Page 2396 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

ACT I IT

Scene I IT

(Alexandria. A room in Cleopatra’s palace.)

Enter Demetrius and Philo.

PHILO
Nay, but this dotage of our general’s
O’erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o’er the files and musters of the war

Have glow’d like plated Mars, now bend, now turn
The office and devotion of their view [5]
Upon a tawny front: his captain’s heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy’s lust.

Flourish. Enter Antony, Cleopatra, her Ladies, the Train, with Eunuchs

fanning her.

Look, where they come: [10]
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transform’d
Into a strumpet’s fool: behold and see.

CLEOPATRA
If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

ANTONY

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d. [15]