Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (i am reading a book TXT) 📕
Description
Antony and Cleopatra begins two years after Julius Ceasar. Mark Antony was supposed to be in Egypt to conduct government affairs on behalf of the Roman Empire. Instead, he fell in love with the beautiful Queen Cleopatra, became her lover, and abandoned his duties to his wife and country. A messenger arrives bearing news that Antony’s wife and brother are dead after attempting to kill Octavius Caesar, and one of Ceasar’s generals, Pompey, is gathering an army against the Roman leaders. Mark Antony has no choice but to return to Rome. When Antony returns to the capital, he argues with Ceasar over his loyalty to the empire and the other triumvirs. The only way that Antony can prove his fidelity to Caesar is to marry his sister, Octavia. The news of this marriage makes its way back to Egypt and its queen.
The play was published in 1606 after the great success of Macbeth. This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
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- Author: William Shakespeare
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Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this
Relieved, but not betray’d. Cleopatra
What, of death too,
That rids our dogs of languish?
Cleopatra,
Do not abuse my master’s bounty by
The undoing of yourself: let the world see
His nobleness well acted, which your death
Will never let come forth.
Where art thou, death?
Come hither, come! come, come, and take a queen
Worthy many babes and beggars!
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 pinion’d 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!
You do extend
These thoughts of horror further than you shall
Find cause in Caesar.
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.
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.
No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;
Is’t not your trick?
I dream’d there was an Emperor Antony:
O, such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man!
His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted
The little O, the earth.
His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear’d 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 show’d his back above
The element they lived in: in his livery
Walk’d crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropp’d from his pocket.
Think you there was, or might be, such a man
As this I dream’d of?
You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.
But, if there be, or ever were, one such,
It’s past the size of dreaming: nature wants stuff
To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine
And Antony, were nature’s piece ’gainst fancy,
Condemning shadows quite.
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.
I thank you, sir,
Know you what Caesar means to do with me?
Arise, you shall not kneel:
I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.
Sir, the gods
Will have it thus; my master and my lord
I must obey.
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.
Sole sir o’ the 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.
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.
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.
This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,
I am possess’d of: ’tis exactly valued;
Not petty things admitted. Where’s Seleucus?
This is my treasurer: let him speak, my lord,
Upon his peril, that I have reserved
To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.
Madam,
I had rather seal my lips, than, to my peril,
Speak that which is not.
Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve
Your wisdom in the deed.
See, Caesar! O, behold,
How pomp is follow’d! 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!
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
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