Page 2407 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Importeth thee to know, this bears.
(Gives a letter.)

ANTONY
Forbear me.
(Exeunt Messengers.)
There’s a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:

What our contempts doth often hurl from us, [120]
We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become

The opposite of itself: she’s good, being gone,
The hand could pluck her back that shov’d her on.
I must from this enchanting queen break off, [125]
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch. Ho now, Enobarbus!

(Re-)enter Enobarbus.

ENOBARBUS
What’s your pleasure, sir?

ANTONY
I must with haste from hence.

ENOBARBUS
Why, then we kill all our women. We see [130] how mortal an unkindness is
to them; if they suffer our departure, death’s the word.

ANTONY
I must be gone.

ENOBARBUS
Under a compelling occasion let women die: it were pity to cast them away

for nothing, though between [135] them and a great cause, they should be
esteemed nothing. Cleopatra catching but the least noise of this, dies
instantly. I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment: I do

think there is mettle in death, [140] which commits some loving act upon her,