The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

  FIRST GUARD. Where's the Queen?  CHARMIAN. Speak softly, wake her not.  FIRST GUARD. Caesar hath sent-  CHARMIAN. Too slow a messenger. [Applies an asp]    O, come apace, dispatch. I partly feel thee.  FIRST GUARD. Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguil'd.  SECOND GUARD. There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.  FIRST GUARD. What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?  CHARMIAN. It is well done, and fitting for a princes    Descended of so many royal kings.    Ah, soldier! [CHARMIAN dies]

Re-enter DOLABELLA

  DOLABELLA. How goes it here?  SECOND GUARD. All dead.  DOLABELLA. Caesar, thy thoughts    Touch their effects in this. Thyself art coming    To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou    So sought'st to hinder.                      [Within: 'A way there, a way for Caesar!']

Re-enter CAESAR and all his train

  DOLABELLA. O sir, you are too sure an augurer:    That you did fear is done.  CAESAR. Bravest at the last,    She levell'd at our purposes, and being royal,    Took her own way. The manner of their deaths?    I do not see them bleed.  DOLABELLA. Who was last with them?  FIRST GUARD. A simple countryman that brought her figs.    This was his basket.  CAESAR. Poison'd then.  FIRST GUARD. O Caesar,    This Charmian liv'd but now; she stood and spake.    I found her trimming up the diadem    On her dead mistress. Tremblingly she stood,    And on the sudden dropp'd.  CAESAR. O noble weakness!    If they had swallow'd poison 'twould appear    By external swelling; but she looks like sleep,    As she would catch another Antony    In her strong toil of grace.  DOLABELLA. Here on her breast    There is a vent of blood, and something blown;    The like is on her arm.  FIRST GUARD. This is an aspic's trail; and these fig-leaves    Have slime upon them, such as th' aspic leaves    Upon the caves of Nile.  CAESAR. Most probable    That so she died; for her physician tells me    She hath pursu'd conclusions infinite    Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed,    And bear her women from the monument.    She shall be buried by her Antony;    No grave upon the earth shall clip in it    A pair so famous. High events as these    Strike those that make them; and their story is    No less in pity than his glory which    Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall    In solemn show attend this funeral,    And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see    High order in this great solemnity. Exeunt

THE END