ANTONY AND OCTAVIUS.

Frw have obtained the privilege of entering Shakespeare's garden, and of seeing him take turn after turn, quite alone, now nimbly, now gravely, on his broad and lofty terrace.

Let us never venture where he is walking, whether in deep meditation or in buoyant spirits. Enough is it for us to ramble and loiter in the narrower paths below, and to look up at the various images, which, in the prodigality of his wealth, he has placed in every quarter.

Before you, reader, are some scattered leaves gathered from under them carefuller hands may arrange and compress them in a book of their own, and thus for a while preserve them, if rude children do not finger them first and tamper with their fragility. W. S. L.

Soothsayer. Speak it I must. Ill are the auguries.
Antony. Ill ever are the auguries, O priest,
To those who fear them: at one hearty stroke
The blackest of them scud and disappear.

Antony.

'Twas at her command

Rightly done

To follow her commands; not rightly comes

Whate'er would grieve her; this thou must withhold.
Soothsayer. Not this, not this: her very life may hang
Upon the event foretold her.

Antony.

What is that? Announced then is the cursed augury

So soon?

Soothsayer. She waited at the temple-door

With only one attendant, meanly drest,

That none might know her; or perhaps the cause

Was holier; to appease the offended Gods.

Antony. Which of them can she ever have offended?

She who hath lavisht upon all of them

Such gifts, and burnt more incense in one hour

Before her Isis, than would wrap in smoke
A city at mid-day! The keenest eye

Of earth or heaven could find in her no guile,
No cruelty, no lack of duty.

Yet fears she one of them, nor knows she which,
But Isis is the one she most suspects.

Antony. Isis! her patroness, her favourite?

ΙΟ

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Soothsayer. Even so! but they who patronise may frown

At times, and draw some precious boon away.

Antony. I deem not thus unworthily of Gods;

Indeed I know but Jupiter and Mars;

Each hath been ever on my side, and each

Alike will prosper me, I trust, to-morrow.

Soothsayer. But there are others, guardian Gods of Egypt; Prayers may propitiate them, with offerings due.

Antony. I have forgotten all my prayers.

Soothsayer.

When holier lips pronounce them.

Antony.

No need,

As for offerings,

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There shall be plenty on the day's success.

Soothsayer. Merit it.

Antony.

Do your Gods or ours mind that?

Merit! and where lies merit?

Soothsayer.

In true faith

On auguries.

Antony.

Birds hither thither fly,

And heard there have been from behind the veil
Voices not varying much from yours and mine.

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SCENE THE SECOND.

SOOTHSAYER and CLEOPATRA.

Soothsayer. Our lord Antonius wafts away all doubt

Of his success.

Cleopatra. What! against signs and tokens?

Soothsayer. Even so!

Cleopatra.

Perhaps he trusts himself to Hercules,

Become of late progenitor to him.

Soothsayer. Ah! that sweet smile might bring him back;

he once

Was flexible to the bland warmth of smiles.

Cleopatra. If Hercules is hail'd by men below For strength and goodness, why not Antony? Why not succeed as lawful heir? why not Exchange the myrtle for the poplar crown?

ANTONY enters. SOOTHSAYER goes. Cleopatra. Antony! is not Cæsar now a god? Antony. We hear so.

Cleopatra.

Nay, we know it. Why not thou?

Men would not venture then to strike a blow

At thee the laws declare it sacrilege.

Antony. Julius, if I knew Julius, had been rather

First

among men and last among the Gods.

Cleopatra. At least put on thy head a kingly crown. 20 Antony. I have put on a laurel one already;

As many kingly crowns as should half cover

The Lybian desert are not worth this one.
Cleopatra. But all would bend before thee.
Antony.

Of Cæsar to adopt it; 'twas his death.
Cleopatra. Be then what Cæsar is.

"Twas the fault

O Antony !

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To laugh so loud becomes not state so high.
Antony. He is a star, we see; so is the hair

Of Berenice: stars and Gods are rife.
What worth, my love, are crowns?

I give the circlet that encloses them.

Thou givest pearls,

Handmaidens don such gear, and valets snatch it
Sportively off, and toss it back again.

Cleopatra. But graver men gaze up with awful eyes.
Antony. And never gaze at that artificer,

Who turns his heel and fashions out his vase
From the Nile clay! 'Tis easy work for him;
Easy was mine to turn forth kings from stuff
As vile and ductile: he still plies his trade,
But mine, with all my customers, is gone.
Ever by me let enemies be awed,

None else bring round me many, near me few,
Keeping afar those shaven knaves obscene

Who lord it with humility, who press

Men's shoulders down, glue their two hands together,
And cut a cubit off, and tuck their heels

Against the cushion mother Nature gave.

Cleopatra. Incomprehensible! incorrigible!

O wretch! if queens were ever taught to blush,
I should at such unseemly phrase as thine.

I think I must forgive it.

What! and take

Before I grant? Again! You violent man!
Will you for ever drive me thus away?

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SCENE THE THIRD.

ANTONY and CLEOPATRA.

Antony. What demon urged thy flight?
Cleopatra.

I am a woman, with a woman's fears,
A mother's, and, alas O Antony !
More fears than these.

Antony.
Cleopatra.

Of whom?

The demon Love.

Ask not of whom

But ask for whom, if thou must ask at all,
Nor knowest nor hast known. Yes, I did fear
For my own life. . ah! lies it not in thine?

How

many perils compast thee around!

Antony. What are the perils that are strange to me? Cleopatra. Mine thou couldst not have seen when swiftest

oars,

Attracted by the throne and canopy,

Pounced at me only, numerous as the waves;

Couldst not have seen my maidens throwing down

Their fans and posies (piteous to behold!)

That they might wring their hands more readily.
I was too faint myself to still their cries.

Antony (aside). I almost thought her blameable.
(To CLEOPATRA.)

So will'd it. Thou despondest. . too aware

The day is lost.

Cleopatra.

But other days, and

Antony. Never weight

The day may have been lost,

happier ones, will come.

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The Gods

when those so high once fall, their

Keeps them for ever down.
Cleopatra.

And love me as

Talk reasonably,

till now.

it should be more,

For love and sorrow mingle where they meet.

Antony. It shall be more.

Are these last kisses cold?

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