Antony and Cleopatra: Act IV

Let the old ruffian know
I have many other ways to die; meantime
Laugh at his challenge.

Let’s tonight
Be bounteous at our meal.—Give me thy hand;
Thou hast been rightly honest.—So hast thou,—
Thou,—and thou,—and thou.

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.

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.

A thousand, sir,
Early though ’t be, have on their riveted trim
And at the port expect you.

He goes forth gallantly.

Write to him—
I will subscribe—gentle adieus and greetings.

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.

O Antony,
Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid
My better service, when my turpitude
Thou dost so crown with gold!

Had we done so at first, we had droven them home
With clouts about their heads.

Let us score their backs
And snatch ’em up as we take hares, behind.
’Tis sport to maul a runner.

I will reward thee
Once for thy sprightly comfort and tenfold
For thy good valor.

I will reward thee
Once for thy sprightly comfort and tenfold
For thy good valor.

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 taborins,
That heaven and Earth may strike their sounds together,
Applauding our approach.

Trumpeters,
With brazen din blast you the city’s ear.
Make mingle with our rattling taborins,
That heaven and Earth may strike their sounds together,
Applauding our approach.

SENTRY
If we be not relieved within this hour,
We must return to th’ court of guard.

O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me,
That life, a very rebel to my will,
May hang no longer on me.

O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me,
That life, a very rebel to my will,
May hang no longer on me.

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 endeavor.

To the vales,
And hold our best advantage.

Antony
Is valiant and dejected, and by starts
His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear
Of what he has and has not.

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 plow thy visage up
With her preparèd nails.

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 plow thy visage up
With her preparèd nails.

Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
A vapor sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock,
A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon ’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air.

Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
A vapor sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock,
A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon ’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air.

Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
A vapor sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock,
A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon ’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air.

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.

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.

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,
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?

Do it at once,
Or thy precedent services are all
But accidents unpurposed.

Turn from me then that noble countenance
Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.

Alas, and woe!

Only
I here importune death awhile until
Of many thousand kisses the poor last
I lay upon thy lips.

No, let me speak, and let me rail so high
That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel,
Provoked by my offense.

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.

Cleopatra swoons.