Antony and Cleopatra
Act IV, Scene 12
Another part of the field of battle between the camps.
Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra
circa 1894
- Enter Antony and Scarus.
Mark Antony
1 - 3- Yet they are not join’d. Where yond pine does stand
- I shall discover all; I’ll bring thee word
- Straight how ’tis like to go.
- Exit.
- Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight.
Scarus
4 - 10- Swallows have built
- In Cleopatra’s sails their nests. The auguries
- Say they know not, they cannot tell, look grimly,
- And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony
- Is valiant, and dejected, and by starts
- His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear
- Of what he has, and has not.
- Enter Antony.
Mark Antony
11 - 33- All is lost!
- This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
- My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder
- They cast their caps up and carouse together
- Like friends long lost. Triple-turn’d whore! ’Tis thou
- Hast sold me to this novice, and my heart
- Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
- For when I am reveng’d upon my charm,
- I have done all. Bid them all fly, be gone.
- Exit Scarus.
- 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 spannell’d me at heels, to whom I gave
- Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
- On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark’d,
- That overtopp’d them all. Betray’d I am.
- O this false soul of Egypt! This grave charm,
- Whose eye beck’d forth my wars and call’d them home,
- Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,
- Like a right gypsy, hath at fast and loose
- Beguil’d me to the very heart of loss.
- What, Eros, Eros!
- Enter Cleopatra.
- Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!
Cleopatra
34- Why is my lord enrag’d against his love?
Mark Antony
35 - 53- 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 let
- Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
- With her prepared nails.
- Exit Cleopatra.
- ’Tis well th’ art 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 hands, that grasp’d the heaviest club,
- Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die.
- To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall
- Under this plot. She dies for’t. Eros, ho!
- Exit.