Antony and Cleopatra (1606 – 1623)
Antony and Cleopatra is a historical tragedy by William Shakespeare, originally printed in the First Folio of 1623.
Nay, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure.
For his bounty,
There was no winter in ’t; an autumn ’t was,
That grew the more by reaping.
It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain,
And it grows fouler.
She looks like sleep,
As she would catch another Antony
In her strong toil of grace.
This grief is crowned with consolation.
I'll make death love me; for I will contend
Even with his pestilent scythe.
In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep
The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!
Men’s judgments are
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike.
Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
The time of universal peace is near.
Alack, our terrene moon
Is now eclipsed; and it portends alone
The fall of Antony!
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.