Serap. Retire; you must not yet see Antony.
He who began this mischief,
’Tis just he tempt the danger; let him clear you:
And, since he offered you his servile tongue,
To gain a poor precarious life from Cæsar,
Let him expose that fawning eloquence,
And speak to Antony.

Alex. O heavens! I dare not;
I meet my certain death.

Cleo. Slave, thou deservest it.—
Not that I fear my lord, will I avoid him;
I know him noble: when he banished me,
And thought me false, he scorned to take my life;
But I’ll be justified, and then die with him.

Alex. O pity me, and let me follow you.

Cleo. To death, if thou stir hence. Speak, if thou canst,

[Exeunt Cleopatra, Serapion, Charmion, and Iras

Alex. O that I less could fear to lose this being,
Which, like a snowball in my coward hand,
The more ’tis grasped, the faster melts away.
Poor reason! what a wretched aid art thou!
For still, in spite of thee,
These two long lovers, soul and body, dread
Their final separation. Let me think:
What can I say, to save myself from death?
No matter what becomes of Cleopatra.

Ant. Which way? where?

[Within.

Vent. This leads to the monument.

[Within.

Alex. Ah me! I hear him; yet I’m unprepared:
My gift of lying’s gone;
And this court-devil, which I so oft have raised,
Forsakes me at my need. I dare not stay;
Yet cannot far go hence.

[Exit

Enter Antony and Ventidius.

Ant. O happy Cæsar! thou hast men to lead:
Think not ’tis thou hast conquered Antony;
But Rome has conquered Egypt. I’m betrayed.

Vent. Curse on this treacherous train!
Their soil and heaven infect them all with baseness:
And their young souls come tainted to the world
With the first breath they draw.

Ant. The original villain sure no god created;
He was a bastard of the sun, by Nile,
Aped into man: with all his mother’s mud
Crusted about his soul.

Vent. The nation is
One universal traitor; and their queen
The very spirit and extract of them all.

Ant. Is there yet left
A possibility of aid from valour?
Is there one god unsworn to my destruction?
The least unmortgaged hope? for, if there be,
Methinks I cannot fall beneath the fate
Of such a boy as Cæsar.
The world’s one half is yet in Antony;
And from each limb of it, that’s hewed away,
The soul comes back to me.

Vent. There yet remain
Three legions in the town. The last assault
Lopt off the rest; if death be your design,—
As I must wish it now,—these are sufficient
To make a heap about us of dead foes,
An honest pile for burial.