ANTONY                                 Dead, then? MARDIAN                                                       Dead. ANTONY Unarm, Eros. The long day’s task is done, And we must sleep. [To Mardian] That thou depart’st hence safe Does pay thy labour richly. Go.                             Exit Mardian Off, pluck off. The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep […]

Enter Mardian ANTONY                     O thy vile lady, She has robbed me of my sword! MARDIAN                   No, Antony, My mistress loved thee, and her fortunes mingled With thine entirely. ANTONY                     Hence, saucy eunuch, peace! She hath betrayed me, and shall die the death. MARDIAN       Death of one person can be paid but once, And that she […]

ANTONY         I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen— Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine, Which whilst it was mine had annexed unto’t A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has Packed cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory Unto an enemy’s triumph. Nay, weep not, gentle Eros. There is left […]

ANTONY         That which is now a horse even with a thought The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct As water is in water. EROS                                       It does, my lord. ANTONY         My good knave Eros, now thy captain is Even such a body. Here I am Antony, Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.       (4.15.9-14)   […]

Enter Antony and Eros ANTONY         Eros, thou yet behold’st me? EROS                                       Ay, noble lord. ANTONY         Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish, A vapour sometime like a bear or lion, A towered citadel, a pendent rock, A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon’t that nod unto the world And mock our eyes with […]

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, Mardian CLEOPATRA   Help me, my women! O, he’s more mad Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly Was never so embossed. CHARMIAN                 To th’ monument! There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead. The soul and body rive not more in parting Than greatness going off. CLEOPATRA   […]

ANTONY                     ’Tis well thou’rt gone, If it be well to live. But better ’twere Thou fell’st into my fury, for one death Might have prevented many. Eros, ho! The shirt of Nessus is upon me. Teach me, Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage. Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o’th’ moon, And with those […]

CLEOPATRA   Why is my lord enraged against his love? ANTONY         Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving And blemish Caesar’s triumph. Let him take thee And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians; Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot Of all thy sex; most monster-like be shown For poor’st diminutives, for dolts, and […]

ANTONY                                             Betrayed I am. O this false soul of Egypt! This grave charm, Whose eye becked forth my wars and called them home, Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end, Like a right gipsy hath at fast and loose Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. What, Eros, Eros! Enter Cleopatra Ah, thou […]

ANTONY         O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more. Fortune and Antony part here; even here Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts That spanieled me at heels, to whom I gave Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is barked That overtopped them all.   […]