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Therefore Roxana may have leave to hope
You will at last be kind, for all my sufferings,
My torments, racks, for this last dreadful murder,
Which furious love of thee did bring upon me.
Aler. O thou vile creature! bear thee from
my sight,

And thank Statira, that thou art alive:

Else thou hadst perished; yes, I would have rent, With my just hands, that rock, that marble heart; I would have dived through seas of blood to find it,

To tear the cruel quarry from its center.

Kill the triumpher, and avenge my wrong,
In height of pomp, while he is warm and
young;

Bolted with thunder let him rush along,
And when in the last pangs of life he lies,
Grant I may stand to dart him with my eyes:
Nay, after death,

Pursue his spotted ghost, and shoot him as he flies! [Exit.

Alex. O my fair star, I shall be shortly with thee;

For I already feel the sad effects

Ror. O take me to your arms, and hide my Of those most fatal imprecations.

blushes!

I love you spite of all your cruelties;
There is so much divinity about you,

I tremble to approach: yet here's my hold,
Nor will I leave the sacred robe, for such
Is every thing, that touches that blest body:
I'll kiss it as the relic of a god,

And love shall grasp it with these dying hands. Aler. O that thou wert a man, that I might drive

Thee round the world, and scatter thy contagion, As gods hurl mortal plagues, when they are angry! Ror. Do, drive me, hew me into smallest pieces,

My dust shall be inspired with a new fondness; Still the love-motes shall play before your eyes, Where'er you go, however you despise.

Aler. Away! there's not a glance that flies from thee,

But, like a basilisk, comes winged with death. Ror. O speak not such harsh words, my royal master!

Look not so dreadful on your kneeling servant;
But take, dear sir, O take me into grace,
By the dear babe, the burden of my womb,
That weighs me down, when I would follow
faster!

My knees are weary, and my force is spent:
O do not frown, but clear thy angry brow !
Your eyes will blast me, and your words are bolts,
That strike me dead; the little wretch I bear,
Leaps frighted at your wrath, and dies within

me.

Aler. O thou hast touched my soul so tenderly, That I will raise thee, though thy hands are

ruin.

Rise, cruel woman, rise, and have a care,
O do not hurt that unborn innocence,
For whose dear sake I now forgive thee all.
But haste, begone! fly, fly from these sad eyes,
Fly with thy pardon, lest I call it back ;
Though I forgive thee, I must hate thee ever.

Ros. I go, I fly for ever from thy sight.
My mortal injuries have turned my mind,
And I could curse myself for being kind.
If there be any majesty above,

That has revenge in store for perjured love,
Send, Heaven, the swiftest ruin on his head;
Strike the destroyer, lay the victor dead;
VOL. I.

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Enter PERDICCAS and LYSIMACHUS.
Per. I beg your majesty will pardon me,
A fatal messenger;

Great Sysigambis, hearing Statira's death,
Is now no more;

Her last words gave the princess to the brave
Lysimachus: but that, which most will strike you,
Your dear Hephestion, having drank too largely
At your last feast, is of a surfeit dead.

Alex. How! dead? Hephestion dead? alas the
dear

Unhappy youth!-But he sleeps happy,
I must wake for ever:-This object, this,
This face of fatal beauty,

Will stretch my lids with vast, eternal tears-
Who had the care of poor Hephestion's life?
Lys. Philarda, the Arabian artist.

Alex. Fly, Meleager, hang him on a cross!
That for Hephestion-

But here lies my fate; Hephestion, Clytus,
All my victories for ever folded up:
In this dear body my banner's lost,
My standard's triumphs gone!

O when shall I be mad? Give order to
The army, that they break their shields, swords,

spears,

Pound their bright armour into dust; away!
Is there not cause to put the world in mourning?
Tear all your robes:-he dies, that is not naked
Down to the waste, all like the sons of sorrow.
Burn all the spires, that seem to kiss the sky;
Beat down the battlements of every city:
And for the monument of this loved creature,
Root up those bowers, and pave them all with
gold:

Draw dry the Ganges, make the Indies poor;
To build her tomb, no shrines nor altars spare,
But strip the shining gods to make it rare. [Erit.
Cass. Ha! whither now? follow him, Polyper-
chon.
Exit Pol.

I find Cassander's plot grows full of death;
Murder is playing her great master-piece,

S

And the sad sisters sweat, so fast I urge them.
O how I hug myself for this revenge!
My fancy's great in mischief; for methinks
The night grows darker, and the labouring ghosts,
For fear that I should find new torments out,
Run o'er the old with most prodigious swiftness.
I see the fatal fruit betwixt the teeth,

The sieve brim full, and the swift stone stand still.
Enter POLYPERCHON.

What, does it work? Pol. Speak softly. Cass. Well.

Pol. It does;

I followed him, and saw him swiftly walk
Toward the palace; oftimes looking back,
With watry eyes, and calling out Statira.
He stumbled at the gate, and fell along;
Nor was he raised with ease by his attendants,
But seemed a greater load than ordinary,
As much more as the dead outweigh the living.
Cass. Said he nothing?

Pol. When they took him up,

He sighed, and entered with a strange wild look, Embraced the princes round, and said he must Dispatch the business of the world in haste.

Enter PHILIP and THESSALUS.

Phil. Back, back, all scatter-With a dreadful
shout

I heard him cry, 'I am but a dead man!'
Thess. The poison tears him with that height
of horror,
That I could pity him.

Pol. Peacewhere shall we meet?
Cass. On Saturn's field.

Methinks I see the frighted deities,
Ramming more bolts in their big-bellied clouds,
And firing all the heavens to drown his noise.
Now we should laugh-But go, disperse your-
selves,

While each soul here, that fills his noble vessel,
Swells with the murder, works with ruin o'er;
And from the dreadful deed this glory draws,
We killed the greatest man, that ever was.

SCENE II.

Enter ALEXANDER and all his Attendants. Aler. Search there, nay, probe me, search my wounded reins!

Pull, draw it out!

Lys. We have searched, but find no hurt.

Aler. O I am shot, a forked burning arrow Sticks cross my shoulders: the sad venom flies, Like lightning, through my flesh, my blood, my

marrow.

Lys. This must be treason.

Ferd. Would I could but guess!

Alex. Ha! what a change of torments I endure!

A bolt of ice runs hissing through my bowels :

'Tis sure the arm of death: give me a chair; Cover me, for I freeze, and my teeth chatter, And my knees knock together.

Perd. Heaven bless the king! Alex. Ha! who talks of heaven? I am all hell; I burn, I burn again! The war grows wondrous hot; hey for the Tiger! Bear me, Bucephalus, amongst the billows: O'tis a noble beast; I would not change him For the best horse the Sun has in his stable: For they are hot, their mangers full of coals, Their manes are flakes of lightning, curls of fire, And their red tails, like meteors, whisk about. Lys. Help all, Eumenes, help! I cannot hold him!

Alex. Ha, ha, ha! I shall die with laughter. Parmenio, Clytus, dost thou see yon fellow, That ragged soldier, that poor tattered Greek? See how he puts to flight the gaudy Persians, With nothing but a rusty helmet on, through which

The grizly bristles of his pushing beard
Drive them like pikes-
-Ha, ha, ha!
Perd. How wild he talks!
Lys. Yet warring in his wildness.
Alex. Sound, sound, keep your ranks close; ay,

now they come :

O the brave din, the noble clank of arms!
Charge, charge apace, and let the phalanx move :
Darius comes- -ha! let me in, none dare
To cross my fury.Philotas is unhorsed;-Ay,
'tis Darius;

I see, I know him by the sparkling plumes,
And his gold chariot, drawn by ten white horses:
But, like a tempest, thus I pour upon him—
He bleeds! with that last blow Ì brought him
down;

He tumbles! take him, snatch the imperial crown.
They fly, they fly!- -follow, follow!-Victo
ria! Victoria!
Victoria!- -O let me sleep.

Perd. Let's raise him softly, and bear him to his bed:

Aler. Hold, the least motion gives me sudden death;

My vital spirits are quite parched up,
And all my smoky entrails turned to ashes.
Lys. When you, the brightest star that ever

shone,

Shall set, it must be night with us for ever.

Alex. Let me embrace you all before I die: Weep not, my dear companions; the good gods Shall send you, in my stead, a nobler prince, One that shall lead you forth with matchless con duct.

Lys. Break not our hearts with such unkind expressions.

Perd. We will not part with you, nor change

for Mars.

Alex, Perdiccas, take this ring,

And see me laid in the temple of Jupiter Am

mon.

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If, by unwearied toil, I have deserved
The vast renown of thy adopted son,
Accept this soul, which thou didst first inspire,
And which this sigh thus gives thee back again.
Dies.

Lys. Eumenes, cover the fallen majesty;
If there be treason, let us find it out;
Lysimachus stands forth to lead you on,
And swears, by these most honoured dear remains,
He will not taste those joys which beauty brings,
Till we revenge the greatest, best of kings.
[Exeunt omnes.

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Last night, between the hours of twelve
and one,

In a lone aisle of the temple while I walked,
A whirlwind rose, that, with a violent blast,

Even of the hinds, that watched it. Men and Shook all the dome; the doors around me clapt;

beasts

Were borne above the tops of trees, that grew
On the utmost margin of the water-mark:
Then with so swift an ebb the flood drove back-
ward,

It slipt from underneath the scaly herd:
Here monstrous phoca panted on the shore;
Forsaken dolphins there, with their broad tails,
Lay lashing the departing waves; hard by them

The iron wicket, that defends the vault,
Where the long race of Ptolemies is laid,
Burst open, and disclosed the mighty dead:
From out each monument, in order placed,
An armed ghost starts up; the boy-king last
Reared his inglorious head: a peal of groans
Then followed, and a lamentable voice
Cried, Egypt is no more.' My blood ran back,
My shaking knçes against each other knocked,

On the cold pavement down I fell entranced,
And so unfinished left the horrid scene!
Alex. And dreamt you this, or did invent the
story,
[Shewing himself.
To frighten our Egyptian boys withal,
And train them up betimes in fear of priesthood?
Ser. My lord, I saw you not,

Nor meant my words should reach your ears; but what

I uttered was most true.

Alex. A foolish dream,

Bred from the fumes of indigested feasts
And holy luxury.

Ser. I know my duty:

This goes no farther.

Alex. 'Tis not fit it should,

Nor would the times now bear it, were it true. All southern from yon hills the Roman camp Hangs o'er us black and threatening, like a storm Just breaking on our heads.

Ser. Our faint Egyptians pray for Antony,
But in their servile hearts they own Octavius.
Myr. Why, then, does Antony dream out his
hours,

And tempts not fortune for a noble day,
Which might redeem what Actium lost?
Ales. He thinks 'tis past recovery.
Ser. Yet the foe

Seems not to press the siege.

Alex. Oh, there's the wonder.
Mecenas and Agrippa, who can most
With Cæsar, are his foes. His wife, Octavia,
Driven from his house, solicits her revenge;
And Dolabella, who was once his friend,
Upon some private grudge now seeks his ruin;
Yet still war seems on either side to sleep.
Ser. 'Tis strange, that Antony, for some days
past,

Has not beheld the face of Cleopatra,
But here in Isis' temple lives retired,
And makes his heart a prey to black despair.
Aler. 'Tis true; and we much fear he hopes,
by absence,

To cure his mind of love.

Ser. If he be vanquished,

Or make his peace, Egypt is doomed to be
A Roman province, and our plenteous harvests
Must then redeem the scarceness of their soil.
While Antony stood firm, our Alexandria
Rivalled proud Rome (dominion's other seat),
And fortune striding, like a vast Colossus,
Could fix an equal foot of empire here.

Alex. Had I my wish, these tyrants of all na-
ture,

Who lord it o'er mankind, should perish, perish,
Each by the other's sword; but since our will
Is lamely followed by our power, we must
Depend on one, with him to rise or fall.

Ser. How stands the queen affected?
Aler. Oh, she doats,

She doats, Serapion, on this vanquished man,
And winds herself about his mighty ruins,

Whom, would she yet forsake, yet yield him up,
This hunted prey, to his pursuer's hands,
She might preserve us all: but 'tis in vain—
This changes my designs, this blasts my counsels,
And makes me use all means to keep him here,
Whom I could wish divided from her arms
Far as the earth's deep centre. Well, you know
The state of things: no more of your
ill omens
And black prognostics; labour to confirm
The people's hearts.

Enter VENTIDIUS, talking aside with a gentleman of ANTONY'S.

Ser. These Romans will o'erhear us.

But who's that stranger? by his warlike port,
His fierce demeanor, and erected look,
He is of no vulgar note.

Alex. Oh, 'tis Ventidius,

Our emperor's great lieutenant in the east,
Who first shewed Rome, that Parthia could be
conquered.

When Antony returned from Syria last,
He left this man to guard the Roman frontiers.
Ser. You seem to know him well.

Alex. Too well. I saw him in Cilicia first,
When Cleopatra there met Antony:
A mortal foe he was to us and Egypt.
But let me witness to the worth I hate;
A braver Roman never drew a sword:
Firm to his prince, but as a friend, not slave :
He ne'er was of his pleasures, but presides
O'er all his cooler hours, and morning counsels :
In short, the plainness, fierceness, rugged virtue
Of an old true stampt Roman lives in him.
His coming bodes, I know not what, of ill
To our affairs. Withdraw, to mark him better,
And I'll acquaint you why I sought you here,
And what is our present work.

[They withdraw to a corner of the stage, and VENTIDIUS, with the other, comes forward to the front.

Vent. Not see him, say you?

I say I must, and will.

Gent. He has commanded,

On pain of death, none should approach his pre

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