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Antony and Cleopatra: Act V, Scene 1

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Antony and Cleopatra
Act V, Scene 1

Scene 1

Alexandria. Octavius Caesar’s camp.

  1. Enter Caesar with his council of war: Agrippa, Dolabella,
  2. Maecenas, Gallus, Proculeius.

Caesar

1 - 3
  1. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;
  2. Being so frustrate, tell him, he mocks
  3. The pauses that he makes.

Dolabella

4
  1.                           Caesar, I shall.
  1. Exit.
  1. Enter Decretas with the sword of Antony.

Caesar

5 - 6
  1. Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar’st
  2. Appear thus to us?

Decretas

7 - 14
  1.                    I am call’d Decretas;
  2. Mark Antony I serv’d, who best was worthy
  3. Best to be serv’d. Whilst he stood up and spoke,
  4. He was my master, and I wore my life
  5. To spend upon his haters. If thou please
  6. To take me to thee, as I was to him
  7. I’ll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,
  8. I yield thee up my life.

Caesar

15
  1.                          What is’t thou say’st?

Decretas

16
  1. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.

Caesar

17 - 22
  1. The breaking of so great a thing should make
  2. A greater crack. The round world
  3. Should have shook lions into civil streets,
  4. And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony
  5. Is not a single doom, in the name lay
  6. A moi’ty of the world.

Decretas

23 - 30
  1.                        He is dead, Caesar,
  2. Not by a public minister of justice,
  3. Nor by a hired knife, but that self hand
  4. Which writ his honor in the acts it did
  5. Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
  6. Splitted the heart. This is his sword,
  7. I robb’d his wound of it; behold it stain’d
  8. With his most noble blood.

Caesar

31 - 33
  1.                            Look you sad, friends?
  2. The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings
  3. To wash the eyes of kings.

Agrippa

34 - 36
  1.                            And strange it is
  2. That nature must compel us to lament
  3. Our most persisted deeds.

Maecenas

37 - 38
  1.                           His taints and honors
  2. Wag’d equal with him.

Agrippa

39 - 41
  1.                       A rarer spirit never
  2. Did steer humanity; but you gods will give us
  3. Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touch’d.

Maecenas

42 - 43
  1. When such a spacious mirror’s set before him,
  2. He needs must see himself.

Caesar

44 - 60
  1.                            O Antony,
  2. I have followed thee to this; but we do launch
  3. Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce
  4. Have shown to thee such a declining day,
  5. Or look on thine; we could not stall together
  6. In the whole world. But yet let me lament,
  7. With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
  8. That thou, my brother, my competitor
  9. In top of all design, my mate in empire,
  10. Friend and companion in the front of war,
  11. The arm of mine own body, and the heart
  12. Where mine his thoughts did kindle—that our stars,
  13. Unreconciliable, should divide
  14. Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends—
  15. Enter Second Egyptian Servant.
  16. But I will tell you at some meeter season,
  17. The business of this man looks out of him;
  18. We’ll hear him what he says.—Whence are you?
Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Wherefore is that?

From: Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Charles Cowden Clarke, Mary Cowden Clarke, 1866

Second Egyptian Servant

61 - 65
  1. A poor Egyptian yet; the Queen my mistress,
  2. Confin’d in all she has, her monument,
  3. Of thy intents desires instruction,
  4. That she preparedly may frame herself
  5. To th’ way she’s forc’d to.

Caesar

66 - 70
  1.                             Bid her have good heart.
  2. She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,
  3. How honorable and how kindly we
  4. Determine for her; for Caesar cannot live
  5. To be ungentle.

Second Egyptian Servant

71
  1.                 So the gods preserve thee!
  1. Exit.

Caesar

72 - 79
  1. Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say
  2. We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts
  3. The quality of her passion shall require,
  4. Lest in her greatness, by some mortal stroke
  5. She do defeat us; for her life in Rome
  6. Would be eternal in our triumph. Go,
  7. And with your speediest bring us what she says,
  8. And how you find of her.

Proculeius

80
  1.                          Caesar, I shall.
  1. Exit Proculeius.

Caesar

81 - 83
  1. Gallus, go you along.
  2. Exit Gallus.
  3.                       Where’s Dolabella,
  4. To second Proculeius?

Agrippa, Maecenas and Decretas

84
  1.                       Dolabella!

Caesar

85 - 91
  1. Let him alone; for I remember now
  2. How he’s employ’d; he shall in time be ready.
  3. Go with me to my tent, where you shall see
  4. How hardly I was drawn into this war,
  5. How calm and gentle I proceeded still
  6. In all my writings. Go with me, and see
  7. What I can show in this.
  1. Exeunt.
Page decoration from Duprant & Co. edition of Antony and Cleopatra

Page decoration from Duprant & Co. edition of Antony and Cleopatra

W. J. Rolfe, Paul Avril, 1891

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