Antony and Cleopatra (1606 – 1623)
Antony and Cleopatra is a historical tragedy by William Shakespeare, originally printed in the First Folio of 1623.
Get thee back to Caesar,
Tell him thy entertainment: look, thou say
He makes me angry with him; for he seems
Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,
Not what he knew I was: he makes me angry.
Who does i’ the wars more than his captain can,
Becomes his captain’s captain; and ambition,
The soldier’s virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
Than gain which darkens him.
If there be, or ever were, one such,
It’s past the size of dreaming.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies: for vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.
Shall they hoist me up
And show me to the shouting varletry
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life.
The death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in the name lay
A moiety of the world.
You have been a boggler ever.
Good sirs, take heart: —
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. —
Ah, women, women! — come; we have no friend
But resolution, and the briefest end.
Where’s my serpent of old Nile?
For so he calls me.
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then!
Now I'll set my teeth,
And send to darkness all that stop me.
Come, thou mortal wretch,
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool,
Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak,
That I might hear thee call great Caesar Ass
Unpolicied!
Since Cleopatra died,
I have liv’d in such dishonour, that the gods
Detest my baseness.
You are abused
Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods,
To do you justice, make them ministers
Of us and those that love you.
Epicurean cooks
Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite.
Small to greater matters must give way.
It is my birth-day:
I had thought to have held it poor: but, since my lord
Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.
The shirt of Nessus is upon me.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.