Enter a Guard. Ant. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra 'bides, 'Tis the laft fervice that I fhall command you. Guard. Woe, woe are we, Sir! you may not live to wear All your true follow'rs out. Ant. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp Fate To grace it with your forrows. Bid that welcome I have led you oft, carry me now, good friends; [Exeunt, bearing Antony." Cleo. Changes to a magnificent Monument. Enter Cleopatra, Charmion, and Iras above. O H Charmion, I will never go from hence. Cleo. No, I will not: All strange and terrible events are welcome, Enter Diomedes. How now? is he dead? Dio. His death's upon him, but not dead. Look out o' th' other fide your Monument, His guard have brought him thither. VOL. VII. Enter Cleo. Enter Antony, borne by the Guard. O thou Sun, Burn the great Sphene. thou mov'ft in !—————darkling ftand The varying fhore o' th' world! O Antony! Help, Charmion; help, Iras, help; help, friends Ant. Peace. Not Cefar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony, Cleo. So it fhould be, that none but Antony I lay upon thy lips, Cleo. I dare not, dear, Dear, my Lord, pardon, I dare not, 40 thou Sun, BURN the great Sphere thou mov ft in!-darkling fand The varying fhore o' th' world!] -The varying fhore o' th' world! i. e. of the Earth, where light and darknefs make an inceffant variation. But then, if the Sun fhould fet on fire the whole Sphere, in which he was fuppofed to move, how could the Earth Stand darkling? On the contrary it would be in perpetual light, Therefore, if we will allow Cleopatra not to be quite mad, we melt be ieve the faid, TURN FROM th' great Sphere i. e. forfake it, fly off from it: and then indeed the confequence would be, that the varying fore Left I be taken. Not th' imperious fhew Be brooch'd with me; if knife, drugs, ferpents, have Your Wife Octavia, with her modest eyes Demuring upon me. Help me, my women. But come, come, Antony. We must draw thee up Ant. Oh, quick, or I am gone. Cleo. 7 Here's fport, indeed!-how heavy weighs my Lord! Our ftrength is all gone into heaviness, That makes the weight. Had I great Juno's power, And welcome, welcome. encounter here in the laft line but one? Befides, how inconfiftently is the lady made to reply? Antony fays, he only holds life, till he can give her one last kifs: and he cries, the dares not: What dares the not do ? kifs Antony? But how fhould he? fhe was above lock'd in her monument; and he below, on the outfide of it. With a very flight addition, I think, I can cure the whole; and have a warrant from Plutarch for it into the bargain. Now Plutarch fays, that " An"tony was carried in his men's arms into the entry of the mo nument: Notwithstanding Cle"opatra would not open the gates, "but came to the high windows, and caft out certain chains and 66 Q Die, where thou haft liv'd. 2 Quicken 8 Quicken with kiffing. Had my lips that power, Thus would I wear them out. All. O heavy fight! Ant. I am dying, Ægypt, dying. Give me some wine, and let me fpeak a little. Ant. One word, fweet Queen. Of Cæfar feek your honour with your fafety-oh--Cleo. They do not go together. Ant. Gentle, hear me. None about Cæfar truft, but Proculeius. Cleo. My refolution and my hands I'll trust; Ant. The miferable change, now at my end, Cleo. Nobleft of men, woo't die? [Antony dies. In this dull world, which in thy abfence is The foldier's pole is fall'n; young boys and girls Are level now with men; the odds is gone; 8 Quicken with kiffing.] That is, Revive by my kifs. 9-bufwife Fortune-] This defpicable line has occurred be fore. 1 The foldier's pole] He at whom the foldiers pointed, as at a pageant held high for obfervation. And And there is nothing left remarkable, Beneath the visiting moon. Char. Oh, quietness, Lady! Iras. She's dead too, our fovereign. Char. Lady! Iras. Madam! Char. Oh Madam, Madam, Madam- 2 Char. Peace, Peace, Iras. on 2 The common copies, Peace, peace, Iras, Cleo. No more but a meer woman.] Cleopatra is fallen into a fwoon; her maids endeavour to recover her by invoking her by her feveral titles. At length, Charmion fays to the other, Peace, peace, Iras; which Cleopatra comes to herself, and replies to these last words, No, you are mistaken, I am a mere woman like your felf. Thus ftands this fenfelefs dialogue. But Shakespear never wrote it fo: We must observe then, that the two women call her by her feveral titles, to see which best pleased her; and this was highly in character: the Ancients thought, that not only men, but Gods too, had fome names which, above others, they much delighted in, and would foonest answer to ; as we may fee by the hymns of Orpheus, Homer, and Callimachus. The Poet, conforming to this notion, makes the maids fay, Sovereign Lady, Madam, Royal Egypt, Emprefs. And now we come to the place in queftion: Charmion, when the faw none of thefe titles had their effect, inyokes her by a still more flatter ing one! [She faints. Cleo. Peace, peare, ISIS; for fo it fhould be read and pointed: i. e. peace, we can never move her by thefe titles: Let us give her her favourite name of the Goddefs ISIS. And now Cleopatra's anfwer becomes pertinent and fine; No more but a mere woman; and commanded By fuch poor paffion as the maid that milks. . e. I now fee the folly of assuming to myself those flattering titles of divinity. My misfor tunes, and my impotence in bearing them, convince me I am a mere woman, and subject to all the paffions of the meanest of my fpecies. Here the Poet has followed History exactly, and what is more, his author Plutarch in Antonio; who fays, that Cleopatra affumed the habit and attri butes of that Goddess, and gave judgments or rather oracles to her people under the quality of the NEW ISIS. KAеowaтpa μèr yap καὶ τόλε καὶ τὸν ἄλλον χρόνον ἐις πλήθω ἐξιέσα, στολὴν ἑτέραν ἱερὰν ΙΣΙΛΟΣ ἐλάμβανε, καὶ ΝΕΑ ΙΣΙΣ Expropiática. WARBURTON. Of this note it may be truly Q3 faid, |