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Act IIIPart II
Part II
Octavia And Mark Antony
Re-enter Ventidius, with Octavia, leading Antony`s two little Daughters
Ant. Where? - Octavia there!
[Starting back.
Vent. 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?
Dola. For shame, my lord, if not for love, receive them
With kinder yes. 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.
Ant. I stood amazed, to think how they came hither.
Vent. I sent for them; I brought them in unknown
To Cleopatra`s guards.
Dola. Yet, are you cold?
Octav. Thus long I have attended for my welcome;
Which, as a stranger, sure I might expect.
Who am I?
Ant. Caesar`s sister.
Octav. 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.
Vent. Do, take it; thou deserv`st it.
Dola. 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.
Ant. I fear, Octavia, you have begged my life.
Octav. Begged it, my lord?
Ant. Yes, begged it, my ambassadress;
Poorly and basely begged it of your brother.
Octav. Poorly and basely I could never beg:
Nor could my brother grant.
Ant. 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.
Dola. You shall not need it.
Ant. 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.
Octav. 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 adopt at Athens;
No matter where. I never will complain,
But only keep the barren name of wife,
And rid you of the trouble.
Apart
Vent. Was ever such a strife of sullen honour!
Both scorn to be obliged.
Dola. Oh, she has touched him in the tenderest part;
See how he reddens with despite and shame,
To be outdone in generosity!
Vent. See how he winks! how he dries up a tear,
That fain would fall!
Ant. 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?
Octav. It was, my lord.
Ant. 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.
Vent. I am glad it pinches there.
[Aside.
Octav. 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.
Ant. Therefore you love me not.
Octav. Therefore, my lord,
I should not love you.
Ant. Therefore you would leave me?
Octav. And therefore I should leave you - if I could.
Dola. 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.
Ant. 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?
Vent. 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.
Ant. O my distracted soul!
Octav. 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 by the hand, speak to him;
For you may speak, and he may own you too,
Without a blush; and so he cannot all
His children: go, I say, and pull him to me,
And pull him to yourselves, from that bad woman.
You, Agrippina, hang upon his arms;
And you, Antonia, clasp about his waist:
If he will shake you off, if he will dash you
Against the pavement, you must bear it, children;
For you are mine, and I was born to suffer.
[Here the Children go to him, etc.
Vent. Was ever sight so moving? - Emperor!
Dola. Friend!
Octav. Husband!
Both Child. Father!
Ant. I am vanquished: take me,
Octavia; take me, children: share me all.
[Embracing them.
I`ve been a thriftless debtor to your loves,
And run out much, in riot, from your stock;
But all shall be amended.
Octav. O blest hour!
Dola. O happy change!
Vent. My joy stops at my tongue;
But it has found two channels here for one,
And bubbles out above.
Ant. [to Octav.]. This is thy triumph; lead me where thou wilt;
Even to thy brother`s camp.
Octav. All there are yours.
Enter Alexas hastily
Alex. The queen, my mistress, sir, and yours -
Ant. `Tis past. -
Octavia, you shall stay this night: To - morrow,
Caesar and we are one.
[Exit leading Octavia; Dolabella and the Children follow.
Vent. There`s news for you; run, my officious eunuch,
Be sure to be the first; haste forward:
Haste, my dear eunuch, haste.
[Exit.
Alex. This downright fighting fool, this thick - skulled hero,
This blunt, unthinking instrument of death,
With plain dull virtue has outgone my wit.
Pleasure forsook my earliest infancy;
The luxury of others robbed my cradle,
And ravished thence the promise of a man.
Cast out from nature, disinherited
Of what her meanest children claim by kind,
Yet greatness kept me from contempt: that`s gone.
Had Cleopatra followed my advice,
Then he had been betrayed who now forsakes.
She dies for love; but she has known its joys:
Gods, is this just, that I, who know no joys,
Must die, because she loves?
Enter Cleopatra, Charmion, Iras, and Train
O madam, I have seen what blasts my eyes!
Octavia`s here.
Cleo. Peace with that raven`s note.
I know it too; and now am in
The pangs of death.
Alex. You are no more a queen;
Egypt is lost.
Cleo. What tell`st thou me of Egypt?
My life, my soul is lost! Octavia has him! -
O fatal name to Cleopatra`s love!
My kisses, my embraces now are hers;
While I - But thou hast seen my rival; speak,
Does she deserve this blessing? Is she fair?
Bright as a goddess? and is all perfection
Confined to her? It is. Poor I was made
Of that coarse matter, which, when she was finished,
The gods threw by for rubbish.
Alex. She is indeed a very miracle.
Cleo. Death to my hopes, a miracle!
Alex. A miracle;
[Bowing.
I mean of goodness; for in beauty, madam,
You make all wonders cease.
Cleo. I was too rash:
Take this in part of recompense. But, oh!
[Giving a ring.
I fear thou flatterest me.
Char. She comes! she`s here!
Iras. Fly, madam, Caesar`s sister!
Cleo. Were she the sister of the thunderer Jove,
And bore her brother`s lightning in her eyes,
Thus would I face my rival.
[Meets Octavia with Ventidius. Octavia bears up to her. Their Trains
come up on either side.
Octav. I need not ask if you are Cleopatra;
Your haughty carriage -
Cleo. Shows I am a queen:
Nor need I ask you, who you are.
Octav. A Roman:
A name, that makes and can unmake a queen.
Cleo. Your lord, the man who serves me, is a Roman.
Octav. He was a Roman, till he lost that name,
To be a slave in Egypt; but I come
To free him thence.
Cleo. Peace, peace, my lover`s Juno.
When he grew weary of that household clog,
He chose my easier bonds.
Octav. I wonder not
Your bonds are easy: you have long been practised
In that lascivious art: He`s not the first
For whom you spread your snares: Let Caesar witness.
Cleo. I loved not Caesar; `twas but gratitude
I paid his love: The worst your malice can,
Is but to say the greatest of mankind
Has been my slave. The next, but far above him
In my esteem, is he whom law calls yours,
But whom his love made mine.
Octav. I would view nearer
[Coming up close to her.
That face, which has so long usurped my right,
To find the inevitable charms, that catch
Mankind so sure, that ruined my dear lord.
Cleo. Oh, you do well to search; for had you known
But half these charms, you had not lost his heart.
Octav. Far be their knowledge from a Roman lady,
Far from a modest wife! Shame of our sex,
Dost thou not blush to own those black endearments,
That make sin pleasing?
Cleo. You may blush, who want them.
If bounteous nature, if indulgent Heaven
Have given me charms to please the bravest man,
Should I not thank them? Should I be ashamed,
And not be proud? I am, that he has loved me;
And, when I love not him, Heaven change this face
For one like that.
Octav. Thou lov`st him not so well.
Cleo. I love him better, and deserve him more.
Octav. You do not; cannot: You have been his ruin.
Who made him cheap at Rome, but Cleopatra?
Who made him scorned abroad, but Cleopatra?
At Actium, who betrayed him? Cleopatra.
Who made his children orphans, and poor me
A wretched widow? only Cleopatra.
Cleo. Yet she, who loves him best, is Cleopatra.
If you have suffered, I have suffered more.
You bear the specious title of a wife
To gild your cause, and draw the pitying world
To favour it: the world condemns poor me.
For I have lost my honour, lost my fame,
And stained the glory of my royal house,
And all to bear the branded name of mistress.
There wants but life, and that too I would lose
For him I love.
Octav. Be`t so, then; take thy wish.
[Exit with her Train.
Cleo. And `tis my wish,
Now he is lost for whom alone I lived.
My sight grows dim, and every object dances,
And swims before me, in the maze of death.
My spirits, while they were opposed, kept up;
They could not sink beneath a rival`s scorn!
But now she`s gone, they faint.
Alex. Mine have had leisure
To recollect their strength, and furnish counsel,
To ruin her, who else must ruin you.
Cleo. Vain promiser!
Lead me, my Charmion; nay, your hand too, Iras.
My grief has weight enough to sink you both.
Conduct me to some solitary chamber,
And draw the curtains round;
Then leave me to myself, to take alone
My fill of grief:
There I till death will his unkindness weep;
As harmless infants moan themselves asleep.
[Exeunt.
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