Aler. And yet, though love and your unmatch-
ed desert

Have drawn her from the due regard of honour,
At last heaven opened her unwilling eyes
To see the wrong she offered fair Octavia,
Whose holy bed she lawlessly usurped :
The sad effects of this unprosperous war
Confirmed those pious thoughts.

Vent. [Aside.] Oh, wheel you there? Observe him now; the man begins to mend, And talk substantial reason.-Fear not, eunuch; The emperor has given thee leave to speak.

Aler. Else had I never dared to offend his ears With what the last necessity has urged On my forsaken mistress: yet I must not Presume to say, her heart is wholly altered. Ant. No; dare not for thy life! I charge thee, dare not

Pronounce that fatal word!

Oct. Must I bear this? Good heaven, afford me patience! [Aside. Vent. On, sweet eunuch! my dear half man, proceed!

Aler. Yet Dolabella

Lingered behind with her. I hear, my lord, You make conditions for her,

And would include her treaty: wond'rous proofs Of love to me!

Ant. Are you my friend, Ventidius? Or are you turned a Dolabella too, And let this fury loose?

Vent. Oh, be advised, Sweet madam! and retire.

Oct. Yes, I will go, but never to return;
You shall no more be haunted with this fury.
My lord, my lord! love will not always last,
When urged with long unkindness and disdain.
Take her again, whom you prefer to me;
She stays but to be called. Poor cozened man!
Let a feigned parting give her back your heart,
Which a feigned love first got; for injured me,
Though my just sense of wrongs forbid my stay,
My duty shall be yours.

To the dear pledges of our former love
My tenderness and care shall be transferred,
And they shall cheer by turns my widowed nights.
So take my last farewell! for I despair
To have you whole, and scorn to take you half.
[Exit.

Vent. I combat heaven, which blasts my best designs!

My last attempt must be to win her back;
But oh! I fear, in vain.

[Exit.

ness,

I should have kept the mighty anguish in,
But bears its workings outward to the world?
And forced a smile at Cleopatra's falsehood;.
Octavia had believed it, and had staid.
Seen to the bottom, all my clearness scorned,
But I am made a shallow-forded stream,
And all my faults exposed.-See, where he comes,
Enter DOLABELLA,

Who has profaned the sacred name of friend,
And worn it into vileness!

With how secure a brow and specious form
He gilds the secret villain! Sure that face
Was meant for honesty, but heaven mismatch-
ed it,

And furnished treason out with nature's pomp,
To make its work more easy.

Dol. O my friend!

Ant. Well, Dolabella, you performed my message?

Dol. I did, unwillingly.

Ant. Unwillingly !

Was it so hard for you to bear our parting? You should have wished it.

Dol. Why!

Ant. Because you love me;

And she received my message with as true,
With as unfeigned a sorrow as you brought it?

Dol. She loves you even to madness.
Ant. Oh! I know it.

You, Dolabella, do not better know
How much she loves me. And should I

nious

In punishing such crimes. The rolling stone
And gnawing vulture were slight pains, invented
When Jove was young, and no examples known
Of mighty ills; but you have ripened sin

To such a monstrous growth, 'twill pose the gods
To find an equal torture. Two, two such!
Oh, there's no farther name; two such to me,
To me, who locked my soul within your breasts,
Had no desires, no joys, no life but you;
When half the globe was mine, I gave it you
In dowry with my heart: I had no use,
No fruit, of all but you: a friend and mistress
Was what the world could give. Oh, Cleopatra!
Oh, Dolabella! how could you betray

This tender heart, which, with an infant fond

ness,

Lay lulled betwixt your bosoms, and there slept Secure of injured faith?

Dol. If she has wronged you,

Heaven, hell, and you revenge it!

Ant. If she has wronged me!

Thou wouldst evade thy part of guilt: but swear Thou lov'st not her.

Dol. Not so as I love you.

Ant. Not so? Swear, swear, I say, thou dost
not love her.

Dol. No more than friendship will allow,
Ant. No more!

Friendship allows thee nothing: thou art perjured

And yet thou didst not swear thou lov'st her not; But not so much, no more. Oh, trifling hypocrite!

Who dar'st not own to her thou dost not love, Nor own to me thou dost! Ventidius heard it, Octavia saw it.

Cico. They are enemies.

Ant. Alexas is not so; he, he confest it;

He, who next hell best knew it, he avowed it.
Why do I seek a proof beyond yourself!

[To DOL. You, whom I sent to bear my last farewell, Returned to plead her stay.

Dol. What shall I answer?

If to have loved be guilt, then I have sinned;
But if to have repented of that love
Can wash away my crime, I have repented;
Yet, if I have offended past forgiveness,
Let her not suffer: she is innocent.

Cleo. Ah, what will not a woman do, who loves!

What means will she refuse to keep that heart, Where all her joys are placed! 'Twas I encou raged,

'Twas I blew up the fire, that scorched his soul, To make you jealous, and by that regain you: But all in vain; I could not counterfeit :

In spite of all the dams, my love broke o'er,
And drowned my heart again: Fate took the oc-
casion,

And thus one minute's feigning has destroyed
My whole life's truth.

Ant. Thin cobwebs, arts of falsehood,

Seen and broke through at first.

Dol. Forgive your mistress.

Cleo. Forgive your friend.

Ant. You have convinced yourselves;

You plead each other's cause. What witness have

Banished for love of you, banished from you; Ay, there's the banishment! Oh, hear me, hear

me,

With strictest justice, for I beg no favour, And, if I have offended you, then kill me, But do not banish me!

Ant. I must not hear you;

I have a fool within me takes your part, But honour stops my ears.

Cleo. For pity hear me !

Would you cast off a slave, who followed you, Who crouched beneath your spurn? He has no pity!

See, if he gives one tear to my departure,
One look, one kind farewell: oh, iron heart!
Let all the gods look down and judge betwixt us,
If he did ever love!

Ant. No more. Alexas!

Dol. A perjured villain!

Ant. [To CLEO.] Your Alexas! yours! Cleo. Oh, 'twas his plot; his ruinous design To engage you in my love by jealousy. Hear him; confront him with me; let him speak. Ant. I have, I have.

Cleo. And if he clear me not

Ant. Your creature! one, who hangs upon your smiles,

Watches your eye, to say or to unsay
Whate'er you please. I am not to be moved.
Cleo. Then must we part? farewell, my cruel
lord!

The appearance is against me; and I go,
Unjustified, for ever from your sight.
How I have loved, you know; how yet I love,
My only comfort is I know myself:

I love you more, even now you are unkind,
Than when you loved me most; so well, so truly,
I'll never strive against it, but die pleased
To think you once were mine.

Ant. Good Heaven! they weep at parting.
Must I weep too? that calls them innocent.
I must not weep; and yet I must, to think,
That I must not forgive-

Live, but live wretched; 'tis but just you should,
Who made me so: live from each other's sight;
Let me not hear you meet. Set all the earth
And all the seas betwixt your sundered loves;
View nothing common but the sun and skies.
Now all take several ways,

And each your own sad fate with mine deplore, That you were false, and I could trust no more. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE I.-The Temple.

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMION, and IRAS. Char. Bejuster, heaven! such virtue, punished thus,

Will make us think, that chance rules all above, And shuffles, with a random hand, the lots, Which man is forced to draw.

Cleo, I could tear out these eyes, that gained his heart,

And had not power to keep it. Oh, the curse
Of doating on, even when I find it dotage!
Bear witness, gods! you heard him bid me go;
You, whom he mocked, with imprecating vows,
Of promised faith-I'll die, I will not bear it.
You may hold me-

[She pulls out her dagger, and they hold her. But I can keep my breath; I can die inward, And choke this love.

Enter ALEXAS.

Iras. Help, oh, Alexas, help!

The ruins of a falling majesty,

To place myself beneath the mighty flaw,
Thus to be crushed and pounded into atoms,
By its o'erwhelming weight? 'Tis too presuming
For subjects to preserve that wilful power,
Which courts its own destruction.

Cleo. I would reason

More calmly with you. Did you not o'errule
And force my plain, direct, and open love
Into these crooked paths of jealousy?
Now what's the event? Octavia is removed,
But Cleopatra's banished. Thou, thou villain,
Hast pushed my boat to open sea, to prove,
At my sad cost, if thou canst steer it back.
It cannot be; I am lost too far; I am ruined:
Hence! thou impostor, traitor, monster, devil-
I can no more: thou and my griefs have sunk
Me down so low, that I want voice to curse thee.
Alex. Suppose some shipwrecked seaman near
the shore,

Dropping and faint with climbing up the cliff,
If from above, some charitable hand

Pull him to safety, hazarding himself

her,

With all the agonies of love and rage,

And strives to force its passage.

Cleo. Let me go.

Art thou there, traitor !-Oh,

Oh for a little breath to vent my rage!

Give, give me way, and let me loose upon him. Alex. Yes, I deserve it for my ill-timed truth. Was it for me to prop

And curse him for his pains? The case is yours; But one step more, and you have gained the

height.

Cleo. Sunk, never more to rise.

Alex. Octavia's gone, and Dolabella banished. Believe me, madam, Antony is yours;

His heart was never lost, but started off
To jealousy, love's last retreat and covert,
Where it lies hid in shades, watchful in silence,

Think not, 'tis thou hast conquered Antony,
But Rome has conquered Egypt. I'm betray'd.
Vent. Curse on this treacherous train !
Their soil and heaven infect them all with base-
ness,

And their young souls come tainted to the world,
With the first breath they draw.

Ant. The original villain sure no god created; He was a bastard of the Sun by Nile; Aped into man with all his mother's mud Crusted about his soul.

Vent. The nation is

One universal traitor, and their queen
The very spirit and extract of them all.
Ant. Is there yet left

A possibility of aid from valour?

Is there one god unsworn to my destruction,
The least unmortgaged hope? for, if there be,
Methinks I cannot fall beneath the fate
Of such a boy as Cæsar.

The world's one half is yet in Antony,
And from each limb of it, that's hew'd away,
The soul comes back to me.

Vent. There yet remain

Three legions in the town; the last assault
Lopt off the rest. If death be your design
As I must wish it now, these are sufficient
To make a heap about us of dead foes,
An honest pile for burial.

Ant. They're enough.

We'll not divide our stars, but side by side
Fight emulous, and with malicious eyes
Survey each other's acts: so every death
Thou givest, I'll take on me as a just debt,
And pay thee back a soul.

Vent. Now you shall see I love you. Not a
word

Of chiding more. By my few hours of life,
I am so pleased with this brave Roman fate,
That I would not be Cæsar to outlive you!
When we put off this flesh, and mount together,
I shall be shewn to all the ethereal crowd,

Lo! this is he, who died with Antony!'
Ant, Who knows but we may pierce through
all their troops,

And reach my veterans yet? 'Tis worth the tempting,

To o'erleap this gulf of fate,

And leave our wandering destinies behind.

Enter ALEXAS, trembling.

Vent. See, see that villain!

See Cleopatra stamped upon that face,
With all her cunning, all her arts of falsehood!
How she looks out through those dissembling
eyes!

How he has set his countenance for deceit,
And promises a lie before he speaks!
Let me dispatch him first.

Aler. Oh, spare me, spare me!

[Drawing.

Ant. Hold; he's not worth your killing. On thy life,

(Which thou mayest keep, because I scorn to take it)

No syllable to justify thy queen;
Save thy base tongue its office.

Ant. Fled to her Dolabella!
Die, traitor! I revoke my promise; die!
[Going to kill him.
Aler. Oh, hold; she is not fled.
Ant. She is; my eyes

Are open to her falsehood. My whole life
Has been a golden dream of love and friendship;
But now I wake, I'm like a merchant roused
From soft repose, to see his vessel sinking,
And all his wealth cast o'er. Ungrateful woman !
Who followed me but as the swallow summer,
Hatching her young ones in my kindly beams,
Singing her flatteries to my morning wake;
But now my winter comes, she spreads her wings,
And seeks the spring of Cæsar.

Aler. Think not so;

Her fortunes have in all things mixed with yours: Had she betrayed her naval force to Rome, How easily might she have gone to Cæsar, Secure by such a bribe.

Vent. She sent it first,

To be more welcome after.
Ant. 'Tis too plain,

Else would she have appeared to clear herself.
Alex. Too fatally she has; she could not bear
To be accused by you, but shut herself
Within her monument, looked down and sighed,
While from her unchanged face the silent tears
Dropt, as they had not leave, but stole their
parting.

Some undistinguished words she inly murmured;
At last she raised her eyes, and with such looks
As dying Lucrece cast-

Ant. My heart forebodes
Vent. All for the best.

Go on.

Alex. She snatched her poniard, And, ere we could prevent the fatal blow, Plunged it within her breast; then turned to me; Go, bear my lord,' said she, 'my last farewell, And ask him if he yet suspect my faith.' More she was saying, but death rushed betwixt. She half pronounced your name with her last breath,

And buried half within her.

Vent. Heaven be praised!

Ant. Then art thou innocent, my poor dear love!

And art thou dead?

Oh, those two words! their sound should be divided.

Hadst thou been false and died, or hadst thou lived

And hadst been true-But innocence and death! This shows not well above. Then what am I? The murderer of this truth, this innocence ! Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid

As can express my guilt!

Vent. Is it come to this? The gods have been too gracious,

And thus you thank them for it.

Ant. [To ALEX.] Why stay'st thou here? Is it for thee to spy upon my soul,