Shakspeare's expression of Antony's devoted. ness to the delights of love, and of the oblivion of his projects of ambition, is extremely spirited *; but the passage most strongly expressive of the entire subjection of his reason to his passions, is his reply to Cleopatra's petition for pardon, when her indiscretion had effected his utter ruin : "Fall not a tear I say; one of them rates All that is won and lost: Give me a kiss ; The opinion entertained by the dramatic Antony of the worthlessness of Cleopatra, is a circumstance entirely of the poet's own creation. Antony describes her as "cunning past man's thought," and designates her in terms which, to the mind of a lover, would naturally communicate feelings of unmingled disgust. "I found you as a morsel, cold upon Dead Cæsar's trencher: nay, you were a fragment Though you can guess what temperance should be, He is fully alive to, and bitterly laments * "Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch Of the rang'd empire fall!" and the subsequent passages. † Act III. sc. 9. Act I. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 11. the folly and degradation of his conduct; but his firmest resolves are feebly opposed against the potent spell of his "grave charm,— Whose eye beck'd forth his wars, and call'd them home; Whose bosom was his crownet, his chief end." " The opinions and actions of Shakspeare's Antony, therefore, are diametrically opposed to each other; but there is no inconsistency in his conduct. The licentiousness of Cleopatra is the link which binds her to the heart of Antony: dissolute and voluptuous himself, her depravity is congenial to his nature: that which others would have revolted from, is to him a spell. Of the beauty, wisdom, and modesty," of that "gem of women," Octavia, he makes small account; her "holy, cold, and still conversation" has no charms for a constitution in every respect the reverse; the "Egyptian dish" alone is food for a palate which banquets on the leavings of half a dozen predecessors. But, what was grateful to his appetite did not command the approbation of his judgment. History has alike recorded Antony's intellectual ability and his corporeal frailty: a victim to the latter, enough of the former doubtless survived to impress on his memory the deepest sense of his folly, the weakness and the unworthiness of his infatu ation. Shakspeare read the inmost thoughts of Antony; he has given them an everlasting record; and the pages on which they are impressed, will long be referred to as instructive lessons against the indulgence of the passions, and the sacrifice of the judgment to the will. Shakspeare has not been successful in conveying an idea of the elegance of Cleopatra's mind. Neither her manners, thoughts, nor language, impress us with a conviction of her possessing those accomplishments which he ascribes to her. Mark the model that Shakspeare had before him. "Now her beauty (as it is reported) was not so passing, as unmatchable of other women, nor yet such as upon present view did enamour men with her: but so sweet was her company and conversation, that a man could not possibly but be taken. And besides her beauty, the good grace she had to talke and discourse, her curteous nature that tempered her words and deeds, was a spur that pricked to the quick. Furthermore, besides all these, her voice and words were marvellous pleasant: for her tong was an instrument of musick to divers sports and pastimes, the which she easily turned into any language that pleased her. She spake unto few barbarous people by interpreter, but made them answer herself, or at least the most part of them.” * The susceptible Antony, "Whom ne'er the word of no woman heard speak," was as little desirous as capable of offering resistance to an assault from such a combination of dangerous qualifications. The conquest obtained by Cleopatra's accomplishments her consummate art secured, for there was no flattery to which she did not condescend in order to rivet the chains which bound to her the heart of Antony. "Plato writeth, that there are foure kinds of flatterie: but Cleopatra divided it into many kinds. For she (were it in sport, or in matters of earnest) still devised sundry new delights to have Antonius at commandment, never leaving him night nor day, nor once letting him go out of her sight. play at dice with him, drinke with him, and hunt commonly with him, and also be with him when he went to any exercise or activitie of body." "She subtilly seemed to languish for + the love of Antonius, pining her body for lacke of meat. Furthermore, she every way so framed her countenance that when Antonius came to For she would + Ibid. p. 924. see her, she cast her eyes upon him, like a woman ravished for joy. Straight again when he went from her, she fell a weeping and blubbering, looking rufully on the matter, and still found the means that Antonius should often times find her weeping: and then when he came suddenly upon her, she made as though she dried her eyes, and turned her face away, as if she were unwilling that he should see her weepe. Shakspeare has, with perfect knowledge of the world, assigned Cleopatra female attendants, whose virtue was not likely to be a reproach upon the looser hours of their mistress, if their conversation in the second scene of the play may be presumed to convey any idea of their principles. The names Charmian and Iras, are found in Sir Thomas North, who calls the latter "a woman of Cleopatra's bed-chamber, that frizelled her haire, and dressed her head." + The imagination of Warburton so frequently outstripped his judgment, that it is seldom safe to copy his opinions. His remarks, however, on Shakspeare's management of the character of Octavius, are skilful as well as refined. "It is observable with what judgment Shakspeare * Life of Antonius, p. 924. ተ Ibid. p. 938. |