Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst | die: It were pity to cast them away for nothing;

Cæsar;

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

Ant.

What worst?

Well,

Mess. The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Ant. When it concerns the fool or coward.-On:
Things, that are past, are done, with me.-"Tis
thus;

Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
I hear him as he flatter'd.
Mess.

Labienus

though, between them and a great cause, they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment:" I do think there is mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying.

Ant. She is cunning past man's thought.

Eno. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love: We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacks

(This is stiff news) hath, with his Parthian force, can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, Extended3 Asia from Euphrates;

His conquering banner shook, from Syria

To Lydia, and to Ionia ;

tongue;

Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome :
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase: and taunt my faults
With such full licence, as both truth and malice
Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,
When our quick minds lie still and our ills told us,
Is as our earing. Fare thee well a while.
Mess. At your noble pleasure.
[Exit.
Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.
1 Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is there such a
one ?

she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.
Ant. 'Would, I had never seen her!

Eno. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonder ful piece of work: which not to have been blesse withal, would have discredited your travel.

Ant. Fulvia is dead.

Eno. Sir?

Ant. Fulvia is dead.
Eno. Fulvia?

Ant. Dead.

Eno. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented; this grief is crowned with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new petticoat :-and, Let him appear,—indeed, the tears live in an onion, that should water

2 Att. He stays upon your will. Ant.

(These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Enter another Messenger.

Or lose myself in dotage.-What are you?
2 Mess. Fulvia thy wife is dead.
Ant.

1

2 Mess. In Sicyon :

Where died she?

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears. Gives a letter.
Ant.
Forbear me.
[Exit Messenger.
There's a great spirit gone: Thus did I desire it:
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'd her on.
I must from this enchanting queen break off;
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch.-How now! Enobarbus!
Enter ENOBAREUS.

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

Eno. Why, then, we kill all our women: We see how mortal an unkindness is to them: if they suffer our departure, death's the word.

Ant. I must be gone.

Eno. Under a compelling occasion, let women

1 Drave is the ancient preterite of the verb to drive, and frequently occurs in the Bible.

2 Stiff news' is 'hard news.' As in Shakspeare's Rape of Lucrece :

3

Fearing some hard news from the warlike band.'
Extended Asia from Euphrates.'
To extend is a law term for to seize. Thus in Selimus,
Emperor of the Turks, 1594 :-

Ay, though on all the world we make extent,
From the south pole unto the northern bear.'
4 The old copy reads, quick winds;' an error which
has occurred elsewhere. Warburton made the correc-
tion. Our quick minds' means our lively apprehen
sive minds; which, when they lie idle, bring forth vices
instead of virtues, weeds instead of flowers and fruits;
to tell us of our faults is, as it were, the first culture of
the mind, and is the way to kill these weeds.

5 The pleasure of to-day, by revolution of events and change of circumstances, often loses all its value to us, and becomes to-morrow a pain

6 Could is here used with an optative meaning. Could would and should are often used by our old wri

this sorrow.

Ant. The business she hath broached in the state, Cannot endure my absence.

Eno. And the business you nave broached here cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your abode.

Ant. No more light answers. Let our officers
Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
The cause of our expedience to the queen,
And get her love to part. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
Of many our contriving friends in Rome
Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Cæsar, and commands
The empire of the sea: our slippery people,
(Whose love is never link'd to the deserver,
Till his deserts are past,) begin to throw
Pompey the Great, and all his dignities,
Upon his son who, high in name and power,
Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
The sides o' the world may danger: Much is breed-
ing,

Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure,
To such whose place is under us, requires
Our quick remove from hence.12

10 I think with Mason that we should read leave instead of love.

11 This alludes to the ancient vulgar error, that a horse hair dropped into corrupted water would become ani mated. Dr. Lister in the Philosophical Transactions showed that these animated horse-hairs were real insects, and displayed the fallacy of the popular opinion It was asserted that these insects moved like serpenta and were poisonous to swallow.

12 Say to those whose place is under us (i. e. to ou attendants.) that our pleasure requires us to remove i haste from hence'

SCENE III. Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, Our services a while; but my full heart IRAS, and ALEXAS.

(As his composure must be rare indeed,
Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet must So much as lank'd not.

isquences, by surfeits and dry bones; but to consume such time,' &c.

Char.

Why, madam?

Her opulent throne with kingdoms; All the east,
Say thou, shall call her mistress. So he nodded,
And soberly did mount an arrogant steed,
Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke
Was beastly dumb' by him.

Cleo.
What, was he sad, or merry?
Alex. Like to the time of the year, between the

extremes

Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of Of the hot and cold; he was nor sad, nor merry.

time,

My Antony is away.

Char.

Too much.

Cleo.

You think of him
O, 'tis treason!

Char.

Madam, I trust, not so.
Cleo. Thou, eunuch! Mardian!
Mar.
What's your highness' pleasure?
Cleo. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure
In aught an eunuch has: 'Tis well for thee,
That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts
May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?
Mar. Yes, gracious madam.

Cleo. Indeed?

Cleo. O well-divided disposition!-Note him, Note him, good Charmian, 'tis the man; but note him;

He was not sad; for he would shine on those
That make their looks by his: he was not merry;
Which seem'd to tell them, his remembrance lay
In Egypt with his joy: but between both;
O heavenly mingle!-Be'st thou sad, or merry,
So does it no man else.-Met'st thou my posts?
The violence of either thee becomes;
Aler. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick ?a
Cleo.
Who's born that day
When I forget to send to Antony,
Shall die a beggar.-Ink and paper, Charmian.-

Mar. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing Welcome, my good Alexas,-Did I, Charmian,

But what indeed is honest to be done:

Yet have I fierce affections, and think,
What Venus did with Mars.

Cleo.

O, Charmian,

Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?

Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?

O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou

mov'st?

The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
And burgonet2 of men.-He's speaking now,
Or murmuring, Where's my serpent of old Nile ?
For so he calls me: Now I feed myself
With most delicious poison:-Think on me,
That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,
And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Cæsar,
When thou wast here above the ground, I was
A morsel for a monarch: and great Pompey
Would stand, and make his eyes grow in my brow;
There would he anchor his aspect, and die
With looking on his life.

it with my brave Mark Antony?
Alex. Last thing he did, dear queen,
'He kiss'd,-the last of many doubled kisses,
This orient pearl :-His speech sticks in my heart.
Cleo. Mine ear must pluck it thence.
Alex.
Good friend, quoth he,
Say, The firm Roman to great Egypt sends
This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot
To mend the pretty present, I will piece

1 A plant, of which the infusion was supposed to prozure sleep. Thus in Addington's translation of The Golden Ass of Apuleius:-'I gave him no poyson but a doling drink of mandragoras, which is of such force, that it will cause any man to sleepe as though he were dead. See Pliny's Natural History by Holland, 1601; and Plutarch's Morals, 1602, p. 19.

2 A burgonet is a helmet, a head-piece. 3 Hence perhaps Pope's Eloisa :

Still drink delicious poison from thine eye." 4 Broad-fronted,' in allusion to Caesar's baldness. 5 Alluding to the philosopher's stone, which, by its touch, converts base metal into gold. The alchymists call the matter, whatever it be, by which they perform transmutation, a medicine Thus Chapman in his Shadow of Night, 1594:

O then, thou great elixir of all treasures.' And on this passage he has the following note:--The philosopher's stone, or philosophica medicina, is called the great elixir.'

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
We, ignorant of ourselves,
By losing of our prayers.
Deny us for our good; so find we profit,

ing it, is that an could never stand before termagant.
The epithet now admitted into the text is the happy
suggestion of Mr. Boaden, and is to be preferred both
on account of its more striking propriety, and because
it admits of the original article an retaining its place be
fore it. That it is an epithet fitly applied to the steed o.
Antony, may be shown by high poetical authority. In
the Auraco Domado of Lope de Vega, the reader will
find the following passage:-

Y el cavallo arrogante, in que subido
El hombre parecia

Monstruosa fiera que sies pies tenia.'
Termagant, it should be observed, is furious; arro-
gant, which answers to the Latin feror, is only fierce,
proud. Our great poet of imagination all compact,'
is the greatest master of poetic diction the world has yet
produced; he could not have any knowledge of the
Spanish poet, but has anticipated him in the use of this
expressive epithet. The word arrogaunt, as written in
old MSS. might easily be mistaken for arm-gaunt.

7 Thus the old copy; which was altered by Theo bald to dumb'd without necessity. The arrogant steed, says Alexas, would let no sound be heard but his own, he neighed so loud that what I would have spoke was beastly obstructed by him.

8 i. e. in such quick succession.

6 The old copy reads an arm-gaunt steed,' upon which conjecture has been vainly employed. Steevens adopted Monck Mason's suggestion of'a termagant steed,' with high commendation. A striking objection 9 While we are praying, the thing for which we to that reading, which escaped Mr. Steevens in adopt. | pray is losing its value.”

I must be laugh'd at,

If, or for nothing, or a little, I
Should say myself offended; and with you

them-Chiefly i' the world: more laugh'd at, that I should
Once name you derogately, when to sound your

5 Julius Cæsar had married Cleopatra to young Pto-in power. lemy, who was afterwards drowned."

6. e. I cannot expect. So Chaucer in The Reve's Tale, v. 4027 :

Our manciple I hope he wol be ded.'