. What man is that?
[master
Mes. My master's man.-Strato, where is th
Stra. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala
The conquerors can but make a fire of him:
For Brutus only overcame himself,

And no man else hath honour by his death.
Luc. So Brutes should be found.-I thank thee
Brutus,

That thou hast prov'd Lucilius' saying true.
Octa. All that serv'd Brutus, I will entertain them
15 Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me?
Stra. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you.
Octa. Do so, good Messala.

201

Mes. How died my master, Strato?

Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it.
Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee,
That did the latest service to my master.

Ant. This was the noblest Roman of them all
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
|25|He, only, in a general honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, This was a man!

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Octa. According to his virtue let us use him,
With all respect, and rites of burial.
Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie,
Most like a soldier, order'd honourably.-
So, call the field to rest: and let's away,
35 To part the glories of this happy day.

[Exeun

ANTON

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Ambassadors from Antony to Cæsar, Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.
The SCENE is dispersed in several parts of the Roman Empire.

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AY, but this dotage of our general's O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,

[turn

That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges' all temper:
And is become the bellows and the fan,
Tocool a gypsy's lust.-Look, where they come!
Flourish. Enter Antony and Cleopatra, with their
trains; Eunuchs fanning her.
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much. Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.

Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.

1i. e. renounces.

5

Ant. Then must thou needs find out new hea

ven, new carth.

Enter a Messenger.

Mes. News, my good lord, from Rome.
Ant. Grates me:-The sum".

Cleo. Nay, hear them, Antony:

Fulvia, perchance, is angry; or, who knows If the scarce-bearded Cæsar have not sent His powerful mandate to you, "Do this, or this; 10" Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that; "Perform't, or else we damn thee."

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2 Gypsy is here used both in the original meaning for an Egyptian, and in its accidental sense for a bad woman. 3 Triple is here used improperly for third, or one of three. One of the triumvirs, one of the three masters of the world. sum thy business in a few words.

i.e. bound or limit.

i. e. be brief,

Kingdoms

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Embracing.

And such a twain can do't; in which, I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet',
We stand up peerless.

Cleo. Excellent falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I ain not; Antony
Will be himself,

Ant. But stirr'd by Cleopatra.

5

10

Now, for the love of love, and his soft hours,
Let's not confound the timewithconference harsh:
There's not a minute of our lives should stretch 15
Without some pleasure now: What sport to-night?
Cleo. Hear the embassadors.

Ant. Fye, wrangling queen!

Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and adimir'd!
No messenger, but thine;-And all alone,
To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and

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Eno. Bring in thebanquet qui
Cleopatra's health to drink.
Char. Good sir, give me go
Sooth. I make not, but fores
Char. Pray then, foresee m
Sooth. You shall be yet far f
Char. He means in flesh.
Iras. No, you shall paint wh
Char. Wrinkles forbid !
Alex. Vex not his prescienc
Char. Hush!

Sooth. You shall be more belo
Char. I had rather heat my li
Alex. Nay, hear him.

Char. Good now, some exce me be married to three kings i 20 widow them all! let me have a whom Herod of Jewry may d me to marry with Octavius Ca nion me with my mistress!

Sooth. You shall out-live the 25 serve.

30

35

1401

Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Scothsayer.
Char. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any
thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's
the soothsayer that you prais'd so to the queen?
O! that I knew this husband, which, you say, 45
must change his horns with garlands.
Alex. Soothsayer.

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Sooth. Your will?

[know things? Char. Is this the man?-Is't you, sir, that Sooth. In nature's infinite book of secrecy,

'To know.

Char. O excellent! I love lo figs'.

Sooth. You have seen and pro Than that which is to approach Char. Then, belike, my child names: Pry'thee, how many b must I have?

Sooth. If every of your wishe And foretell every wish, a milli Char. Out, fool! I forgive the Alex. You think, none but privy to your wishes.

Char. Nay, come, tell Iras he

Alex. We'll know all our for Eno. Mine, and most of our f shall be-drunk to bed.

Iras. There's a palm presage thing else.

Char. Even as the o'erflowing famine.

Iras. Go, you wild bedfell sooth-say.

Char. Nay, if an oily palm prognostication, I cannot scratc 50 Pr'ythee, tell her but a worky-d

2 But here signifies unless. 3 Meaning, that he proves the com in his case to be a true reporter. 4 * Dr. Johnson doubts, whether change in this place merely to dress, or to dress with changes of garlands; certain it is, that change of cl of Shakspeare signified variety of them. A heated liver is supposed to make 'Herod was always one of the personages in the mysteries of our early stage, on w stantly represented as a fierce, haughty, blustering tyrant; so that Herod of Jewry mon proverb, expressive of turbulence and rage. Thus Hamlet says of a ranting "out-herods Herod."—The meaning then is, Charmian wishes for a son, who ma power and dominion, that the proudest and fiercest monarchs of the earth may be b yoke. 7 A proverbial expression. A fairer fortune may mean, a more repu answer then implies, that belike all her children will be bastards, who have no righ their father's family. "The meaning is, If you had as many wombs as you will I should foretell all those wishes, I should foretell a million of children.—It is an ellips in conversation;—I should shame you, and tell all; that is, and if I should tell all.

B

which was anciently and is still provincially used for if

Sooth. Your fortunes are alike.

Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars.]
Sooth. I have said.

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

Char. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it? Irus. Not in my husband's nose.

5

10

Char. Our worser thoughts heavens mend!— Alexas,―come, his fortune, his fortune.-O, let him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a worse! and let worse follow worse, 'till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave,] fifty-fold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this 15 prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!

Iras. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! for, as it is a heart-breaking to see a handsome man loose-wiv'd, so it is a deadly 20 sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded: Therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly.

Char. Amen.

Alex. Lo, now! if it lay in their hands to make 25 me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they'd do 't.

Eno. Hush! here comes Antony.
Char. Not he, the queen.

Enter Cleopatra.

Cleo. Saw you my lord?

Eno. No, lady.

Cleo. Was he not here?

Char. No, madam.

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2 Mes. In Sicyon:

Her length of sickness, with what else more seri
Importeth thee to know, this bears. [Gives a lett
Ant. Forbear me.-
[Exit Messeng
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire
30 What our contempts do often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution 'lowering, does become
The opposite of itself: she's good,being gone; [
The hand could pluck her back, that shov'

Cleo. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sud-35I must from this enchanting queen break off;

den

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[bus,-Enobar[Alexas?

Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alex. Here,at your service.--My lord approaches. 40 Enter Antony, with a Messenger, and Attendants. Cleo. We will not look upon him: Go with us.

[Exeunt

Mes. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Ant. Against my brother Lucius?
Mes. Ay:

But
soon that war had end, and the time's state
Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst
Cæsar;

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
Upon the first encounter, drave them.

Ant. Well, what worst?

Mes. The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Ant. When it concerns the fool, or coward.-
On;

45

Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know
My idleness doth hatch.-How now, Enobarb
Enter Enobarbus.

Eno. What's your pleasure, sir?
Ant. I must with haste from hence.

Eno. Why, then we kill all our women: V
see how mortal an unkindness is to them; if th
suffer our departure, death's the word.
Ant. I must be gone.

Eno. Under a compeiling occasion, let wom die: It were pity to cast them away for nothin though, between them and a great cause, th should be esteem'd nothing. Cleopatra, catchi but the least noise of this, dies instantly; I ha 50seen her die twenty times upon far poorer n ment': I do think, there is mettle in dea which commits some loving act upon her, s hath such a ce erity in dying.

[thus; 55 Things that are past, are done, with me.-Tis Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,

I hear him as he flatter'd.

Mes. Labienus (this is stiff news)

Ant. She is cunning past man's thought. Eno. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made nothing but the finest part of pure love: We c not call her winds and waters, sighs and tear they are greater storms and tempests than aln nacks can report: this cannot be cunning in he

1 i. e. seized. The sense is, that man, not agitated by censure, like soil not ventilated by qu winds, produces more evil than good. i. e. by regular repetition. Could for would.-Cou

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