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

VENTIDIUS. My most illustrious pander, No fine set speech, no cadence, no turned periods, But a plain homespun truth, is what I ask. I did, myself, o’erhear your queen make love To Dolabella. Speak; for I will know, By your confession, what more passed betwixt them; How near the business draws to your employment; And when the happy hour.

ANTONY. Speak truth, Alexas; whether it offend Or please Ventidius, care not: Justify Thy injured queen from malice: Dare his worst.

OCTAVIA. [aside.] See how he gives him courage! how he fears To find her false! and shuts his eyes to truth, Willing to be misled!

ALEXAS. As far as love may plead for woman’s frailty, Urged by desert and greatness of the lover, So far, divine Octavia, may my queen Stand even excused to you for loving him Who is your lord: so far, from brave Ventidius, May her past actions hope a fair report.

ANTONY. ‘Tis well, and truly spoken: mark, Ventidius.

ALEXAS. To you, most noble emperor, her strong passion Stands not excused, but wholly justified. Her beauty’s charms alone, without her crown, >From Ind and Meroe drew the distant vows Of sighing kings; and at her feet were laid The sceptres of the earth, exposed on heaps, To choose where she would reign: She thought a Roman only could deserve her, And, of all Romans, only Antony; And, to be less than wife to you, disdained Their lawful passion.

ANTONY. ‘Tis but truth.

ALEXAS. And yet, though love, and your unmatched desert, Have drawn her from the due regard of honour, At last Heaven opened her unwilling eyes To see the wrongs she offered fair Octavia, Whose holy bed she lawlessly usurped. The sad effects of this improsperous war Confirmed those pious thoughts.

VENTIDIUS. [aside.] Oh, wheel you there? Observe him now; the man begins to mend, And talk substantial reason.—Fear not, eunuch; The emperor has given thee leave to speak.

ALEXAS. Else had I never dared to offend his ears With what the last necessity has urged On my forsaken mistress; yet I must not Presume to say, her heart is wholly altered.

ANTONY. No, dare not for thy life, I charge thee dare not Pronounce that fatal word!

OCTAVIA. Must I bear this? Good Heaven, afford me patience. [Aside.]

VENTIDIUS. On, sweet eunuch; my dear half-man, proceed.

ALEXAS. Yet Dolabella Has loved her long; he, next my god-like lord, Deserves her best; and should she meet his passion, Rejected, as she is, by him she loved–-

ANTONY. Hence from my sight! for I can bear no more: Let furies drag thee quick to hell; let all The longer damned have rest; each torturing hand Do thou employ, till Cleopatra comes; Then join thou too, and help to torture her! [Exit ALEXAS, thrust out by ANTONY.]

OCTAVIA. ‘Tis not well. Indeed, my lord, ‘tis much unkind to me, To show this passion, this extreme concernment, For an abandoned, faithless prostitute.

ANTONY. Octavia, leave me; I am much disordered: Leave me, I say.

OCTAVIA. My lord!

ANTONY. I bid you leave me.

VENTIDIUS. Obey him, madam: best withdraw a while, And see how this will work.

OCTAVIA. Wherein have I offended you, my lord, That I am bid to leave you? Am I false, Or infamous? Am I a Cleopatra? Were I she, Base as she is, you would not bid me leave you; But hang upon my neck, take slight excuses, And fawn upon my falsehood.

ANTONY. ‘Tis too much. Too much, Octavia; I am pressed with sorrows Too heavy to be borne; and you add more: I would retire, and recollect what’s left Of man within, to aid me.

OCTAVIA. You would mourn, In private, for your love, who has betrayed you. You did but half return to me: your kindness Lingered behind with her, I hear, my lord, You make conditions for her, And would include her treaty. Wondrous proofs Of love to me!

ANTONY. Are you my friend, Ventidius? Or are you turned a Dolabella too, And let this fury loose?

VENTIDIUS. Oh, be advised, Sweet madam, and retire.

OCTAVIA. Yes, I will go; but never to return. You shall no more be haunted with this Fury. My lord, my lord, love will not always last, When urged with long unkindness and disdain: Take her again, whom you prefer to me; She stays but to be called. Poor cozened man! Let a feigned parting give her back your heart, Which a feigned love first got; for injured me, Though my just sense of wrongs forbid my stay, My duty shall be yours. To the dear pledges of our former love My tenderness and care shall be transferred, And they shall cheer, by turns, my widowed nights: So, take my last farewell; for I despair To have you whole, and scorn to take you half. [Exit.]

VENTIDIUS. I combat Heaven, which blasts my best designs; My last attempt must be to win her back; But oh! I fear in vain. [Exit.]

ANTONY. Why was I framed with this plain, honest heart, Which knows not to disguise its griefs and weakness, But bears its workings outward to the world? I should have kept the mighty anguish in, And forced a smile at Cleopatra’s falsehood: Octavia had believed it, and had stayed. But I am made a shallow-forded stream, Seen to the bottom: all my clearness scorned, And all my faults exposed.—See where he comes,

Enter DOLLABELLA

Who has profaned the sacred name of friend, And worn it into vileness! With how secure a brow, and specious form, He gilds the secret villain! Sure that face Was meant for honesty; but Heaven mismatched it, And furnished treason out with nature’s pomp, To make its work more easy.

DOLABELLA. O my friend!

ANTONY. Well, Dolabella, you performed my message?

DOLABELLA. I did, unwillingly.

ANTONY. Unwillingly? Was it so hard for you to bear our parting? You should have wished it.

DOLABELLA. Why?

ANTONY. Because you love me. And she received my message with as true, With as unfeigned a sorrow as you brought it?

DOLABELLA. She loves you, even to madness.

ANTONY. Oh, I know it. You, Dolabella, do not better know How much she loves me. And should I Forsake this beauty? This all-perfect creature?

DOLABELLA. I could not, were she mine.

ANTONY. And yet you first Persuaded me: How come you altered since?

DOLABELLA. I said at first I was not fit to go: I could not hear her sighs, and see her tears, But pity must prevail: And so, perhaps, It may again with you; for I have promised, That she should take her last farewell: And, see, She comes to claim my word.

Enter CLEOPATRA

ANTONY. False Dolabella!

DOLABELLA. What’s false, my lord?

ANTONY. Why, Dolabella’s false, And Cleopatra’s false; both false and faithless. Draw near, you well-joined wickedness, you serpents, Whom I have in my kindly bosom warmed, Till I am stung to death.

DOLABELLA. My lord, have I Deserved to be thus used?

CLEOPATRA. Can Heaven prepare A newer torment? Can it find a curse Beyond our separation?

ANTONY. Yes, if fate Be just, much greater: Heaven should be ingenious In punishing such crimes. The rolling stone, And gnawing vulture, were slight pains, invented When Jove was young, and no examples known Of mighty ills; but you have ripened sin, To such a monstrous growth, ‘twill pose the gods To find an equal torture. Two, two such!— Oh, there’s no further name,—two such! to me, To me, who locked my soul within your breasts, Had no desires, no joys, no life, but you; When half the globe was mine, I gave it you In dowry with my heart; I had no use, No fruit of all, but you: A friend and mistress Was what the world could give. O Cleopatra! O Dolabella! how could you betray This tender heart, which with an infant fondness Lay lulled betwixt your bosoms, and there slept, Secure of injured faith?

DOLABELLA. If she has wronged you, Heaven, hell, and you revenge it.

ANTONY. If she has wronged me! Thou wouldst evade thy part of guilt; but swear Thou lov’st not her.

DOLABELLA. Not so as I love you.

ANTONY. Not so? Swear, swear, I say, thou dost not love her.

DOLABELLA. No more than friendship will allow.

ANTONY. No more? Friendship allows thee nothing: Thou art perjured— And yet thou didst not swear thou lov’st her not; But not so much, no more. O trifling hypocrite, Who dar’st not own to her, thou dost not love, Nor own to me, thou dost! Ventidius heard it; Octavia saw it.

CLEOPATRA. They are enemies.

ANTONY. Alexas is not so: He, he confessed it; He, who, next hell, best knew it, he avowed it. Why do I seek a proof beyond yourself? [To DOLABELLA.] You, whom I sent to bear my last farewell, Returned, to plead her stay.

DOLABELLA. What shall I answer? If to have loved be guilt, then I have sinned; But if to have repented of that love Can wash away my crime, I have repented. Yet, if I have offended past forgiveness, Let not her suffer: She is innocent.

CLEOPATRA. Ah, what will not a woman do, who loves? What means will she refuse, to keep that heart, Where all her joys are placed? ‘Twas I encouraged, ‘Twas I blew up the fire that scorched his soul, To make you jealous, and by that regain you. But all in vain; I could not counterfeit: In spite of all the dams my love broke o’er, And drowned by heart again: fate took the occasion; And thus one minute’s feigning has destroyed My whole life’s truth.

ANTONY. Thin cobweb arts of falsehood; Seen, and broke through at first.

DOLABELLA. Forgive your mistress.

CLEOPATRA. Forgive your friend.

ANTONY. You have convinced yourselves. You plead each other’s cause: What witness have you, That you but meant to raise my jealousy?

CLEOPATRA. Ourselves, and Heaven.

ANTONY. Guilt witnesses for guilt. Hence, love and friendship! You have no longer place in human breasts, These two have driven you out: Avoid my sight! I would not kill the man whom I have loved, And cannot hurt the woman; but avoid me: I do not know how long I can be tame; For, if I stay one minute more, to think How I am wronged, my justice and revenge Will cry so loud within me, that my pity Will not be heard for either.

DOLABELLA. Heaven has but Our sorrow for our sins; and then delights To pardon erring man: Sweet mercy seems Its darling attribute, which limits justice; As if there were degrees in infinite, And infinite would rather want perfection Than punish to extent.

ANTONY. I can forgive A foe; but not a mistress and a friend. Treason is there in its most horrid shape, Where trust is greatest; and the soul resigned, Is stabbed by its own guards: I’ll hear no more; Hence from my sight for ever!

CLEOPATRA. How? for ever! I cannot go one moment from your sight, And must I go for ever? My joys, my only joys, are centred here: What place have I to go to? My own kingdom? That I have lost for you: Or to the Romans? They hate me for your sake: Or must I wander The wide world o’er, a helpless, banished woman, Banished for love of you; banished from you? Ay, there’s the banishment! Oh, hear me; hear me, With strictest justice: For I beg no favour; And if I have offended you, then kill me, But do not banish me.

ANTONY. I must not hear you. I have a fool within me takes your part; But honour stops my ears.

CLEOPATRA. For pity hear me! Would you cast off a slave who followed you? Who crouched beneath your spurn?—He has no pity! See, if he gives one tear to my departure; One look, one kind