ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE.

THIS play is supposed to have been written in the year 1608; and some of its incidents may have been borrowed from a production of Daniel's, called "The Tragedie of Cleopatra," which was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in the year 1593. It rapidly condenses the events of a considerable period, commencing with the triple partition of the empire at the death of Brutus, B. C. 41, and terminating with the final overthrow of the Ptolemean dynasty, B. C. 3. Its historical features are, upon the whole, accurately drawn ; and the sentiments of many of the characters are literally copied from Plutarch and other biographers.---An tony's illicit connection with Cleopatra, his brutal treatment of the amiable Octavia, and his absurd assumption of despotic power in bequeathing the Roman provinces to a degraded progeny, were the ostensible grounds of the rupture which ended in his death, and united the whole extent of Roman conquest under one imperial sceptre. The character of Cleopatra, the fascinating, dexterous, and incontinent Egyptian, abounds in poetical beauty; and the rough soldier's description of her passage down the Cydnus, has ever been considered a luxuriant specimen of glowing oriental description. But it is in the portrait of Antony that the discriminating reader will chiefly discover the pencil of a master. It is a choice finish to the outline of his character, as given in the play of Julius Cesar. He was then "a masker and a reveller," of comely person, lively wit, and insinuating address :---but the fire of youth, and the dictates of ambition, restrained his licentious cravings within tolerable bounds. In the decline of life, and in the lap of voluptuousness, with wealth at his command, and monarchs at his footstool, we find him alternately playing the fool, the hero, or the barbarian, triding away the treasures of the East in sensuality and indolence, and destroying a noble army by cowardice and obstinacy. Still, the rays of inherent greatness occasionally gleam through a cloud of ignoble propensities, and glimmerings of Roman greatness partially reclaim a career of the most doting effeminacy. The philosophy of his mind, and the cool superiority of maturer years, are admirably pourtrayed in the first recriminatory scene with Octavius Cesar, who, notwithstanding the flattery of historians, "was deceitful, meanspirited, proud, and revengeful."---Dr. Johnson says: "This play keeps curiosity always busy, and the pas sions always interested. The continual hurry of the action, the variety of incidents, and the quick succession of one passage to another, call the mind forwards without intermission from the first act to the last. But the power of delighting is derived principally from the frequent changes of the scene; for, except the feminine arts (some of which are too low) which distinguish Cleopatra, no character is very strongly discriminated. Upton, who did not easily miss what he desired to find, has discovered that the language of Antony is, with great skill and learning, made pompous and superb, according to his real practice. But I think his diction not distinguishable from that of others. the most tumid speech in the play is that which Cesar maket to Antony."

EROS,

Triumvirs.

MENAS, MENECRATES, VARRIUS, Friends of
Pompey.

TAURUS, Lieutenant-general to Cesar.

CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-general to Antony.
SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius' Army.

EUPHRONIS, an Ambassador from Antony to

Cesar.

Friends of Antony. ALFAA. MARDIAN, SELEUCUS, and DIOMEDES,

Attendants on Cleopatra.

A SOOTHSAYER. A CLOWN.

CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt.

OCTAVIA, Sister to Cesar, and wife to Antony.
CHARMIAN, and IRAs, Attendants on Cleopatra.

DOLABELLA,

Friends to Cesar.

PROCULEIUS,

THYREUS,

GALLUS,

Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other
Attendants.

SCENE, changes to several Parts of the Roman Empire.

ACT I.

Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

SCENE 1.-Alexandria.-A Room in CLEO- The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper;

'PATRA'S Palace.

Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO.
Phil. 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 heud, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view

And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gypsy's lust. Look where they come !
Flourish. Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA with
their Trains: EUNUCHS fanning her.
Take but good note and you shall see in him

• Renounces.

News Vulgarly esteemed the fiercest and proudest monarch. Know. of antiquity. † A common proverb. 1 Sh be bastards An Egyptian godess.

Char. Amen.

Alex. Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to diake me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores but they'd do't.

Eno. Hush! here comes Antony.
Char. Not he, the queen.

Enter CLEOPATRA.

Cleo. Saw you my lord?

Eno. No, lady.

Cleo. Was he not here?

Char. No, madam,

Cleo. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the
sudden

A Roman thought hath struck him.-Enobarbus,-
Eno. Madam.

Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's
Alexas?

Alex. Here, madam, at your service.-My lord
approaches.

Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER, and At

tendants.

Cleo. We will not look upon him: Go with

us.

[Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, ALEX AS,
IRAS, CHARMIAN, SOOTHSAYER, and
Attendants,

Mess. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Ant. Against my brother Lucius ?
Mess. Ay:

But soon that war had end, and the time's state
Made friends of them, joining their force 'gainst
Cesar;

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
Upon the first encounter, drave them.

Ant. Well,

What worse?

There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempts do oftea hurl from us,
We wish it our's again; the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opp site 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;
Ten thousand barns, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch.-How now! Enobar-
bus!

Enter ENOBARBUS.

Eno. What's your pleasure, Sir?
Ant. I must with baste from hence.

Eno. Why, then, we kill all our women: We
see how mortal an unkindness is to them; if
they suffer our departure, death's the word.
Ant. I must be gone.

Eno. Under a compelling occasion, let women though, between them and a great cause, they die: It were pity to cast them away for nothing: should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly: I have seen ber die twenty times upon far poorer inoment: I do think there is mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying.

Ant. She is cunning past man's thought.

Eno. Alack, Sir, no: her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tear. they are greater storms and tempests than almanacks can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.

Ant. 'Would I had never seen her! Eno. O Sir, you had then left unseen a wonblessed withal, would have discredited your

Mess. The nature of bad news infects the deriul piece of work; which not to have becu teiler.

Ant. When it concerns the fool or coward.-travel.

On :

[thus;

Things that are past, are done, with me.-'Tis
Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
I hear him as he flatter'd.

Mess. Labienus

(This is stiff news) hath, with his Parthian force,
Extended Asia from Euphrates;

His coaquering banner shook, from Syria
To Lydia, and to louia;

Whilst

Ant. Fulvia is dead.
Eno. Sir?

Ant. Fulvia is dead.
Eno. Fulvia ?

Ant. D. ad.

Eno. Why, Sir, give the gods a thankful sacritice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case ge-to be lamented: this grief is crowned with consolation-your old sinock brings forth a new petticoat-and indeed the tears live in an onion, that should water this sorrow.

Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome;
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my
faults
[lice
With such full licence, as both truth and ma-
Have power to utter. Oh! then we bring forth
weeds,

When our quick winds + lie still; and our ills told
us,

Is as our earing. Fare thee well a while.
Mess. At your noble pleasure.
Ant. From Sicyon how the news?
there.

[Erit,
Speak

1 Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is there such

a one ?

Eno. And the business you have broached here cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your abode.

Ant. No more light answers. Let our officers
Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
The cause of our expedience to the queen,
And get her love to part. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
Of many our contriving friends in Rome
Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Cesar, and commands
The empire of the sea: our slippery people
(Whose love is never link'd to the deserver,
Till his deserts are past,) begin to throw
Pompey the great, and all his diguities,
Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
The sides o'the world may danger: Much is
breeding,
Which, like une courser's