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Full speech
No marvel Caesar though our greatest spirits, Have to the pour of such a charming beauty, Been brought to yield the honour of their merits: Forgetting all respect of other duty. Then while the glory of her youth remained The wondering object to each wanton eye: Before her full of sweet (with sorrow wained,) Came to the perjod of this misery. If still, even in the amid of death and horror, Such beauty shines, thorough clouds of age & sorrow, If even those sweet decays seem to plead for her, Which from affliction, moving graces borrow; If in calamity she could thus move, What could she do adorned with youth & love? What could she do then, when as spreading wide The pomp of beauty, in her glory dight? When armed with wonder, she could use beside, the engines of her love, Hope and Delight? Beauty daughter of Marvel, o see how Thou canst disgracing sorrows sweetly grace? What power thou shewest in a distressed brow, That makest affliction fair, givest tears their grace. What can untressed locks, can torn rend hair, A weeping eye, a wailing face be fair? I see then, artless feature can content, And that true beauty needs no ornament. COme tell me Titius every circumstance How Cleopatra did receive my news: Tell every look, each gesture, countenance, That she did in my Letters reading use. Ah sweet distressed Lady. What hard heart Could choose but pity thee, and love thee too? Thy worthiness, the state wherein thou art Requires both, and both I vow to do. Although ambition lets not Caesar see The wrong he does thy Majesty and sweetness, Which makes him now exact so much of thee, To add unto his pride, to grace his greatness. He knows thou canst no hurt procure us now, Sith all thy strength is ceased into our hands: Nor fears he that, but rather labours how He might show Room so great a Queen in bans. That our great Ladies (envying thee so much That stained the ̄ all, & hell'd them in such wonder,) Might joy to see thee, and thy fortune such, Thereby extolling him that brought thee under. But I will seek to stay it what I may; I am but one, yet one that Caesar loves, And o if now I could do more then pray, Then shouldst y u know how far affection moves. But what my pour and prayer may prevail, I'll join them both, to hinder thy disgrace: And even this present day I will not fail To do my best with Caesar in this case. Why then I know, she sends to-have audience now, And means t'experience what her state can do: To see if Majesty will make him bow To what affliction could not move him to. And o, if now she could but bring a view Of that fresh beauty she in youth possessed, (The argument wherewith she overthrew The wit of Julius Caesar, and the rest,) Then happily Augustus might relent, While powerful Love, (far stronger the ̄ ambition) Might work in him, a mind to be content To grant her asking, in the best condition. But being as she is, yet does she merit To be respected, for what she hath been: The wonder of her kind, of rarest spirit, A glorious Lady, and a mighty Queen. And now, but by a little weakness falling To do that which perhaps sh'was forced to do: Alas, and error passed, is passed recalling, Take away weakness, and take women too. But now I go to be thy Advocate, Sweet Cleopatra, now I'll use mine art. Thy presence will me greatly animate, Thy face will teach my tongue, thy love my heart.
Plot summary
Plot — Cleopatra
Antony is dead, but Cleopatra still lives, holed up in her monument. She wants to join her lover in death, but is restrained by fear of how her children will be treated afterwards. Egypt has been conquered by Caesar, who visits the defeated Queen; she asks for mercy and hands over an inventory of her treasure, but her secretary Seleucus betrays her by notifying Caesar that she has kept some items back. Attempting to get her son Caesario out of Egypt, she entrusts him to his tutor Rhodon; but Rhodon is bribed by Caesar’s agents and hands the boy over to be killed by the Romans. Charmed by her beauty, Dolabella warns Cleopatra that Caesar intends to display her in his triumph, so she procures two asps and kills herself with them. ‘ —— ° ; 1593 B-Text In this version, more is told of the death of Antony before the start of the action: how Cleopatra sent him a false report of her death, which precipitated his attempted suicide, and how he was hoisted up into the monument to die. Cleopatra’s wish to kill herself is initially kept secret: she is first seen making arrangements to send Caesario to India, intending that he should one day return to supplant Caesar as the ruler of the Roman Empire.