A heavy sight! All. Ant. I am dying,-Egypt,-dying ; Give me some wine, and let me speak a little. Cleo. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high, That the false housewife, Fortune,1 break her wheel, Provoked by my offence. Ant. One word, sweet queen: Of Cæsar seek your honour, with your safety.-O! Ant. Gentle, hear me; None about Cæsar trust but Proculeius.2 Cleo. My resolution and my hands I'll trust; None about Cæsar. Ant. The miserable change now at my end, Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts, In feeding them with those my former fortunes Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world, The noblest; and do now not basely die, Nor cowardly put off my helmet to My countryman,—a Roman by a Roman Valiantly vanquish'd. Now, my spirit is going :- Cleo. Noblest of men, woot die?3 Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is [ANTONY dies. 1 That the false housewife, &c.] The word housewife here means harlot. Fortune 's a strumpet' was a proverbial expression, (Hamlet, ii. 2.) Compare what Celia says in As you Like it, i. 2, 'Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel,' &c.; and what Pistol asks in K. Henry V., v. 1, 'Doth Fortune play the housewife with me now?' 2 But Proculeius.] Extracts from Plutarch, 50, 3 Woot die.] Woot is provincial for wilt. See p. 103, note 2. The crown o' the earth doth melt !-My lord!-- The soldier's pole 2 is fallen: young boys and girls And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon. Char. Iras. She is dead too, our sovereign! Char. Iras. [Faints. O, quietness, lady! Lady! Madam! Royal Egypt! Char. O madam, madam, madam !— Iras. Empress !- Char. Peace, peace, Iras! 3 Cleo. No more, out e'en a woman, and commanded And does the meanest chares.4-It were for me you, women? Become a dog that 's mad: then is it sin The garland of the war.] Shakspeare often uses the word garland to denote a pre-eminent or chief thing. 2 The soldier's pole.] The soldier's pride. No more.] No more an empress. ▲ Chares.] Menial services. Good sirs.] It was not unusual to address a company of men and women, and even of women only, with the word sirs. Indeed We'll bury him; and then, what 's brave,' what 's noble, Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, And make Death proud to take us. Come, away This case of that huge spirit now is cold.— [Exeunt; those above bearing off ANTONY's body. the word is still so used in impassioned discourse in the north. Dyce has pointed out instances of females being called Sirs, in two of Beaumont & Fletcher's plays: in the Coxcomb, iv. 3, a mother, addressing girls, says Sirs, to your tasks;' and in A King and No King, iii. 1, the words 'Sirs, leave me all' are addressed to waitingwomen. In the concluding scene of the present play Cleopatra calls Iras sirrah. (p. 146.) 1 What's brave.] Cleopatra here refers to suicide. ACT V. SCENE I. Cæsar's Camp before Alexandria. Enter CESAR, Agrippa, Dolabella, Mecenas, Gallus, PROCULEIUS, and others. Cas. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield; Being so frustrate, tell him, he mocks The pauses that he makes.1 Dol. Cæsar, I shall. [Exit. Enter DERCETAS, with the sword of ANTONY. Cas. Wherefore is that? and what art thou that dar'st Appear thus to us? Der. I am called Dercetas ; Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy He was my master; and I wore my life To spend upon his haters. If thou please I yield thee up my life. Cæs. 1 Being so frustrate, &c.] What is 't thou say'st? Tell him that he being so utterly de feated only mocks his own delays of surrender by regarding them as of any use. Der. I say, O Cæsar, Antony is dead! Cas. The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack: the round world Should have shook lions into civil streets, And citizens to their dens :-the death of Antony Is not a single doom; in the name lay A moiety of the world. Der. He is dead, Cæsar, Not by a public minister of justice, Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand,1 Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, I robbed his wound of it; 2 behold it, stained That nature must compel us to lament Our most persisted deeds.3 Mec. Waged equal with him." His taints and honours A rarer spirit never Agr. Mec. When such a spacious mirror 's set before him, 1 That self hand.] Self here means self-same or identical. The word was often thus used by the old writers. 'I am made of that self metal as my sister.' K. Lear, i. 1. 2 This is his sword, &c.] Most persisted deeds.] Waged equal with him.] terised him in equal degrees. Extracts from Plutarch, 51. Contended equally with him; charac |