CLEO. I know, by that same eye, there 's some good news. What says the married woman?—You may go; 'Would she had never given you leave to come! Let her not say 't is I that keep you here, I have no power upon you; hers you are. ANT. The gods best know,— CLEO. ANT. O, never was there queen So mightily betray'd! Yet, at the first, I saw the treasons planted. Cleopatra, CLEO. Why should I think you can be mine, and true, Most sweet queen,— ANT. Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor, Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world, Art turn'd the greatest liar. How now, lady! ANT. thou shouldst know Hear me, queen: ANT. Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius Makes his approaches to the port of Rome: Equality of two domestic powers Breeds scrupulous faction: The hated, grown to strength, Are newly grown to love: the condemn'd Pompey, Into the hearts of such as have not thriv'd CLEO. Though age from folly could not give me freedom, ANT. She 's dead, my queen: Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read CLEO. O most false love! Garboils-disorders, commotions; probably derived from the same source as turmoil. This passage is usually pointed with a colon after "well;" and, so pointed, it is interpreted by Capell, "such is Antony's love, fluctuating and subject to sudden turns, like my health." We follow the punctuation of the original, which is more consonant with the rapid and capricious demeanour of Cleopatra-I am quickly ill, and I am well again, so that Antony loves. Egypt the queen of Egypt. ANT. You'll heat my blood: no more. CLEO. You can do better yet; but this is meetly. ANT. Now, by my sword,— CLEO. ANT. And target. Still he mends; But this is not the best: Look, prithee, Charmian, The carriage of his chafe. I'll leave you, lady. CLEO. Courteous lord, one word. ANT. Sir, you and I must part,-but that 's not it: And I am all forgotten. But that your royalty Holds idleness your subject, I should take you For idleness itself. CLEO. ANT. "T is sweating labour To bear such idleness so near the heart As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me; And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword Be strew'd before your feet! Let us go. Come: That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me, SCENE IV.-Rome. An Apartment in Cæsar's House. Enter OCTAVIUs Cæsar, LepIDUS, and Attendants. CES. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know, One great competitor: from Alexandria This is the news: He fishes, drinks, and wastes More womanly than he hardly gave audience, [Exeunt. a Laurel. The use of the substantive adjectively was a peculiarity of the poetry of Shakspere's time, which has been revived with advantage in our own day. All the modern editions omit of, reading "the queen Ptolemy." Or vouchsaf'd to think he had partners: You shall find there LEP. That all men follow. I must not think there are Evils enow to darken all his goodness: His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, CES. You are too indulgent: Let's grant it is not And keep the turn of tippling with a slave; To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet With knaves that smell of sweat; say, this becomes him, (As his composure must be rare indeed Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet must Antony No way excuse his soils, when we do bear So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd His vacancy with his voluptuousness, Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones, Call on him for 't: but, to confound such time, As we rate boys; who, being mature in knowledge, MESS. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour, Most noble Cæsar, shalt thou have report How 't is abroad. Pompey is strong at sea; And it appears he is belov'd of those That only have fear'd Cæsar: to the ports CES. I should have known no less :- And the ebb'd man, ne'er lov'd till ne'er worth love, a Soils-defilements, taints. The original has foils, which Malone amended. Fear'd in the original; the general reading is dear'd. But it must be remembered that Cæsar is speaking; and that, in the notions of one who aims at supreme authority, to be feared and to be loved are pretty synonymous, Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, Goes to, and back, lackeying a the varying tide, To rot itself with motion. MESS. CES. Cæsar, I bring thee word, Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, Make the sea serve them; which they ear and wound They make in Italy; the borders maritime Lack blood to think on 't, and flush youth revolt: Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more Antony, Leave thy lascivious vassals. When thou once Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, LEP. "T is pity of him. CES. Let his shames quickly Drive him to Rome: "T is time we twain Did show ourselves i' the field; and, to that end, Assemble me immediate council: Pompey LATING S a Lackeying-the original has lacking (not lashing, as the commentators state); but the reading is evidently corrupt, and we may properly adopt Theobald's emendation of lackeying. Vassals. The spelling of the original is vassails. The modern reading is wassals. Now, in three other passages of the original, where the old English word wassal is used, it is spelt wassels. Wassal is employed by Shakspere in the strict meaning of drunken revelry; and that could "leave thy lascivious vassals" expresses scarcely be called "lascivious." On the contrary, Cæsar's contempt for Cleopatra and her minions, who were strictly the vassals of Antony, the queen being one of his tributaries. Assemble me. So the original. The modern reading is assemble we; and it is justified by the assertion that one equal is speaking to another. The commentators forget the contempt which Cæsar had for Lepidus: they forget, too, the crouching humility of Lepidus himself:"What you shall know meantime Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir, To let me be partaker." TRAGEDIES.-VOL. II. |