Home
This site uses cookies
log out

Antony and Cleopatra: Act IV, Scene 15

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.

Antony and Cleopatra
Act IV, Scene 15

Alexandria. Another room in a monument in Cleopatra’s palace.

Noblest of men, woo’t die?

Alexandre Bida, late 19th century

  1. Enter Cleopatra and her maids aloft, with Charmian and Iras.

Cleopatra

1
  1. O Charmian, I will never go from hence.

Charmian

2
  1. Be comforted, dear madam.

Cleopatra

3 - 8
  1.                           No, I will not.
  2. All strange and terrible events are welcome,
  3. But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,
  4. Proportion’d to our cause, must be as great
  5. As that which makes it.
  6. Enter Diomed below.
  7.                         How now? Is he dead?

Diomedes

9 - 11
  1. His death’s upon him, but not dead.
  2. Look out o’ th’ other side your monument,
  3. His guard have brought him thither.
  1. Enter below Antony, and the Guard bearing him.

Cleopatra

12 - 16
  1.                                     O sun,
  2. Burn the great sphere thou mov’st in! Darkling stand
  3. The varying shore o’ th’ world! O Antony,
  4. Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian, help, Iras, help;
  5. Help, friends below, let’s draw him hither.

Mark Antony

17 - 19
  1.                                             Peace!
  2. Not Caesar’s valor hath o’erthrown Antony,
  3. But Antony’s hath triumph’d on itself.

Cleopatra

20 - 21
  1. So it should be, that none but Antony
  2. Should conquer Antony, but woe ’tis so!

Mark Antony

22 - 25
  1. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
  2. I here importune death awhile, until
  3. Of many thousand kisses the poor last
  4. I lay upon thy lips.

Cleopatra

26 - 36
  1.                      I dare not, dear—
  2. Dear my lord, pardon—I dare not,
  3. Lest I be taken. Not th’ imperious show
  4. Of the full-fortun’d Caesar ever shall
  5. Be brooch’d with me, if knife, drugs, serpents have
  6. Edge, sting, or operation. I am safe:
  7. Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes
  8. And still conclusion, shall acquire no honor
  9. Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony—
  10. Help me, my women—we must draw thee up.
  11. Assist, good friends.

Mark Antony

37
  1.                       O, quick, or I am gone.

Byam Shaw, 1901

Cleopatra

38 - 46
  1. Here’s sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!
  2. Our strength is all gone into heaviness,
  3. That makes the weight. Had I great Juno’s power,
  4. The strong-wing’d Mercury should fetch thee up,
  5. And set thee by Jove’s side. Yet come a little—
  6. Wishers were ever fools—O, come, come, come,
  7. They heave Antony aloft to Cleopatra.
  8. And welcome, welcome! Die when thou hast liv’d,
  9. Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power,
  10. Thus would I wear them out.

All Guards

47
  1.                             A heavy sight!

Mark Antony

48 - 49
  1. I am dying, Egypt, dying.
  2. Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.

Cleopatra

50 - 52
  1. No, let me speak, and let me rail so high,
  2. That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel,
  3. Provok’d by my offense.

Mark Antony

53 - 54
  1.                         One word, sweet queen:
  2. Of Caesar seek your honor, with your safety. O!

Cleopatra

55
  1. They do not go together.

Mark Antony

56 - 57
  1.                          Gentle, hear me:
  2. None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.

Cleopatra

58 - 59
  1. My resolution and my hands I’ll trust,
  2. None about Caesar.

Mark Antony

60 - 68
  1. The miserable change now at my end
  2. Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
  3. In feeding them with those my former fortunes
  4. Wherein I liv’d, the greatest prince o’ th’ world,
  5. The noblest; and do now not basely die,
  6. Not cowardly put off my helmet to
  7. My countryman—a Roman by a Roman
  8. Valiantly vanquish’d. Now my spirit is going,
  9. I can no more.

Cleopatra

69 - 78
  1.                Noblest of men, woo’t die?
  2. Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide
  3. In this dull world, which in thy absence is
  4. No better than a sty? O, see, my women:
  5. Antony dies.
  6. The crown o’ th’ earth doth melt. My lord!
  7. O, wither’d is the garland of the war,
  8. The soldier’s pole is fall’n! Young boys and girls
  9. Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
  10. And there is nothing left remarkable
  11. Beneath the visiting moon.
  1. Faints.

The crown o’ th’ earth doth melt.

John Masey Wright, circa 1800

Charmian

79
  1.                            O, quietness, lady!

Iras

80
  1. She’s dead too, our sovereign.

Charmian

81
  1.                                Lady!

Iras

82
  1.       Madam!

Charmian

83
  1. O madam, madam, madam!

Iras

84 - 85
  1.                        Royal Egypt!
  2. Empress!

Charmian

86
  1. Peace, peace, Iras!

Cleopatra

87 - 105
  1. No more but e’en a woman, and commanded
  2. By such poor passion as the maid that milks
  3. And does the meanest chores. It were for me
  4. To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods,
  5. To tell them that this world did equal theirs
  6. Till they had stol’n our jewel. All’s but naught:
  7. Patience is sottish, and impatience does
  8. Become a dog that’s mad. Then is it sin
  9. To rush into the secret house of death
  10. Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
  11. What, what, good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian?
  12. My noble girls! Ah, women, women! Look
  13. Our lamp is spent, it’s out. Good sirs, take heart,
  14. We’ll bury him; and then, what’s brave, what’s noble,
  15. Let’s do’t after the high Roman fashion,
  16. And make death proud to take us. Come, away,
  17. This case of that huge spirit now is cold.
  18. Ah, women, women! Come, we have no friend
  19. But resolution and the briefest end.
  1. Exeunt, those above bearing off Antony’s body.
© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons