Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn Ant. When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once; Or thy precedent services are all But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come. Eros. Turn from me, then, that noble countenance, My captain, and my emperor, let me say, Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell. Ant. 'Tis said, man; and farewell. Eros. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now? Now, Eros. Eros. Why, there then: thus I do escape the sorrow Ant. Thrice nobler than myself! Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what [Kills himself. I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros A nobleness in record: but I will be A bridegroom in my death, and run into't [Falling on his sword. I learn'd of thee. How! not dead? not dead? Dercetas and Guard enter. They refuse to do his bidding and Diomedes enters, sent by Cleopatra to say, go out. "She had a prophesying fear Of what hath come to pass: for when she saw She had dispos'd with Cæsar, and that your rage Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead; But, fearing since how it might work, hath sent Me to proclaim the truth, — and I am come, I dread, too late." A message in which one deception is admitted, and another substituted. Antony is borne by the guard to the monument where Cleopatra has locked herself. She heaps upon him expressions of her affection, in words and kisses. He enjoins upon her to seek of Cæsar her honor with her safety, and to trust none about Cæsar but Proculeius. In regard to himself, he reposes overmuch, for our full sympathy, upon his past : "The miserable change now at my end Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts My countryman, - a Roman by a Roman Cleo. Noblest of men, woo't die? [ANTONY dies. The soldier's pole * is fall'n: young boys and girls Are level now with men; the odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable † Beneath the visiting moon. Char. Iras. She is dead too, our sovereign. Char. * "loadstar," Schmidt. [Faints. Oh quietness, lady! Lady! † worthy of consideration. Cleo. No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded By such poor passion as the maid that milks And does the meanest chares.* It were for me To throw my sceptre at the injurious † gods; What, what! good cheer! How do you, women? Why, how now, Charmian? My noble girls? Ah, women, women! look, Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs,§ take heart: Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, And make death proud to take us. Come, away; This case of that huge spirit now is cold : Ah, women, women! come; we have no friend But resolution, and the briefest end." The 5th Act belongs to Cleopatra. All in it is relative to her. If her love for Antony had become the mainspring of her being, as Antony's love for her had become the mainspring of his being, the 5th Act would hardly have been needed. "The difference between her and Antony," says Denton J. Snider, "is seen in the fact that she is willing to survive him, but he was not willing to survive her; separation does not mean death in her case. There is, however, no doubt about her love for Antony, but there is as little doubt about her readiness to transfer it to another person. * turns of work; A. S. cyrr, a turn. Endurance is foolish. § For this use of "sirs," see Love's Labor's Lost, A. IV. Sc. iii. 211. she has been He comes into her cannot be turned She has met her She has been making provision for the future laying plans to catch Octavius in her toils. presence, but he is not charmed; his cool head by sensuous enchantment. This seals her fate. master; she has found the man who is able to resist her spell. The proof is manifest she learns that Octavius intends to take her to Rome to grace his triumph. This secret is confided to her by Dolabella, who seems to be the last victim of her magical power. That power is now broken; nothing remains except to die. Still, she shows signs of a better nature in this latter part — misfortune has ennobled her character: 66 6 My desolation begins to make a better life. "The heroic qualities of Antony, now that he is gone, and she can captivate no new hero, fill her imagination; she will go and join him in the world beyond. Her sensual life seems purified and exalted as she gives expression to her 'immortal longings.' Her deepest trait is, however, conquest through sensual love; she will live as long as she can conquer; when her spell is once overcome she will die, dwelling in imagination upon the greatest victory of her principle, and upon its most illustrious victim." JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. (FIRST FOLIO versus "CAMBRIDGE" EDITION.) OF F the First Folio, J. Payne Collier remarks ("Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare," pp. 69, 70), "The book does credit to the age, even as a specimen of typography it is on the whole remarkably accurate, and so desirous were the editors and printers of correctness, that they introduced changes for the better, even while the sheets were in progress through the press." : This, perhaps, is too strongly stated. It is too strongly stated. But the typographical errors with which the book swarms have led many editors to put too low an estimate on its authority, and to prefer many quarto texts. The editors of the "Cambridge " edition say, "In Hamlet we have computed that the Folio, when it differs from the Quartos, differs for the worse in forty-seven places, while it differs for the better in twenty at most." The following "Jottings," I am bold to say, show this statement to be very wide of the mark. The punctuation, too, of the First Folio, faulty as it frequently is, is often better than theirs. In the present unsettled and irregular use of the note of interrogation and the note of exclamation, I do not expect that all who take the trouble to read these "Jottings" will, in every case where the Folio has a ? and the "Cambridge" an !, agree with me in my preference for the ? of the Folio. But I claim that, as both are rhetorical, the general rule laid down by Wilson, that, "after words to which an answer is expected or implied, the note of interrogation is added; and after those, though apparently denoting |