Chapter 5
Part 5
CHARMIAN. Madam.
IRAS. Madam, O good empress!
EROS. Sir, sir!
ANTONY. Yes, my lord, yes. He at Philippi kept His sword e’en like a dancer, while I struck The lean and wrinkled Cassius, and ’twas I That the mad Brutus ended. He alone Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had In the brave squares of war. Yet now—no matter.
CLEOPATRA. Ah, stand by.
EROS. The Queen, my lord, the Queen!
IRAS. Go to him, madam; speak to him. He is unqualitied with very shame.
CLEOPATRA. Well then, sustain me. O!
EROS. Most noble sir, arise. The Queen approaches. Her head’s declined, and death will seize her but Your comfort makes the rescue.
ANTONY. I have offended reputation, A most unnoble swerving.
EROS. Sir, the Queen.
ANTONY. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See How I convey my shame out of thine eyes By looking back what I have left behind ’Stroyed in dishonour.
CLEOPATRA. O my lord, my lord, Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought You would have followed.
ANTONY. Egypt, thou knew’st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’ strings, And thou shouldst tow me after. O’er my spirit Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods Command me.
CLEOPATRA. O, my pardon!
ANTONY. Now I must To the young man send humble treaties, dodge And palter in the shifts of lowness, who With half the bulk o’ th’ world played as I pleased, Making and marring fortunes. You did know How much you were my conqueror, and that My sword, made weak by my affection, would Obey it on all cause.
CLEOPATRA. Pardon, pardon!
ANTONY. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss. Even this repays me. We sent our schoolmaster. Is he come back? Love, I am full of lead. Some wine Within there, and our viands! Fortune knows We scorn her most when most she offers blows.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE XII. Caesar’s camp in Egypt.
Enter Caesar, Agrippa, Dolabella with others.
CAESAR. Let him appear that’s come from Antony. Know you him?
DOLABELLA. Caesar, ’tis his schoolmaster— An argument that he is plucked, when hither He sends so poor a pinion of his wing, Which had superfluous kings for messengers Not many moons gone by.
Enter Ambassador from Anthony.
CAESAR. Approach, and speak.
AMBASSADOR. Such as I am, I come from Antony. I was of late as petty to his ends As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf To his grand sea.
CAESAR. Be’t so. Declare thine office.
AMBASSADOR. Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and Requires to live in Egypt, which not granted, He lessens his requests, and to thee sues To let him breathe between the heavens and earth, A private man in Athens. This for him. Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness, Submits her to thy might, and of thee craves The circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs, Now hazarded to thy grace.
CAESAR. For Antony, I have no ears to his request. The queen Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend, Or take his life there. This if she perform, She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.
AMBASSADOR. Fortune pursue thee!
CAESAR. Bring him through the bands.
[_Exit Ambassador, attended._]
[_To Thidias_.] To try thy eloquence now ’tis time. Dispatch. From Antony win Cleopatra. Promise, And in our name, what she requires; add more, From thine invention, offers. Women are not In their best fortunes strong, but want will perjure The ne’er-touch’d vestal. Try thy cunning, Thidias; Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we Will answer as a law.
THIDIAS. Caesar, I go.
CAESAR. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw, And what thou think’st his very action speaks In every power that moves.
THIDIAS. Caesar, I shall.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE XIII. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian and Iras.
CLEOPATRA. What shall we do, Enobarbus?
ENOBARBUS. Think, and die.
CLEOPATRA. Is Antony or we in fault for this?
ENOBARBUS. Antony only, that would make his will Lord of his reason. What though you fled From that great face of war, whose several ranges Frighted each other? Why should he follow? The itch of his affection should not then Have nicked his captainship, at such a point, When half to half the world opposed, he being The mered question. ’Twas a shame no less Than was his loss, to course your flying flags And leave his navy gazing.
CLEOPATRA. Prithee, peace.
Enter the Ambassador with Antony.
ANTONY. Is that his answer?
AMBASSADOR. Ay, my lord.
ANTONY. The Queen shall then have courtesy, so she Will yield us up.
AMBASSADOR. He says so.
ANTONY. Let her know’t.— To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head, And he will fill thy wishes to the brim With principalities.
CLEOPATRA. That head, my lord?
ANTONY. To him again. Tell him he wears the rose Of youth upon him, from which the world should note Something particular: his coin, ships, legions, May be a coward’s; whose ministers would prevail Under the service of a child as soon As i’ th’ command of Caesar. I dare him therefore To lay his gay comparisons apart, And answer me declined, sword against sword, Ourselves alone. I’ll write it. Follow me.
[_Exeunt Antony and Ambassador._]
ENOBARBUS. Yes, like enough high-battled Caesar will Unstate his happiness, and be staged to th’ show Against a sworder! I see men’s judgments are A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them To suffer all alike. That he should dream, Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdued His judgment too.
Enter a Servant.
SERVANT. A messenger from Caesar.
CLEOPATRA. What, no more ceremony? See, my women, Against the blown rose may they stop their nose That kneeled unto the buds. Admit him, sir.
[_Exit Servant._]
ENOBARBUS. [_Aside_.] Mine honesty and I begin to square. The loyalty well held to fools does make Our faith mere folly. Yet he that can endure To follow with allegiance a fallen lord Does conquer him that did his master conquer, And earns a place i’ th’ story.
Enter Thidias.
CLEOPATRA. Caesar’s will?
THIDIAS. Hear it apart.
CLEOPATRA. None but friends. Say boldly.
THIDIAS. So haply are they friends to Antony.
ENOBARBUS. He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has, Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master Will leap to be his friend. For us, you know Whose he is we are, and that is Caesar’s.
THIDIAS. So.— Thus then, thou most renowned: Caesar entreats Not to consider in what case thou stand’st Further than he is Caesar.
CLEOPATRA. Go on; right royal.
THIDIAS. He knows that you embrace not Antony As you did love, but as you feared him.
CLEOPATRA. O!
THIDIAS. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he Does pity as constrained blemishes, Not as deserved.
CLEOPATRA. He is a god and knows What is most right. Mine honour was not yielded, But conquered merely.
ENOBARBUS. [_Aside_.] To be sure of that, I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for Thy dearest quit thee.
[_Exit Enobarbus._]
THIDIAS. Shall I say to Caesar What you require of him? For he partly begs To be desired to give. It much would please him That of his fortunes you should make a staff To lean upon. But it would warm his spirits To hear from me you had left Antony, And put yourself under his shroud, The universal landlord.
CLEOPATRA. What’s your name?
THIDIAS. My name is Thidias.
CLEOPATRA. Most kind messenger, Say to great Caesar this in deputation: I kiss his conqu’ring hand. Tell him I am prompt To lay my crown at’s feet, and there to kneel. Tell him, from his all-obeying breath I hear The doom of Egypt.
THIDIAS. ’Tis your noblest course. Wisdom and fortune combating together, If that the former dare but what it can, No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay My duty on your hand.
CLEOPATRA. Your Caesar’s father oft, When he hath mused of taking kingdoms in, Bestowed his lips on that unworthy place As it rained kisses.
Enter Antony and Enobarbus.
ANTONY. Favours, by Jove that thunders! What art thou, fellow?
THIDIAS. One that but performs The bidding of the fullest man and worthiest To have command obeyed.
ENOBARBUS. [_Aside_.] You will be whipped.
ANTONY. Approach there.—Ah, you kite!—Now, gods and devils, Authority melts from me. Of late when I cried “Ho!” Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth And cry “Your will?” Have you no ears? I am Antony yet.
Enter Servants.
Take hence this jack and whip him.
ENOBARBUS. ’Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp Than with an old one dying.
ANTONY. Moon and stars! Whip him. Were’t twenty of the greatest tributaries That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them So saucy with the hand of she here—what’s her name Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows, Till like a boy you see him cringe his face And whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.
THIDIAS. Mark Antony—
ANTONY. Tug him away. Being whipp’d, Bring him again. This jack of Caesar’s shall Bear us an errand to him.
[_Exeunt Servants with Thidias._]
You were half blasted ere I knew you. Ha! Have I my pillow left unpressed in Rome, Forborne the getting of a lawful race, And by a gem of women, to be abused By one that looks on feeders?
CLEOPATRA. Good my lord—
ANTONY. You have been a boggler ever. But when we in our viciousness grow hard— O misery on’t!—the wise gods seal our eyes, In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us Adore our errors, laugh at’s while we strut To our confusion.
CLEOPATRA. O, is’t come to this?
ANTONY. I found you as a morsel cold upon Dead Caesar’s trencher; nay, you were a fragment Of Gneius Pompey’s, besides what hotter hours, Unregistered in vulgar fame, you have Luxuriously pick’d out. For I am sure, Though you can guess what temperance should be, You know not what it is.
CLEOPATRA. Wherefore is this?
ANTONY. To let a fellow that will take rewards And say “God quit you!” be familiar with My playfellow, your hand, this kingly seal And plighter of high hearts! O that I were Upon the hill of Basan, to outroar The horned herd! For I have savage cause, And to proclaim it civilly were like A haltered neck which does the hangman thank For being yare about him.
Enter a Servant with Thidias.
Is he whipped?
SERVANT. Soundly, my lord.
ANTONY. Cried he? And begged he pardon?
SERVANT. He did ask favour.
ANTONY. If that thy father live, let him repent Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry To follow Caesar in his triumph, since Thou hast been whipped for following him. Henceforth The white hand of a lady fever thee; Shake thou to look on’t. Get thee back to Caesar; Tell him thy entertainment. Look thou say He makes me angry with him; for he seems Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am, Not what he knew I was. He makes me angry, And at this time most easy ’tis to do’t, When my good stars that were my former guides Have empty left their orbs and shot their fires Into th’ abysm of hell. If he mislike My speech and what is done, tell him he has Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom He may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture, As he shall like, to quit me. Urge it thou. Hence with thy stripes, be gone.
[_Exit Thidias._]
CLEOPATRA. Have you done yet?
ANTONY. Alack, our terrene moon is now eclipsed, And it portends alone the fall of Antony.
CLEOPATRA. I must stay his time.
ANTONY. To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes With one that ties his points?
CLEOPATRA. Not know me yet?
ANTONY. Cold-hearted toward me?
CLEOPATRA. Ah, dear, if I be so, From my cold heart let heaven engender hail And poison it in the source, and the first stone Drop in my neck; as it determines, so Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite, Till, by degrees the memory of my womb, Together with my brave Egyptians all, By the discandying of this pelleted storm, Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile Have buried them for prey!
ANTONY. I am satisfied. Caesar sits down in Alexandria, where I will oppose his fate. Our force by land Hath nobly held; our severed navy too Have knit again, and fleet, threat’ning most sea-like. Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady? If from the field I shall return once more To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood. I and my sword will earn our chronicle. There’s hope in’t yet.
CLEOPATRA. That’s my brave lord!
ANTONY. I will be treble-sinewed, hearted, breathed, And fight maliciously. For when mine hours Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives Of me for jests. But now I’ll set my teeth And send to darkness all that stop me. Come, Let’s have one other gaudy night. Call to me All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more Let’s mock the midnight bell.
CLEOPATRA. It is my birthday. I had thought t’have held it poor, but since my lord Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.
ANTONY. We will yet do well.
CLEOPATRA. Call all his noble captains to my lord.
ANTONY. Do so; we’ll speak to them; and tonight I’ll force The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen, There’s sap in’t yet. The next time I do fight I’ll make Death love me, for I will contend Even with his pestilent scythe.
[_Exeunt all but Enobarbus._]
ENOBARBUS. Now he’ll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still A diminution in our captain’s brain Restores his heart. When valour preys on reason, It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek Some way to leave him.
[_Exit._]
ACT IV
SCENE I. Caesar’s Camp at Alexandria.
Enter Caesar, Agrippa, and Maecenas, with his army. Caesar reading a letter.
CAESAR. He calls me boy, and chides as he had power To beat me out of Egypt. My messenger He hath whipped with rods; dares me to personal combat, Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know I have many other ways to die; meantime Laugh at his challenge.
MAECENAS. Caesar must think, When one so great begins to rage, he’s hunted Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now Make boot of his distraction. Never anger Made good guard for itself.
CAESAR. Let our best heads Know that tomorrow the last of many battles We mean to fight. Within our files there are, Of those that served Mark Antony but late, Enough to fetch him in. See it done, And feast the army; we have store to do’t, And they have earned the waste. Poor Antony!
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Antony, Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, Iras, Alexas with others.
ANTONY. He will not fight with me, Domitius?
ENOBARBUS. No.
ANTONY. Why should he not?
ENOBARBUS. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune, He is twenty men to one.
ANTONY. Tomorrow, soldier, By sea and land I’ll fight. Or I will live, Or bathe my dying honour in the blood Shall make it live again. Woo’t thou fight well?
ENOBARBUS. I’ll strike, and cry “Take all.”
ANTONY. Well said. Come on. Call forth my household servants. Let’s tonight Be bounteous at our meal.—
Enter Servants.
Give me thy hand. Thou has been rightly honest; so hast thou, Thou, and thou, and thou. You have served me well, And kings have been your fellows.
CLEOPATRA. [_Aside to Enobarbus_.] What means this?
ENOBARBUS. [_Aside to Cleopatra_.] ’Tis one of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots Out of the mind.
ANTONY. And thou art honest too. I wish I could be made so many men, And all of you clapped up together in An Antony, that I might do you service So good as you have done.
ALL THE SERVANTS. The gods forbid!
ANTONY. Well, my good fellows, wait on me tonight. Scant not my cups, and make as much of me As when mine empire was your fellow too And suffered my command.
CLEOPATRA. [_Aside to Enobarbus_.] What does he mean?
ENOBARBUS. [_Aside to Cleopatra_.] To make his followers weep.
ANTONY. Tend me tonight; May be it is the period of your duty. Haply you shall not see me more, or if, A mangled shadow. Perchance tomorrow You’ll serve another master. I look on you As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends, I turn you not away, but, like a master Married to your good service, stay till death. Tend me tonight two hours, I ask no more, And the gods yield you for’t!
ENOBARBUS. What mean you, sir, To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep, And I, an ass, am onion-eyed. For shame, Transform us not to women.
ANTONY. Ho, ho, ho! Now the witch take me if I meant it thus! Grace grow where those drops fall! My hearty friends, You take me in too dolorous a sense, For I spake to you for your comfort, did desire you To burn this night with torches. Know, my hearts, I hope well of tomorrow, and will lead you Where rather I’ll expect victorious life Than death and honour. Let’s to supper, come, And drown consideration.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Alexandria. Before the Palace.
Enter a Company of Soldiers.
FIRST SOLDIER. Brother, good night. Tomorrow is the day.
SECOND SOLDIER. It will determine one way. Fare you well. Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?
FIRST SOLDIER. Nothing. What news?
SECOND SOLDIER. Belike ’tis but a rumour. Good night to you.
FIRST SOLDIER. Well, sir, good night.
Enter two other Soldiers.
SECOND SOLDIER. Soldiers, have careful watch.
THIRD SOLDIER. And you. Good night, good night.
[_They place themselves in every corner of the stage._]
SECOND SOLDIER. Here we. And if tomorrow Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope Our landmen will stand up.
FIRST SOLDIER. ’Tis a brave army, and full of purpose.
[_Music of the hautboys under the stage._]
SECOND SOLDIER. Peace, what noise?
FIRST SOLDIER. List, list!
SECOND SOLDIER. Hark!
FIRST SOLDIER. Music i’ th’ air.
THIRD SOLDIER. Under the earth.
FOURTH SOLDIER. It signs well, does it not?
THIRD SOLDIER. No.
FIRST SOLDIER. Peace, I say! What should this mean?
SECOND SOLDIER. ’Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, Now leaves him.
FIRST SOLDIER. Walk. Let’s see if other watchmen Do hear what we do.
[_They advance to another post._]
SECOND SOLDIER. How now, masters!
ALL. How now! How now! Do you hear this?
FIRST SOLDIER. Ay. Is’t not strange?
THIRD SOLDIER. Do you hear, masters? Do you hear?
FIRST SOLDIER. Follow the noise so far as we have quarter. Let’s see how it will give off.
ALL. Content. ’Tis strange.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Antony and Cleopatra with others.
ANTONY. Eros! Mine armour, Eros!
CLEOPATRA. Sleep a little.
ANTONY. No, my chuck.—Eros! Come, mine armour, Eros!
Enter Eros with armour.
Come, good fellow, put thine iron on. If fortune be not ours today, it is Because we brave her. Come.
CLEOPATRA. Nay, I’ll help too. What’s this for?
ANTONY. Ah, let be, let be! Thou art The armourer of my heart. False, false. This, this!
CLEOPATRA. Sooth, la, I’ll help. Thus it must be.
ANTONY. Well, well, We shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow? Go put on thy defences.
EROS. Briefly, sir.
CLEOPATRA. Is not this buckled well?
ANTONY. Rarely, rarely. He that unbuckles this, till we do please To daff’t for our repose, shall hear a storm. Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen’s a squire More tight at this than thou. Dispatch. O love, That thou couldst see my wars today, and knew’st The royal occupation, thou shouldst see A workman in’t.
Enter an Officer, armed.
Good morrow to thee. Welcome. Thou look’st like him that knows a warlike charge. To business that we love we rise betime And go to’t with delight.
OFFICER. A thousand, sir, Early though’t be, have on their riveted trim And at the port expect you.
[_Shout. Trumpets flourish._]
Enter other Captains and Soldiers.
CAPTAIN. The morn is fair. Good morrow, general.
ALL. Good morrow, general.
ANTONY. ’Tis well blown, lads. This morning, like the spirit of a youth That means to be of note, begins betimes. So, so. Come, give me that. This way. Well said. Fare thee well, dame. Whate’er becomes of me, This is a soldier’s kiss. [_Kisses her._] Rebukeable And worthy shameful check it were, to stand On more mechanic compliment. I’ll leave thee Now like a man of steel.—You that will fight, Follow me close, I’ll bring you to’t. Adieu.
[_Exeunt Antony, Eros, Captains and Soldiers._]
CHARMIAN. Please you, retire to your chamber.
CLEOPATRA. Lead me. He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might Determine this great war in single fight! Then Antony—but now—. Well, on.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. Antony’s camp near Alexandria.
Trumpets sound. Enter Antony and Eros, a Soldier meeting them.
SOLDIER. The gods make this a happy day to Antony!
ANTONY. Would thou and those thy scars had once prevailed To make me fight at land!
SOLDIER. Hadst thou done so, The kings that have revolted and the soldier That has this morning left thee would have still Followed thy heels.
ANTONY. Who’s gone this morning?
SOLDIER. Who? One ever near thee. Call for Enobarbus, He shall not hear thee, or from Caesar’s camp Say “I am none of thine.”
ANTONY. What sayest thou?
SOLDIER. Sir, He is with Caesar.
EROS. Sir, his chests and treasure He has not with him.
ANTONY. Is he gone?
SOLDIER. Most certain.
ANTONY. Go, Eros, send his treasure after. Do it. Detain no jot, I charge thee. Write to him— I will subscribe—gentle adieus and greetings. Say that I wish he never find more cause To change a master. O, my fortunes have Corrupted honest men! Dispatch.—Enobarbus!
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VI. Alexandria. Caesar’s camp.
Flourish. Enter Agrippa, Caesar with Enobarbus and Dolabella.
CAESAR. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight. Our will is Antony be took alive; Make it so known.
AGRIPPA. Caesar, I shall.
[_Exit._]
CAESAR. The time of universal peace is near. Prove this a prosp’rous day, the three-nooked world Shall bear the olive freely.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER. Antony Is come into the field.
CAESAR. Go charge Agrippa Plant those that have revolted in the van That Antony may seem to spend his fury Upon himself.
[_Exeunt Caesar and his Train._]
ENOBARBUS. Alexas did revolt and went to Jewry on Affairs of Antony; there did dissuade Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar And leave his master Antony. For this pains Caesar hath hanged him. Canidius and the rest That fell away have entertainment but No honourable trust. I have done ill, Of which I do accuse myself so sorely That I will joy no more.
Enter a Soldier of Caesar’s.
SOLDIER. Enobarbus, Antony Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with His bounty overplus. The messenger Came on my guard, and at thy tent is now Unloading of his mules.
ENOBARBUS. I give it you.
SOLDIER. Mock not, Enobarbus. I tell you true. Best you safed the bringer Out of the host. I must attend mine office, Or would have done’t myself. Your emperor Continues still a Jove.
[_Exit._]
ENOBARBUS. I am alone the villain of the earth, And feel I am so most. O Antony, Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid My better service, when my turpitude Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart. If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean Shall outstrike thought, but thought will do’t, I feel. I fight against thee! No, I will go seek Some ditch wherein to die; the foul’st best fits My latter part of life.
[_Exit._]
SCENE VII. Field of battle between the Camps.
Alarum. Drums and Trumpets. Enter Agrippa and others.
AGRIPPA. Retire! We have engaged ourselves too far. Caesar himself has work, and our oppression Exceeds what we expected.
[_Exeunt._]
Alarums. Enter Antony and Scarus wounded.
SCARUS. O my brave emperor, this is fought indeed! Had we done so at first, we had droven them home With clouts about their heads.
ANTONY. Thou bleed’st apace.
SCARUS. I had a wound here that was like a T, But now ’tis made an H.
_Sounds retreat far off._ ANTONY. They do retire.
SCARUS. We’ll beat ’em into bench-holes. I have yet Room for six scotches more.
Enter Eros.
EROS. They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves For a fair victory.
SCARUS. Let us score their backs And snatch ’em up as we take hares, behind. ’Tis sport to maul a runner.
ANTONY. I will reward thee Once for thy sprightly comfort, and tenfold For thy good valour. Come thee on.
SCARUS. I’ll halt after.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VIII. Under the Walls of Alexandria.
Alarum. Enter Antony again in a march; Scarus with others.
ANTONY. We have beat him to his camp. Run one before And let the Queen know of our gests. Tomorrow, Before the sun shall see’s, we’ll spill the blood That has today escaped. I thank you all, For doughty-handed are you, and have fought Not as you served the cause, but as’t had been Each man’s like mine. You have shown all Hectors. Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends, Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears Wash the congealment from your wounds and kiss The honoured gashes whole.
Enter Cleopatra.
[_To Scarus_.] Give me thy hand. To this great fairy I’ll commend thy acts, Make her thanks bless thee. O thou day o’ th’ world, Chain mine armed neck. Leap thou, attire and all, Through proof of harness to my heart, and there Ride on the pants triumphing.
CLEOPATRA. Lord of lords! O infinite virtue, com’st thou smiling from The world’s great snare uncaught?
ANTONY. Mine nightingale, We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! Though grey Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha’ we A brain that nourishes our nerves and can Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man. Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand.— Kiss it, my warrior. He hath fought today As if a god, in hate of mankind, had Destroyed in such a shape.
CLEOPATRA. I’ll give thee, friend, An armour all of gold. It was a king’s.
ANTONY. He has deserved it, were it carbuncled Like holy Phœbus’ car. Give me thy hand. Through Alexandria make a jolly march; Bear our hacked targets like the men that owe them. Had our great palace the capacity To camp this host, we all would sup together And drink carouses to the next day’s fate, Which promises royal peril.—Trumpeters, With brazen din blast you the city’s ear; Make mingle with our rattling tabourines, That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together, Applauding our approach.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IX. Caesar’s camp.
Enter a Sentry and his company. Enobarbus follows.
SENTRY. If we be not relieved within this hour, We must return to th’ court of guard. The night Is shiny, and they say we shall embattle By th’ second hour i’ th’ morn.
FIRST WATCH. This last day was a shrewd one to’s.
ENOBARBUS. O, bear me witness, night.—
SECOND WATCH. What man is this?
FIRST WATCH. Stand close and list him.
ENOBARBUS. Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon, When men revolted shall upon record Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did Before thy face repent.
SENTRY. Enobarbus?
SECOND WATCH. Peace! Hark further.
ENOBARBUS. O sovereign mistress of true melancholy, The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me, That life, a very rebel to my will, May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart Against the flint and hardness of my fault, Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony, Nobler than my revolt is infamous, Forgive me in thine own particular, But let the world rank me in register A master-leaver and a fugitive. O Antony! O Antony!
[_Dies._]
FIRST WATCH. Let’s speak to him.
SENTRY. Let’s hear him, for the things he speaks may concern Caesar.
SECOND WATCH. Let’s do so. But he sleeps.
SENTRY. Swoons rather, for so bad a prayer as his Was never yet for sleep.
FIRST WATCH. Go we to him.
SECOND WATCH. Awake, sir, awake! Speak to us.
FIRST WATCH. Hear you, sir?
SENTRY. The hand of death hath raught him.
[_Drums afar off._]
Hark! The drums Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him To th’ court of guard; he is of note. Our hour Is fully out.
SECOND WATCH. Come on, then. He may recover yet.
[_Exeunt with the body._]
SCENE X. Ground between the two Camps.
Enter Antony and Scarus with their army.
ANTONY. Their preparation is today by sea; We please them not by land.
SCARUS. For both, my lord.
ANTONY. I would they’d fight i’ th’ fire or i’ th’ air; We’d fight there too. But this it is: our foot Upon the hills adjoining to the city Shall stay with us—order for sea is given; They have put forth the haven— Where their appointment we may best discover And look on their endeavour.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE XI. Another part of the Ground.
Enter Caesar and his army.
CAESAR. But being charged, we will be still by land, Which, as I take’t, we shall, for his best force Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales, And hold our best advantage.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE XII. Another part of the Ground.
Alarum afar off, as at a sea fight. Enter Antony and Scarus.
ANTONY. Yet they are not joined. Where yond pine does stand I shall discover all. I’ll bring thee word Straight how ’tis like to go.
[_Exit._]
SCARUS. Swallows have built In Cleopatra’s sails their nests. The augurs Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly, And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony Is valiant and dejected, and by starts His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear Of what he has and has not.
Enter Antony.
ANTONY. All is lost! This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me. My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder They cast their caps up and carouse together Like friends long lost. Triple-turned whore! ’Tis thou Hast sold me to this novice, and my heart Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly; For when I am revenged upon my charm, I have done all. Bid them all fly! Be gone!
[_Exit Scarus._]
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more. Fortune and Antony part here; even here Do we shake hands. All come to this! The hearts That spanieled me at heels, to whom I gave Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets On blossoming Caesar, and this pine is barked That overtopped them all. Betray’d I am: O this false soul of Egypt! This grave charm, Whose eye becked forth my wars and called them home, Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end, Like a right gypsy hath at fast and loose Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. What, Eros, Eros!
Enter Cleopatra.
Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!
CLEOPATRA. Why is my lord enraged against his love?
ANTONY. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving And blemish Caesar’s triumph. Let him take thee And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians! Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot Of all thy sex; most monster-like be shown For poor’st diminutives, for dolts, and let Patient Octavia plough thy visage up With her prepared nails.
[_Exit Cleopatra._]
’Tis well thou’rt gone, If it be well to live; but better ’twere Thou fell’st into my fury, for one death Might have prevented many.—Eros, ho!— The shirt of Nessus is upon me. Teach me, Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage. Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o’ th’ moon, And with those hands that grasped the heaviest club Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die. To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall Under this plot. She dies for’t.—Eros, ho!
[_Exit._]
SCENE XIII. Alexandria. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Mardian.
CLEOPATRA. Help me, my women! O, he is more mad Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly Was never so embossed.
CHARMIAN. To th’ monument! There lock yourself and send him word you are dead. The soul and body rive not more in parting Than greatness going off.
CLEOPATRA. To th’ monument! Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself. Say that the last I spoke was “Antony”, And word it, prithee, piteously. Hence, Mardian, And bring me how he takes my death.—To th’ monument!
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE XIV. Alexandria. Another Room.
Enter Antony and Eros.
ANTONY. Eros, thou yet behold’st me?
EROS. Ay, noble lord.
ANTONY. Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish, A vapour sometime like a bear or lion, A towered citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon’t, that nod unto the world And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs. They are black vesper’s pageants.
EROS. Ay, my lord.
ANTONY. That which is now a horse, even with a thought The rack dislimns and makes it indistinct As water is in water.
EROS. It does, my lord.
ANTONY. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is Even such a body. Here I am Antony, Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen, Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine, Which, whilst it was mine, had annexed unto’t A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has Packed cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory Unto an enemy’s triumph. Nay, weep not, gentle Eros. There is left us Ourselves to end ourselves.
Enter Mardian.
O, thy vile lady! She has robbed me of my sword.
MARDIAN. No, Antony, My mistress loved thee and her fortunes mingled With thine entirely.
ANTONY. Hence, saucy eunuch! Peace! She hath betrayed me and shall die the death.
MARDIAN. Death of one person can be paid but once, And that she has discharged. What thou wouldst do Is done unto thy hand. The last she spake Was “Antony! Most noble Antony!” Then in the midst a tearing groan did break The name of Antony; it was divided Between her heart and lips. She rendered life, Thy name so buried in her.
ANTONY. Dead, then?
MARDIAN. Dead.
ANTONY. Unarm, Eros. The long day’s task is done, And we must sleep.—That thou depart’st hence safe Does pay thy labour richly. Go.
[_Exit Mardian._]
Off, pluck off! The sevenfold shield of Ajax cannot keep The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides! Heart, once be stronger than thy continent; Crack thy frail case! Apace, Eros, apace! No more a soldier. Bruised pieces, go; You have been nobly borne. From me awhile.
[_Exit Eros._]
I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now All length is torture. Since the torch is out, Lie down, and stray no farther. Now all labour Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles Itself with strength. Seal then, and all is done. Eros!—I come, my queen.—Eros!—Stay for me. Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand, And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze. Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops, And all the haunt be ours.—Come, Eros, Eros!
Enter Eros.
EROS. What would my lord?
ANTONY. Since Cleopatra died, I have lived in such dishonour that the gods Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword Quartered the world, and o’er green Neptune’s back With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack The courage of a woman; less noble mind Than she which, by her death, our Caesar tells “I am conqueror of myself.” Thou art sworn, Eros, That when the exigent should come, which now Is come indeed, when I should see behind me Th’ inevitable prosecution of Disgrace and horror, that on my command Thou then wouldst kill me. Do’t. The time is come. Thou strik’st not me; ’tis Caesar thou defeat’st. Put colour in thy cheek.
EROS. The gods withhold me! Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts, Though enemy, lost aim and could not?
ANTONY. Eros, Wouldst thou be windowed in great Rome and see Thy master thus with pleached arms, bending down His corrigible neck, his face subdued To penetrative shame, whilst the wheeled seat Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded His baseness that ensued?
EROS. I would not see’t.
ANTONY. Come, then, for with a wound I must be cured. Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn Most useful for thy country.
EROS. O, sir, pardon me!
ANTONY. When I did make thee free, swor’st thou not then To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once, Or thy precedent services are all But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come.
EROS. Turn from me then that noble countenance Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.
ANTONY. Lo thee!
[_Turning from him._]
EROS. My sword is drawn.
ANTONY. Then let it do at once The thing why thou hast drawn it.
EROS. My dear master, My captain and my emperor, let me say, Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.
ANTONY. ’Tis said, man, and farewell.
EROS. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?
ANTONY. Now, Eros.
EROS. Why, there then! [_kills himself_] Thus do I escape the sorrow Of Antony’s death.
[_Dies._]
ANTONY. Thrice nobler than myself! Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what I should and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros Have by their brave instruction got upon me A nobleness in record. But I will be A bridegroom in my death and run into’t As to a lover’s bed. Come then, and, Eros, Thy master dies thy scholar. To do thus
[_Falling on his sword._]
I learned of thee. How? Not dead? Not dead? The guard, ho! O, dispatch me!
Enter a company of the Guard, one of them Dercetus.
FIRST GUARD. What’s the noise?
ANTONY. I have done my work ill, friends. O, make an end Of what I have begun.
SECOND GUARD. The star is fallen.
FIRST GUARD. And time is at his period.
ALL. Alas, and woe!
ANTONY. Let him that loves me strike me dead.
FIRST GUARD. Not I.
SECOND GUARD. Nor I.
THIRD GUARD. Nor anyone.
[_Exeunt guard._]
DERCETUS. Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly. This sword but shown to Caesar with this tidings, Shall enter me with him.
Enter Diomedes.
DIOMEDES. Where’s Antony?
DERCETUS. There, Diomed, there.
DIOMEDES. Lives he? Wilt thou not answer, man?
[_Exit Dercetus._]
ANTONY. Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword and give me Sufficing strokes for death.
DIOMEDES. Most absolute lord, My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.
ANTONY. When did she send thee?
DIOMEDES. Now, my lord.
ANTONY. Where is she?
DIOMEDES. Locked in her monument. She had a prophesying fear Of what hath come to pass. For when she saw— Which never shall be found—you did suspect She had disposed with Caesar, and that your rage Would not be purged, she sent you word she was dead; But fearing since how it might work, hath sent Me to proclaim the truth, and I am come, I dread, too late.
ANTONY. Too late, good Diomed. Call my guard, I prithee.
DIOMEDES. What, ho! The emperor’s guard! The guard, what ho! Come, your lord calls!
Enter four or five of the Guard of Antony.
ANTONY. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides. ’Tis the last service that I shall command you.
FIRST GUARD. Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear All your true followers out.
ALL. Most heavy day!
ANTONY. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate To grace it with your sorrows. Bid that welcome Which comes to punish us, and we punish it, Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up. I have led you oft; carry me now, good friends, And have my thanks for all.
[_Exeunt, bearing Antony._]
SCENE XV. Alexandria. A monument.
Enter Cleopatra and her maids aloft, with Charmian and Iras.
CLEOPATRA. O Charmian, I will never go from hence.
CHARMIAN. Be comforted, dear madam.
CLEOPATRA. No, I will not. All strange and terrible events are welcome, But comforts we despise. Our size of sorrow, Proportioned to our cause, must be as great As that which makes it.
Enter, below Diomedes.
How now! Is he dead?
DIOMEDES. His death’s upon him, but not dead. Look out o’ th’ other side your monument; His guard have brought him thither.
Enter, below Antony borne by the Guard.
CLEOPATRA. O sun, Burn the great sphere thou mov’st in! Darkling stand The varying shore o’ th’ world. O Antony, Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian! Help, Iras, help! Help, friends below! Let’s draw him hither.
ANTONY. Peace! Not Caesar’s valour hath o’erthrown Antony, But Antony’s hath triumphed on itself.
CLEOPATRA. So it should be, that none but Antony Should conquer Antony, but woe ’tis so!
ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying. Only I here importune death awhile until Of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips.
CLEOPATRA. I dare not, dear Dear my lord, pardon. I dare not, Lest I be taken. Not th’ imperious show Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall Be brooched with me; if knife, drugs, serpents, have Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe. Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony— Help me, my women—we must draw thee up. Assist, good friends.
ANTONY. O, quick, or I am gone.
CLEOPATRA. Here’s sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord! Our strength is all gone into heaviness; That makes the weight. Had I great Juno’s power, The strong-winged Mercury should fetch thee up And set thee by Jove’s side. Yet come a little; Wishers were ever fools. O come, come come,
[_They heave Antony aloft to Cleopatra._]
And welcome, welcome! Die where thou hast lived; Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power, Thus would I wear them out.
ALL. A heavy sight!
ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying. Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.
CLEOPATRA. No, let me speak, and let me rail so high That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel, Provoked by my offence.
ANTONY. One word, sweet queen: Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!
CLEOPATRA. They do not go together.
ANTONY. Gentle, hear me. None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.
CLEOPATRA. My resolution and my hands I’ll trust; None about Caesar.
ANTONY. The miserable change now at my end Lament nor sorrow at, but please your thoughts In feeding them with those my former fortunes Wherein I lived the greatest prince o’ th’ world, The noblest; and do now not basely die, Not cowardly put off my helmet to My countryman; a Roman by a Roman Valiantly vanquished. Now my spirit is going; I can no more.
CLEOPATRA. Noblest of men, woo’t die? Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is No better than a sty? O, see, my women,
[_ Antony dies._]
The crown o’ th’ earth doth melt.—My lord! O, withered is the garland of the war, The soldier’s pole is fallen; young boys and girls Are level now with men. The odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon.
[_Faints._]
CHARMIAN. O, quietness, lady!
IRAS. She is dead too, our sovereign.
CHARMIAN. Lady!
IRAS. Madam!
CHARMIAN. O madam, madam, madam!
IRAS. Royal Egypt, Empress!
CHARMIAN. Peace, peace, Iras!
CLEOPATRA. No more but e’en a woman, and commanded By such poor passion as the maid that milks And does the meanest chares. It were for me To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods, To tell them that this world did equal theirs Till they had stolen our jewel. All’s but naught; Patience is sottish, and impatience does Become a dog that’s mad. Then is it sin To rush into the secret house of death Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women? What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian? My noble girls! Ah, women, women! Look, Our lamp is spent, it’s out! Good sirs, take heart. We’ll bury him; and then, what’s brave, what’s noble, Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion And make death proud to take us. Come, away. This case of that huge spirit now is cold. Ah, women, women! Come, we have no friend But resolution and the briefest end.
[_Exeunt, bearing off Antony’s body._]
ACT V
SCENE I. Caesar’s Camp before Alexandria.
Enter Caesar, Agrippa, Dolabella, Maecenas, Gallus, Proculeius with his council of war.
CAESAR. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield. Being so frustrate, tell him, he mocks The pauses that he makes.
DOLABELLA. Caesar, I shall.
[_Exit._]
Enter Dercetus with the sword of Antony.
CAESAR. Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar’st Appear thus to us?
DERCETUS. I am called Dercetus. Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy Best to be served. Whilst he stood up and spoke, He was my master, and I wore my life To spend upon his haters. If thou please To take me to thee, as I was to him I’ll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not, I yield thee up my life.
CAESAR. What is’t thou say’st?
DERCETUS. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.
CAESAR. The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack. The round world Should have shook lions into civil streets, And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony Is not a single doom; in the name lay A moiety of the world.
DERCETUS. He is dead, Caesar, Not by a public minister of justice, Nor by a hired knife, but that self hand Which writ his honour in the acts it did Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, Splitted the heart. This is his sword. I robbed his wound of it. Behold it stained With his most noble blood.
CAESAR. Look you sad, friends? The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings To wash the eyes of kings.
AGRIPPA. And strange it is That nature must compel us to lament Our most persisted deeds.
MAECENAS. His taints and honours Waged equal with him.
AGRIPPA. A rarer spirit never Did steer humanity, but you gods will give us Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touched.
MAECENAS. When such a spacious mirror’s set before him, He needs must see himself.
CAESAR. O Antony, I have followed thee to this, but we do lance Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce Have shown to thee such a declining day Or look on thine. We could not stall together In the whole world. But yet let me lament With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts, That thou, my brother, my competitor In top of all design, my mate in empire, Friend and companion in the front of war, The arm of mine own body, and the heart Where mine his thoughts did kindle, that our stars, Unreconciliable, should divide Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends—
Enter an Egyptian.
But I will tell you at some meeter season. The business of this man looks out of him; We’ll hear him what he says. Whence are you?
EGYPTIAN. A poor Egyptian yet. The queen, my mistress, Confined in all she has, her monument, Of thy intents desires instruction, That she preparedly may frame herself To the way she’s forced to.
CAESAR. Bid her have good heart. She soon shall know of us, by some of ours, How honourable and how kindly we Determine for her. For Caesar cannot lean To be ungentle.
EGYPTIAN. So the gods preserve thee!
[_Exit._]
CAESAR. Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts The quality of her passion shall require, Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke She do defeat us, for her life in Rome Would be eternal in our triumph. Go, And with your speediest bring us what she says And how you find of her.
PROCULEIUS. Caesar, I shall.
[_Exit Proculeius._]
CAESAR. Gallus, go you along.
[_Exit Gallus._]
Where’s Dolabella, to second Proculeius?
ALL. Dolabella!
CAESAR. Let him alone, for I remember now How he’s employed. He shall in time be ready. Go with me to my tent, where you shall see How hardly I was drawn into this war, How calm and gentle I proceeded still In all my writings. Go with me and see What I can show in this.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Alexandria. A Room in the Monument.
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian and Iras.
CLEOPATRA. My desolation does begin to make A better life. ’Tis paltry to be Caesar; Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave, A minister of her will. And it is great To do that thing that ends all other deeds, Which shackles accidents and bolts up change, Which sleeps and never palates more the dung, The beggar’s nurse and Caesar’s.
Enter Proculeius.
PROCULEIUS. Caesar sends greetings to the queen of Egypt, And bids thee study on what fair demands Thou mean’st to have him grant thee.
CLEOPATRA. What’s thy name?
PROCULEIUS. My name is Proculeius.
CLEOPATRA. Antony Did tell me of you, bade me trust you, but I do not greatly care to be deceived That have no use for trusting. If your master Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him That majesty, to keep decorum, must No less beg than a kingdom. If he please To give me conquered Egypt for my son, He gives me so much of mine own as I Will kneel to him with thanks.
PROCULEIUS. Be of good cheer. You are fallen into a princely hand; fear nothing. Make your full reference freely to my lord, Who is so full of grace that it flows over On all that need. Let me report to him Your sweet dependency, and you shall find A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness Where he for grace is kneeled to.
CLEOPATRA. Pray you tell him I am his fortune’s vassal and I send him The greatness he has got. I hourly learn A doctrine of obedience, and would gladly Look him i’ th’ face.
PROCULEIUS. This I’ll report, dear lady. Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied Of him that caused it.
Enter Gallus and Roman Soldiers.
You see how easily she may be surprised. Guard her till Caesar come.
IRAS. Royal queen!
CHARMIAN. O Cleopatra, thou art taken, queen!
CLEOPATRA. Quick, quick, good hands.
[_Drawing a dagger._]
PROCULEIUS. Hold, worthy lady, hold!
[_Seizes and disarms her._]
Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this Relieved, but not betrayed.
CLEOPATRA. What, of death too, That rids our dogs of languish?
PROCULEIUS. Cleopatra, Do not abuse my master’s bounty by Th’ undoing of yourself. Let the world see His nobleness well acted, which your death Will never let come forth.
CLEOPATRA. Where art thou, Death? Come hither, come! Come, come, and take a queen Worth many babes and beggars!
PROCULEIUS. O, temperance, lady!
CLEOPATRA. Sir, I will eat no meat; I’ll not drink, sir; If idle talk will once be necessary, I’ll not sleep neither. This mortal house I’ll ruin, Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I Will not wait pinioned at your master’s court, Nor once be chastised with the sober eye Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up And show me to the shouting varletry Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt Be gentle grave unto me! Rather on Nilus’ mud Lay me stark-naked, and let the water-flies Blow me into abhorring! Rather make My country’s high pyramides my gibbet And hang me up in chains!
PROCULEIUS. You do extend These thoughts of horror further than you shall Find cause in Caesar.
Enter Dolabella.
DOLABELLA. Proculeius, What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows, And he hath sent for thee. For the queen, I’ll take her to my guard.
PROCULEIUS. So, Dolabella, It shall content me best. Be gentle to her. [_To Cleopatra._] To Caesar I will speak what you shall please, If you’ll employ me to him.
CLEOPATRA. Say I would die.
[_Exeunt Proculeius and Soldiers._]
DOLABELLA. Most noble empress, you have heard of me?
CLEOPATRA. I cannot tell.
DOLABELLA. Assuredly you know me.
CLEOPATRA. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known. You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams; Is’t not your trick?
DOLABELLA. I understand not, madam.
CLEOPATRA. I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony. O, such another sleep, that I might see But such another man!
DOLABELLA. If it might please you—
CLEOPATRA. His face was as the heavens, and therein stuck A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted The little O, the earth.
DOLABELLA. Most sovereign creature—
CLEOPATRA. His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm Crested the world; his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in’t; an autumn ’twas That grew the more by reaping. His delights Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above The element they lived in. In his livery Walked crowns and crownets; realms and islands were As plates dropped from his pocket.
DOLABELLA. Cleopatra—
CLEOPATRA. Think you there was or might be such a man As this I dreamt of?
DOLABELLA. Gentle madam, no.
CLEOPATRA. You lie up to the hearing of the gods! But if there be nor ever were one such, It’s past the size of dreaming. Nature wants stuff To vie strange forms with fancy; yet t’ imagine An Antony were nature’s piece ’gainst fancy, Condemning shadows quite.
DOLABELLA. Hear me, good madam. Your loss is, as yourself, great; and you bear it As answering to the weight. Would I might never O’ertake pursued success, but I do feel, By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites My very heart at root.
CLEOPATRA. I thank you, sir. Know you what Caesar means to do with me?
DOLABELLA. I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.
CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you, sir.
DOLABELLA. Though he be honourable—
CLEOPATRA. He’ll lead me, then, in triumph.
DOLABELLA. Madam, he will. I know it.
Flourish. Enter Caesar, Proculeius, Gallus, Maecenas and others of his train.
ALL. Make way there! Caesar!
CAESAR. Which is the Queen of Egypt?
DOLABELLA. It is the Emperor, madam.
[_Cleopatra kneels._]
CAESAR. Arise, you shall not kneel. I pray you, rise. Rise, Egypt.
CLEOPATRA. Sir, the gods Will have it thus. My master and my lord I must obey.
CAESAR. Take to you no hard thoughts. The record of what injuries you did us, Though written in our flesh, we shall remember As things but done by chance.
CLEOPATRA. Sole sir o’ th’ world, I cannot project mine own cause so well To make it clear, but do confess I have Been laden with like frailties which before Have often shamed our sex.
CAESAR. Cleopatra, know We will extenuate rather than enforce. If you apply yourself to our intents, Which towards you are most gentle, you shall find A benefit in this change; but if you seek To lay on me a cruelty by taking Antony’s course, you shall bereave yourself Of my good purposes, and put your children To that destruction which I’ll guard them from If thereon you rely. I’ll take my leave.
CLEOPATRA. And may, through all the world. ’Tis yours, and we, Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.
CAESAR. You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA. This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels I am possessed of. ’Tis exactly valued, Not petty things admitted. Where’s Seleucus?
Enter Seleucus.
SELEUCUS. Here, madam.
CLEOPATRA. This is my treasurer. Let him speak, my lord, Upon his peril, that I have reserved To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.
SELEUCUS. Madam, I had rather seal my lips Than to my peril speak that which is not.
CLEOPATRA. What have I kept back?
SELEUCUS. Enough to purchase what you have made known.
CAESAR. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra. I approve Your wisdom in the deed.
CLEOPATRA. See, Caesar! O, behold, How pomp is followed! Mine will now be yours And should we shift estates, yours would be mine. The ingratitude of this Seleucus does Even make me wild. O slave, of no more trust Than love that’s hired! What, goest thou back? Thou shalt Go back, I warrant thee! But I’ll catch thine eyes Though they had wings. Slave, soulless villain, dog! O rarely base!
CAESAR. Good queen, let us entreat you.
CLEOPATRA. O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this, That thou vouchsafing here to visit me, Doing the honour of thy lordliness To one so meek, that mine own servant should Parcel the sum of my disgraces by Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar, That I some lady trifles have reserved, Immoment toys, things of such dignity As we greet modern friends withal; and say Some nobler token I have kept apart For Livia and Octavia, to induce Their mediation, must I be unfolded With one that I have bred? The gods! It smites me Beneath the fall I have. [_To Seleucus_.] Prithee go hence, Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits Through th’ ashes of my chance. Wert thou a man, Thou wouldst have mercy on me.
CAESAR. Forbear, Seleucus.
[_Exit Seleucus._]
CLEOPATRA. Be it known that we, the greatest, are misthought For things that others do; and when we fall, We answer others’ merits in our name, Are therefore to be pitied.
CAESAR. Cleopatra, Not what you have reserved nor what acknowledged Put we i’ th’ roll of conquest. Still be’t yours; Bestow it at your pleasure, and believe Caesar’s no merchant to make prize with you Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheered; Make not your thoughts your prisons. No, dear queen; For we intend so to dispose you as Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed and sleep. Our care and pity is so much upon you That we remain your friend; and so, adieu.
CLEOPATRA. My master and my lord!
CAESAR. Not so. Adieu.
[_Flourish. Exeunt Caesar and his train._]
CLEOPATRA. He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not Be noble to myself. But hark thee, Charmian!
[_Whispers to Charmian._]
IRAS. Finish, good lady. The bright day is done, And we are for the dark.
CLEOPATRA. Hie thee again. I have spoke already, and it is provided. Go put it to the haste.
CHARMIAN. Madam, I will.
Enter Dolabella.
DOLABELLA. Where’s the Queen?
CHARMIAN. Behold, sir.
[_Exit._]
CLEOPATRA. Dolabella!
DOLABELLA. Madam, as thereto sworn by your command, Which my love makes religion to obey, I tell you this: Caesar through Syria Intends his journey, and within three days You with your children will he send before. Make your best use of this. I have performed Your pleasure and my promise.
CLEOPATRA. Dolabella, I shall remain your debtor.
DOLABELLA. I your servant. Adieu, good queen. I must attend on Caesar.
CLEOPATRA. Farewell, and thanks.
[_Exit Dolabella._]
Now, Iras, what think’st thou? Thou an Egyptian puppet shall be shown In Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers shall Uplift us to the view. In their thick breaths, Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded, And forced to drink their vapour.
IRAS. The gods forbid!
CLEOPATRA. Nay, ’tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers Ballad us out o’ tune. The quick comedians Extemporally will stage us and present Our Alexandrian revels; Antony Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness I’ th’ posture of a whore.
IRAS. O the good gods!
CLEOPATRA. Nay, that’s certain.
IRAS. I’ll never see’t, for I am sure mine nails Are stronger than mine eyes.
CLEOPATRA. Why, that’s the way To fool their preparation and to conquer Their most absurd intents.
Enter Charmian.
Now, Charmian! Show me, my women, like a queen. Go fetch My best attires. I am again for Cydnus To meet Mark Antony. Sirrah, Iras, go. Now, noble Charmian, we’ll dispatch indeed, And when thou hast done this chare, I’ll give thee leave To play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.
[_Exit Iras. A noise within._]
Wherefore’s this noise?
Enter a Guardsman.
GUARDSMAN. Here is a rural fellow That will not be denied your highness’ presence. He brings you figs.
CLEOPATRA. Let him come in.
[_Exit Guardsman._]
What poor an instrument May do a noble deed! He brings me liberty. My resolution’s placed, and I have nothing Of woman in me. Now from head to foot I am marble-constant. Now the fleeting moon No planet is of mine.
Enter Guardsman and Clown with a basket.
GUARDSMAN. This is the man.
CLEOPATRA. Avoid, and leave him.
[_Exit Guardsman._]
Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there That kills and pains not?
CLOWN. Truly, I have him, but I would not be the party that should desire you to touch him, for his biting is immortal. Those that do die of it do seldom or never recover.
CLEOPATRA. Remember’st thou any that have died on’t?
CLOWN. Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of them no longer than yesterday—a very honest woman, but something given to lie; as a woman should not do but in the way of honesty—how she died of the biting of it, what pain she felt. Truly she makes a very good report o’ th’ worm; but he that will believe all that they say shall never be saved by half that they do. But this is most falliable, the worm’s an odd worm.
CLEOPATRA. Get thee hence. Farewell.
CLOWN. I wish you all joy of the worm.
[_Sets down the basket._]
CLEOPATRA. Farewell.
CLOWN. You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind.
CLEOPATRA. Ay, ay, farewell.
CLOWN. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the keeping of wise people; for indeed there is no goodness in the worm.
CLEOPATRA. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.
CLOWN. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth the feeding.
CLEOPATRA. Will it eat me?
CLOWN. You must not think I am so simple but I know the devil himself will not eat a woman. I know that a woman is a dish for the gods if the devil dress her not. But truly, these same whoreson devils do the gods great harm in their women, for in every ten that they make, the devils mar five.
CLEOPATRA. Well, get thee gone. Farewell.
CLOWN. Yes, forsooth. I wish you joy o’ th’ worm.
[_Exit._]
Enter Iras with a robe, crown, &c.
CLEOPATRA. Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have Immortal longings in me. Now no more The juice of Egypt’s grape shall moist this lip. Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear Antony call. I see him rouse himself To praise my noble act. I hear him mock The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come! Now to that name my courage prove my title! I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life.—So, have you done? Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips. Farewell, kind Charmian. Iras, long farewell.
[_Kisses them. Iras falls and dies._]
Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall? If thou and nature can so gently part, The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, Which hurts and is desired. Dost thou lie still? If thus thou vanishest, thou tell’st the world It is not worth leave-taking.
CHARMIAN. Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain, that I may say The gods themselves do weep!
CLEOPATRA. This proves me base. If she first meet the curled Antony, He’ll make demand of her, and spend that kiss Which is my heaven to have.—Come, thou mortal wretch,
[_To an asp, which she applies to her breast._]
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool, Be angry and dispatch. O couldst thou speak, That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass Unpolicied!
CHARMIAN. O eastern star!
CLEOPATRA. Peace, peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast That sucks the nurse asleep?
CHARMIAN. O, break! O, break!
CLEOPATRA. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle— O Antony!—Nay, I will take thee too.
[_Applying another asp to her arm._]
What should I stay—
[_Dies._]
CHARMIAN. In this vile world? So, fare thee well. Now boast thee, Death, in thy possession lies A lass unparalleled. Downy windows, close, And golden Phœbus never be beheld Of eyes again so royal! Your crown’s awry; I’ll mend it and then play.
Enter the Guard rustling in.
FIRST GUARD. Where’s the queen?
CHARMIAN. Speak softly. Wake her not.
FIRST GUARD. Caesar hath sent—
CHARMIAN. Too slow a messenger.
[_Applies an asp._]
O, come apace, dispatch! I partly feel thee.
FIRST GUARD. Approach, ho! All’s not well. Caesar’s beguiled.
SECOND GUARD. There’s Dolabella sent from Caesar. Call him.
FIRST GUARD. What work is here, Charmian? Is this well done?
CHARMIAN. It is well done, and fitting for a princess Descended of so many royal kings. Ah, soldier!
[_Charmian dies._]
Enter Dolabella.
DOLABELLA. How goes it here?
SECOND GUARD. All dead.
DOLABELLA. Caesar, thy thoughts Touch their effects in this. Thyself art coming To see performed the dreaded act which thou So sought’st to hinder.
Enter Caesar and all his train, marching.
ALL. A way there, a way for Caesar!
DOLABELLA. O sir, you are too sure an augurer: That you did fear is done.
CAESAR. Bravest at the last, She levelled at our purposes and, being royal, Took her own way. The manner of their deaths? I do not see them bleed.
DOLABELLA. Who was last with them?
FIRST GUARD. A simple countryman that brought her figs. This was his basket.
CAESAR. Poisoned then.
FIRST GUARD. O Caesar, This Charmian lived but now; she stood and spake. I found her trimming up the diadem On her dead mistress; tremblingly she stood, And on the sudden dropped.
CAESAR. O noble weakness! If they had swallowed poison ’twould appear By external swelling; but she looks like sleep, As she would catch another Antony In her strong toil of grace.
DOLABELLA. Here on her breast There is a vent of blood, and something blown. The like is on her arm.
FIRST GUARD. This is an aspic’s trail, and these fig leaves Have slime upon them, such as th’ aspic leaves Upon the caves of Nile.
CAESAR. Most probable That so she died, for her physician tells me She hath pursued conclusions infinite Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed, And bear her women from the monument. She shall be buried by her Antony. No grave upon the earth shall clip in it A pair so famous. High events as these Strike those that make them; and their story is No less in pity than his glory which Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall In solemn show attend this funeral, And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see High order in this great solemnity.
[_Exeunt omnes._]
AS YOU LIKE IT
Contents
ACT I Scene I. An Orchard near Oliver’s house Scene II. A Lawn before the Duke’s Palace Scene III. A Room in the Palace
ACT II Scene I. The Forest of Arden Scene II. A Room in the Palace Scene III. Before Oliver’s House Scene IV. The Forest of Arden Scene V. Another part of the Forest Scene VI. Another part of the Forest Scene VII. Another part of the Forest
ACT III Scene I. A Room in the Palace Scene II. The Forest of Arden Scene III. Another part of the Forest Scene IV. Another part of the Forest. Before a Cottage Scene V. Another part of the Forest
ACT IV Scene I. The Forest of Arden Scene II. Another part of the Forest Scene III. Another part of the Forest
ACT V Scene I. The Forest of Arden Scene II. Another part of the Forest Scene III. Another part of the Forest Scene IV. Another part of the Forest Epilogue
Dramatis Personæ
ORLANDO, youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys OLIVER, eldest son of Sir Rowland de Boys JAQUES DE BOYS, second son of Sir Rowland de Boys ADAM, Servant to Oliver DENNIS, Servant to Oliver
ROSALIND, Daughter of Duke Senior CELIA, Daughter of Duke Frederick TOUCHSTONE, a Clown
DUKE SENIOR (Ferdinand), living in exile
JAQUES, Lord attending on the Duke Senior AMIENS, Lord attending on the Duke Senior
DUKE FREDERICK, Brother to the Duke, and Usurper of his Dominions CHARLES, his Wrestler LE BEAU, a Courtier attending upon Frederick
CORIN, Shepherd SILVIUS, Shepherd PHOEBE, a Shepherdess AUDREY, a Country Wench WILLIAM, a Country Fellow, in love with Audrey SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a Vicar
A person representing HYMEN
Lords belonging to the two Dukes; Pages, Foresters, and other Attendants.
The scene lies first near Oliver’s house; afterwards partly in the Usurper’s court and partly in the Forest of Arden.
ACT I
SCENE I. An Orchard near Oliver’s house
Enter Orlando and Adam.
ORLANDO. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayst, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well; and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit. For my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping, for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better, for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage and to that end riders dearly hired; but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from me. He lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me, and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
Enter Oliver.
ADAM. Yonder comes my master, your brother.
ORLANDO. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.
[_Adam retires._]
OLIVER. Now, sir, what make you here?
ORLANDO. Nothing. I am not taught to make anything.
OLIVER. What mar you then, sir?
ORLANDO. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
OLIVER. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.
ORLANDO. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?
OLIVER. Know you where you are, sir?
ORLANDO. O, sir, very well: here in your orchard.
OLIVER. Know you before whom, sir?
ORLANDO. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest brother, and in the gentle condition of blood you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the first-born, but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as much of my father in me as you, albeit I confess your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.
OLIVER. What, boy!
ORLANDO. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
OLIVER. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
ORLANDO. I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. Thou has railed on thyself.
ADAM. [_Coming forward_.] Sweet masters, be patient. For your father’s remembrance, be at accord.
OLIVER. Let me go, I say.
ORLANDO. I will not till I please. You shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to give me good education. You have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it. Therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.
OLIVER. And what wilt thou do? Beg when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in. I will not long be troubled with you. You shall have some part of your will. I pray you leave me.
ORLANDO. I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
OLIVER. Get you with him, you old dog.
ADAM. Is “old dog” my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old master. He would not have spoke such a word.
[_Exeunt Orlando and Adam._]
OLIVER. Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!
Enter Dennis.
DENNIS Calls your worship?
OLIVER. Was not Charles, the Duke’s wrestler, here to speak with me?
DENNIS So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access to you.
OLIVER. Call him in.
[_Exit Dennis._]
’Twill be a good way, and tomorrow the wrestling is.
Enter Charles.
CHARLES. Good morrow to your worship.
OLIVER. Good Monsieur Charles. What’s the new news at the new court?
CHARLES. There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news. That is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke, and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke; therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
OLIVER. Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke’s daughter, be banished with her father?
CHARLES. O, no; for the Duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her exile or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter, and never two ladies loved as they do.
OLIVER. Where will the old Duke live?
CHARLES. They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
OLIVER. What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke?
CHARLES. Marry, do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. Tomorrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and tender, and for your love I would be loath to foil him, as I must for my own honour if he come in. Therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment, or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search and altogether against my will.
OLIVER. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother’s purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother. Therefore use thy discretion. I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to’t; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta’en thy life by some indirect means or other. For I assure thee (and almost with tears I speak it) there is not one so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him, but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.
CHARLES. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come tomorrow I’ll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again I’ll never wrestle for prize more. And so, God keep your worship.
[_Exit._]
OLIVER. Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul—yet I know not why—hates nothing more than he. Yet he’s gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprized. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I’ll go about.
[_Exit._]
SCENE II. A Lawn before the Duke’s Palace
Enter Rosalind and Celia.
CELIA. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
ROSALIND. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.
CELIA. Herein I see thou lov’st me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine. So wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee.
ROSALIND. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate to rejoice in yours.
CELIA. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and truly, when he dies thou shalt be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection. By mine honour I will! And when I break that oath, let me turn monster. Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.
ROSALIND. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me see—what think you of falling in love?
CELIA. Marry, I prithee do, to make sport withal; but love no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.
ROSALIND. What shall be our sport, then?
CELIA. Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
ROSALIND. I would we could do so, for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.
CELIA. ’Tis true, for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly.
ROSALIND. Nay, now thou goest from Fortune’s office to Nature’s. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.
Enter Touchstone.
CELIA. No? When Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?
ROSALIND. Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when Fortune makes Nature’s natural the cutter-off of Nature’s wit.
CELIA. Peradventure this is not Fortune’s work neither, but Nature’s, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, and hath sent this natural for our whetstone; for always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.—How now, wit, whither wander you?
TOUCHSTONE. Mistress, you must come away to your father.
CELIA. Were you made the messenger?
TOUCHSTONE. No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.
ROSALIND. Where learned you that oath, fool?
TOUCHSTONE. Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught. Now, I’ll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.
CELIA. How prove you that in the great heap of your knowledge?
ROSALIND. Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
TOUCHSTONE. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.
CELIA. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
TOUCHSTONE. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were. But if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn. No more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancackes or that mustard.
CELIA. Prithee, who is’t that thou mean’st?
TOUCHSTONE. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.
CELIA. My father’s love is enough to honour him. Enough! Speak no more of him. You’ll be whipped for taxation one of these days.
TOUCHSTONE. The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.
CELIA. By my troth, thou sayest true. For since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.
Enter Le Beau.
ROSALIND. With his mouth full of news.
CELIA. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.
ROSALIND. Then shall we be news-crammed.
CELIA. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. _Bonjour_, Monsieur Le Beau. What’s the news?
LE BEAU. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.
CELIA. Sport! Of what colour?
LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?
ROSALIND. As wit and fortune will.
TOUCHSTONE. Or as the destinies decrees.
CELIA. Well said. That was laid on with a trowel.
TOUCHSTONE. Nay, if I keep not my rank—
ROSALIND. Thou losest thy old smell.
LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.
ROSALIND. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.
LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end, for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.
CELIA. Well, the beginning that is dead and buried.
LE BEAU. There comes an old man and his three sons—
CELIA. I could match this beginning with an old tale.
LE BEAU. Three proper young men of excellent growth and presence.
ROSALIND. With bills on their necks: “Be it known unto all men by these presents.”
LE BEAU. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the Duke’s wrestler, which Charles in a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him. So he served the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie, the poor old man their father making such pitiful dole over them that all the beholders take his part with weeping.
ROSALIND. Alas!