SCENE I. Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace.

Philo.

AY, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure: those his goodly

eyes,

That o'er the files and musters of the war

Have glow'd like plated Mars; now bend, now turn, The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges' all temper;
And is become the bellows, and the fan,

To cool a gipsy's lust.

1 Reneges, i. e. renounces.

Look where they come !

We have in King Lear, "renege, affirm," &c. Stanyhurst, in his version of the second book of the Eneid, has the word:

"To live now longer, Troy burnt, he flatly reneageth."

It was necessarily pronounced as a dissyllable, as if written reneags, which the metre requires.

Flourish.

Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with their Trains; Eunuchs fanning her.

Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple2 pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd3.
Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.

Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth 4.

Enter an Attendant.

Att. News, my good lord, from Rome.

Ant.

Grates me :-The sum 5.

Cleo. Nay, hear them, Antony:

Fulvia, perchance, is angry; Or, who knows
If the scarce-bearded Cæsar have not sent

His pow'rful mandate to you, "Do this, or this:
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
Perform't, or else we damn7 thee."

Ant.

How, my love!

2 Triple is here used for third, or one of three; one of the Triumvirs, one of the three masters of the world. To sustain the pillars of the earth is a scriptural phrase. Triple is used for third in All's Well that Ends Well:

"Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,

He bade me store up as a triple eye."

3 So in Romeo and Juliet :

66

They are but beggars that can count their worth." And in Much Ado about Nothing:

"I were but little happy, if I could say how much." "Basia pauca cupit, qui numerare potest.”—Martial, vi. 36. 4 i. e. 66 Then must you set the boundary at a distance greater than the present visible universe affords."

5 i. e. Be brief, sum thy business in a few words. Hear the news; which was often considered plural in Shakespeare's time. See King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4, note 45.

• Take in, it has before been observed, signifies subdue, conquer. 7 Damn, i. e. condemn. The word had not then the vile vulgar use that has since been made of it.

Cleo. Perchance,-nay, and most like,

You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from Cæsar; therefore hear it, Antony.-
Where's Fulvia's process? Cæsar's, I would say ?-
Both ?-

Call in the messengers.-As I am Egypt's queen,
Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
Is Cæsar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame,
When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds.-The messengers.

Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch
Of the rang'd9 empire fall! Here is my space;
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike.
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
Is, to do thus; when such a mutual pair, [Embracing.
And such a twain can do't, in which, I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet 10,
We stand up peerless.

Cleo.

Excellent Falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?-
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony

Will be himself.

Ant.

But stirr'd by Cleopatra.

Now, for the love of Love 12, and her soft hours,

Process here means summons. "Lawyers call that the processe

by which a man is called into the court, and no more. with processe is to cite, to summon."-Minsheu.

To serve

9 The rang'd empire is the well arranged, well ordered empire. Shakespeare uses the expression again in Coriolanus:

"bury all which yet distinctly ranges

In heaps and piles of ruins."

10 To weet is to know.

"I think that Johnson has entirely mistaken the meaning of this passage, and believe Mason's explanation nearly correct. Cleopatra means to say that" Antony will act like himself," (i. e. nobly), without regard to the mandates of Cæsar or the anger of Fulvia. To which he replies, " But stirr'd by Cleopatra," i. e. "Add if moved to it by Cleopatra." This is a compliment to her. Johnson was wrong in supposing but to be used here in its exceptive sense. 12 That is, "for the sake of the Queen of Love." See Comedy of Errors, vol. ii. p. 37, note 9.

Let's not confound 13 the time with conference harsh : There's not a minute of our lives should stretch Without some pleasure now: What sport to-night? Cleo. Hear the ambassadors.

Ant.

To weep; whose 15

Fye, wrangling queen!

Whom every thing becomes 14, to chide, to laugh,
every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admir'd!

No messenger; but thine and all alone,

To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and note
The qualities of people 16. Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it :-Speak not to us.

[Exeunt ANT. and CLEO. with their Train.
Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonius priz'd so slight?
Phi. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.

Dem.

I'm full

sorry,

That he approves the common liar 17, who
Thus speaks of him at Rome: But I will hope
Rest you happy!

Of better deeds to-morrow.

[Exeunt.

13 To confound the time, is to consume it, to lose it. See vol. v. p. 25, note 13.

14 66 Quicquid enim dicit, seu facit, omne decet."
Marullus, lib. ii.

See Shakespeare's 150th Sonnet.

15 The folio, 1623, reads, who every, &c. corrected in the folio, 1632.

16"Sometime also when he would goe up and down the city disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into poor mens windows and their shops, and scold and brawl with them within the house; Cleopatra would be also in a chambermaid's array, and amble up and down the streets with him.”—Life of Antonius in North's Plutarch.

17 i. e. "That he confirms the common liar, Fame, in his case to be a true reporter." Shakespeare frequently uses approve or and approof for proof.

prove,

SCENE II. The same. Another Room. Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer. Char. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew this husband, which, you say, must charge his horns with garlands1!

Alex. Soothsayer.

Sooth. Your will?

Char. Is this the man?—Is't you, sir, that know things?

Sooth. In nature's infinite book of secrecy,

A little I can read.

Alex.

Show him your hand.

Enter ENOBARBUS.

Eno. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough, Cleopatra's health to drink.

Char. Good sir, give me good fortune.

Sooth. I make not, but foresee.

Char. Pray then, foresee me one.

Sooth. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.

Char. He means, in flesh.

Iras. No, you shall paint when you are old.

Char. Wrinkles forbid !

Alex. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
Char. Hush!

Sooth. You shall be more beloving, than beloved.
Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking2.

The old copies read, "change his horns," &c. A similar error of change for charge is also found in Coriolanus.

2 The liver being considered the seat of love, Charmian says she would rather heat her liver with drinking than with love's fire. A heated liver was supposed to make a pimpled face.