All For Love by John Dryden (epub ebook reader TXT) 📕

give me all myself! Let me not live, If the young bridegroom, longing for his night, Was ever half so fond.

DOLABELLA. I must be silent, for my soul is busy About a nobler work; she’s new come home, Like a long-absent man, and wanders o’er Each room, a stranger to her own, to look If all be safe.

ANTONY. Thou hast what’s left of me; For I am now so sunk from what I was, Thou find’st me at my lowest water-mark. The rivers that ran in, and raised my fortunes, Are all dried up, or take another course: What I have left is from my native spring; I’ve still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate, And lifts me to my banks.

DOLABELLA. Still you are lord of all the world to me.

ANTONY. Why, then I yet am so; for thou art all. If I had any joy when thou wert absent, I grudged it to myself; methought I robbed Thee of thy part. But, O my Dolabella! Thou has beheld me other than I am. Hast thou not seen my morning chambers filled With sceptred slaves, who waited to salute me? With eastern monarchs, who forgot the sun, To worship my uprising?—menial kings Ran coursing up and down my palace-yard, Stood silent in my presence, watched my eyes, And, at my least command, all started out, Like racers to the goal.

DOLABELLA. Slaves to your fortune.

ANTONY. Fortune is Caesar’s now; and what am I?

VENTIDIUS. What you have made yourself; I will not flatter.

ANTONY. Is this friendly done?

DOLABELLA. Yes; when his end is so, I must join with him; Indeed I must, and yet you must not chide; Why am I else your friend?

ANTONY. Take heed, young man, How thou upbraid’st my love: The queen has eyes, And thou too hast a soul. Canst thou remember, When, swelled with hatred, thou beheld’st her first, As accessary to thy brother’s death?

DOLABELLA. Spare my remembrance; ‘twas a guilty day, And still the blush hangs here.

ANTONY. To clear herself, For sending him no aid, she came from Egypt. Her galley down the silver Cydnus rowed, The tackling silk, the streamers waved with gold; The gentle winds were lodged in purple sails: Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were placed; Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay.

DOLABELLA. No more; I would not hear it.

ANTONY. Oh, you must! She lay, and leant her cheek upon her hand, And cast a look so languishingly sweet, As if, secure of all beholders’ hearts, Neglecting, she could take them: boys, like Cupids, Stood fanning, with their painted wings, the winds. That played about her face. But if she smiled A darting glory seemed to blaze abroad, That men’s desiring eyes were never wearied, But hung upon the object: To soft flutes The silver oars kept time; and while they played, The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight; And both to thought. ‘Twas heaven, or somewhat more; For she so charmed all hearts, that gazing crowds Stood panting on the shore, and wanted breath To give their welcome voice. Then, Dolabella, where was then thy soul? Was not thy fury quite disarmed with wonder? Didst thou not shrink behind me from those eyes And whisper in my ear—Oh, tell her not That I accused her with my brother’s death?

DOLABELLA. And should my weakness be a plea for yours? Mine was an age when love might be excused, When kindly warmth, and when my springing youth Made it a debt to nature. Yours—

VENTIDIUS. Speak boldly. Yours, he would say, in your declining age, When no more heat was left but what you forced, When all the sap was needful for the trunk, When it went down, then you constrained the course, And robbed from nature, to supply desire; In you (I would not use so harsh a word) ‘Tis but plain dotage.

ANTONY. Ha!

DOLABELLA. ‘Twas urged too home.— But yet the loss was private, that I made; ‘Twas but myself I lost: I lost no legions; I had no world to lose, no people’s love.

ANTONY. This from a friend?

DOLABELLA. Yes, Antony, a true one; A friend so tender, that each word I speak Stabs my own heart, before it reach your ear. Oh, judge me not less kind, because I chide! To Caesar I excuse you.

ANTONY. O ye gods! Have I then lived to be excused to Caesar?

DOLABELLA. As to your equal.

ANTONY. Well, he’s but my equal: While I wear this he never shall be more.

DOLABELLA. I bring conditions from him.

ANTONY. Are they noble? Methinks thou shouldst not bring them else; yet he Is full of deep dissembling; knows no honour Divided from his interest. Fate mistook him; For nature meant him for an usurer: He’s fit indeed to buy, not conquer kingdoms.

VENTIDIUS. Then, granting this, What power was theirs, who wrought so hard a temper To honourable terms?

ANTONY. I was my Dolabella, or some god.

DOLABELLA. Nor I, nor yet Maecenas, nor Agrippa: They were your enemies; and I, a friend, Too weak alone; yet ‘twas a Roman’s deed.

ANTONY. ‘Twas like a Roman done: show me that man, Who has preserved my life, my love, my honour; Let me but see his face.

VENTIDIUS. That task is mine, And, Heaven, thou know’st how pleasing. [Exit VENTIDIUS.]

DOLABELLA. You’ll remember To whom you stand obliged?

ANTONY. When I forget it Be thou unkind, and that’s my greatest curse. My queen shall thank him too,

DOLABELLA. I fear she will not.

ANTONY. But she shall do it: The queen, my Dolabella! Hast thou not still some grudgings of thy fever?

DOLABELLA. I would not see her lost.

ANTONY. When I forsake her, Leave me my better stars! for she has truth Beyond her beauty. Caesar tempted her, At no less price than kingdoms, to betray me; But she resisted all: and yet thou chidest me For loving her too well. Could I do so?

DOLABELLA. Yes; there’s my reason.

Re-enter VENTIDIUS, with OCTAVIA, leading ANTONY’S two little DAUGHTERS

ANTONY. Where?—Octavia there! [Starting back.]

VENTIDIUS. What, is she poison to you?—a disease? Look on her, view her well, and those she brings: Are they all strangers to your eyes? has nature No secret call, no whisper they are yours?

DOLABELLA. For shame, my lord, if not for love, receive them With kinder eyes. If you confess a man, Meet them, embrace them, bid them welcome to you. Your arms should open, even without your knowledge, To clasp them in; your feet should turn to wings, To bear you to them; and your eyes dart out And aim a kiss, ere you could reach the lips.

ANTONY. I stood amazed, to think how they came hither.

VENTIDIUS. I sent for them; I brought them in unknown To Cleopatra’s guards.

DOLABELLA. Yet, are you cold?

OCTAVIA. Thus long I have attended for my welcome; Which, as a stranger, sure I might expect. Who am I?

ANTONY. Caesar’s sister.

OCTAVIA. That’s unkind. Had I been nothing more than Caesar’s sister, Know, I had still remained in Caesar’s camp: But your Octavia, your much injured wife, Though banished from your bed, driven from your house, In spite of Caesar’s sister, still is yours. ‘Tis true, I have a heart disdains your coldness, And prompts me not to seek what you should offer; But a wife’s virtue still surmounts that pride. I come to claim you as my own; to show My duty first; to ask, nay beg, your kindness: Your hand, my lord; ‘tis mine, and I will have it. [Taking his hand.]

VENTIDIUS. Do, take it; thou deserv’st it.

DOLABELLA. On my soul, And so she does: she’s neither too submissive, Nor yet too haughty; but so just a mean Shows, as it ought, a wife and Roman too.

ANTONY. I fear, Octavia, you have begged my life.

OCTAVIA. Begged it, my lord?

ANTONY. Yes, begged it, my ambassadress; Poorly and basely begged it of your brother.

OCTAVIA. Poorly and basely I could never beg: Nor could my brother grant.

ANTONY. Shall I, who, to my kneeling slave, could say, Rise up, and be a king; shall I fall down And cry,—Forgive me, Caesar! Shall I set A man, my equal, in the place of Jove, As he could give me being? No; that word, Forgive, would choke me up, And die upon my tongue.

DOLABELLA. You shall not need it.

ANTONY. I will not need it. Come, you’ve all betrayed me,— My friend too!—to receive some vile conditions. My wife has bought me, with her prayers and tears; And now I must become her branded slave. In every peevish mood, she will upbraid The life she gave: if I but look awry, She cries—I’ll tell my brother.

OCTAVIA. My hard fortune Subjects me still to your unkind mistakes. But the conditions I have brought are such, Your need not blush to take: I love your honour, Because ‘tis mine; it never shall be said, Octavia’s husband was her brother’s slave. Sir, you are free; free, even from her you loathe; For, though my brother bargains for your love, Makes me the price and cement of your peace, I have a soul like yours; I cannot take Your love as alms, nor beg what I deserve. I’ll tell my brother we are reconciled; He shall draw back his troops, and you shall march To rule the East: I may be dropt at Athens; No matter where. I never will complain, But only keep the barren name of wife, And rid you of the trouble.

VENTIDIUS. Was ever such a strife of sullen honour! [Apart] Both scorn to be obliged.

DOLABELLA. Oh, she has touched him in the tenderest part;[Apart] See how he reddens with despite and shame, To be outdone in generosity!

VENTIDIUS. See how he winks! how he dries up a tear, [Apart] That fain would fall!

ANTONY. Octavia, I have heard you, and must praise The greatness of your soul; But cannot yield to what you have proposed: For I can ne’er be conquered but by love; And you do all for duty. You would free me, And would be dropt at Athens; was’t not so?

OCTAVIA. It was, my lord.

ANTONY. Then I must be obliged To one who loves me not; who, to herself, May call me thankless and ungrateful man:— I’ll not endure it; no.

VENTIDIUS. I am glad it pinches there. [Aside.]

OCTAVIA. Would you triumph o’er poor Octavia’s virtue? That pride was all I had to bear me up; That you might think you owed me for your life, And owed it to my duty, not my love. I have been injured, and my haughty soul Could brook but ill the man who slights my bed.

ANTONY. Therefore you love me not.

OCTAVIA. Therefore, my lord, I should not love you.

ANTONY. Therefore you would leave me?

OCTAVIA. And therefore I should leave you—if I could.

DOLABELLA. Her soul’s too great, after such injuries, To say she loves; and yet she lets you see it. Her modesty and silence plead her cause.

ANTONY. O Dolabella, which way shall I turn? I find a secret yielding in my soul; But Cleopatra, who would die with me, Must she be left? Pity pleads for Octavia; But does it not plead more for Cleopatra?

VENTIDIUS. Justice and pity both plead for Octavia; For Cleopatra, neither. One would be ruined with you; but she first Had ruined you: The other, you have ruined, And yet she would preserve you. In everything their merits are unequal.

ANTONY. O my distracted soul!

OCTAVIA. Sweet Heaven compose it!— Come, come, my lord, if I can pardon you, Methinks you should accept it. Look on these; Are they not yours? or stand they thus neglected, As they are mine? Go to him, children, go; Kneel to him, take him