Your arms should open, even without your knowledge, To clasp them in; your feet should turn to wings, To bear you to them; and your eyes dart out And aim a kiss, ere you could reach the lips.
ANTONY. I stood amazed, to think how they came hither.
VENTIDIUS. I sent for them; I brought them in unknown To Cleopatra's guards.
DOLABELLA. Yet, are you cold?
OCTAVIA. Thus long I have attended for my welcome;Which, as a stranger, sure I might expect.
Who am I?
ANTONY. Caesar's sister.
OCTAVIA. That's unkind.
Had I been nothing more than Caesar's sister, Know, I had still remained in Caesar's camp:
But your Octavia, your much injured wife, Though banished from your bed, driven from your house, In spite of Caesar's sister, still is yours.
'Tis true, I have a heart disdains your coldness, And prompts me not to seek what you should offer;But a wife's virtue still surmounts that pride.
I come to claim you as my own; to show My duty first; to ask, nay beg, your kindness:
Your hand, my lord; 'tis mine, and I will have it.
[Taking his hand.]
VENTIDIUS. Do, take it; thou deserv'st it.
DOLABELLA. On my soul, And so she does: she's neither too submissive, Nor yet too haughty; but so just a mean Shows, as it ought, a wife and Roman too.
ANTONY. I fear, Octavia, you have begged my life.
OCTAVIA. Begged it, my lord?
ANTONY. Yes, begged it, my ambassadress;Poorly and basely begged it of your brother.
OCTAVIA. Poorly and basely I could never beg:
Nor could my brother grant.
ANTONY. Shall I, who, to my kneeling slave, could say, Rise up, and be a king; shall I fall down And cry,--Forgive me, Caesar! Shall I set A man, my equal, in the place of Jove, As he could give me being? No; that word, Forgive, would choke me up, And die upon my tongue.
DOLABELLA. You shall not need it.
ANTONY. I will not need it. Come, you've all betrayed me,--My friend too!--to receive some vile conditions.
My wife has bought me, with her prayers and tears;And now I must become her branded slave.
In every peevish mood, she will upbraid The life she gave: if I but look awry, She cries--I'll tell my brother.
OCTAVIA. My hard fortune Subjects me still to your unkind mistakes.
But the conditions I have brought are such, Your need not blush to take: I love your honour, Because 'tis mine; it never shall be said, Octavia's husband was her brother's slave.
Sir, you are free; free, even from her you loathe;For, though my brother bargains for your love, Makes me the price and cement of your peace, I have a soul like yours; I cannot take Your love as alms, nor beg what I deserve.
I'll tell my brother we are reconciled;
He shall draw back his troops, and you shall march To rule the East: I may be dropt at Athens;No matter where. I never will complain, But only keep the barren name of wife, And rid you of the trouble.
VENTIDIUS. Was ever such a strife of sullen honour! [Apart]
Both scorn to be obliged.
DOLABELLA. Oh, she has touched him in the tenderest part;[Apart]
See how he reddens with despite and shame, To be outdone in generosity!
VENTIDIUS. See how he winks! how he dries up a tear,[Apart]
That fain would fall!
ANTONY. Octavia, I have heard you, and must praise The greatness of your soul;But cannot yield to what you have proposed:
For I can ne'er be conquered but by love;And you do all for duty. You would free me, And would be dropt at Athens; was't not so?
OCTAVIA. It was, my lord.
ANTONY. Then I must be obliged To one who loves me not; who, to herself, May call me thankless and ungrateful man:--I'll not endure it; no.
VENTIDIUS. I am glad it pinches there.
[Aside.]
OCTAVIA. Would you triumph o'er poor Octavia's virtue?
That pride was all I had to bear me up;
That you might think you owed me for your life, And owed it to my duty, not my love.
I have been injured, and my haughty soul Could brook but ill the man who slights my bed.
ANTONY. Therefore you love me not.
OCTAVIA. Therefore, my lord, I should not love you.
ANTONY. Therefore you would leave me?
OCTAVIA. And therefore I should leave you--if I could.
DOLABELLA. Her soul's too great, after such injuries, To say she loves; and yet she lets you see it.
Her modesty and silence plead her cause.
ANTONY. O Dolabella, which way shall I turn?
I find a secret yielding in my soul;
But Cleopatra, who would die with me, Must she be left? Pity pleads for Octavia;But does it not plead more for Cleopatra?
VENTIDIUS. Justice and pity both plead for Octavia;For Cleopatra, neither.
One would be ruined with you; but she first Had ruined you: The other, you have ruined, And yet she would preserve you.
In everything their merits are unequal.
ANTONY. O my distracted soul!
OCTAVIA. Sweet Heaven compose it!--
Come, come, my lord, if I can pardon you, Methinks you should accept it. Look on these;Are they not yours? or stand they thus neglected, As they are mine? Go to him, children, go;Kneel to him, take him by the hand, speak to him;For you may speak, and he may own you too, Without a blush; and so he cannot all His children: go, I say, and pull him to me, And pull him to yourselves, from that bad woman.
You, Agrippina, hang upon his arms;
And you, Antonia, clasp about his waist:
If he will shake you off, if he will dash you Against the pavement, you must bear it, children;For you are mine, and I was born to suffer.
[Here the CHILDREN go to him, etc.]
VENTIDIUS. Was ever sight so moving?--Emperor!
DOLABELLA. Friend!
OCTAVIA. Husband!
BOTH CHILDREN. Father!
ANTONY. I am vanquished: take me, Octavia; take me, children; share me all.
[Embracing them.]
I've been a thriftless debtor to your loves, And run out much, in riot, from your stock;But all shall be amended.
