Page 2535 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Eros! − I come, my queen: − Eros! − Stay for me, [50]
Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand,
And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:
Dido, and her Æneas, shall want troops,

And all the haunt be ours. Come, Eros, Eros!

(Re-)enter Eros.

EROS
What would my lord?

ANTONY
Since Cleopatra died, [55]
I have liv’d in such dishonour that the gods
Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword

Quarter’d the world, and o’er green Neptune’s back
With ships made cities, condemn myself, to lack
The courage of a woman, less noble mind [60]

Than she which by her death our Cæsar tells
‘I am conqueror of myself’. Thou art sworn, Eros,
That when the exigent should come, which now
Is come indeed: when I should see behind me
The inevitable prosecution of [65]

Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,
Thou then wouldst kill me. Do’t, the time is come:
Thou strik’st not me, ’tis Cæsar thou defeat’st.

Put colour in thy cheek.

EROS

The gods withhold me,
Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts, [70]
Though enemy, lost aim, and could not?

ANTONY
Eros,
Wouldst thou be window’d in great Rome, and see

Thy master thus with pleach’d arms, bending down
His corrigible neck, his face subdued