Enter CESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MECENAS, GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, and others, his council of war.

CESAR

Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;

Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks

The pauses that he makes.

DOLABELLA

Antony and Cleopatra.

21

Enter DERCETAS with the sword of ANTONY.

CÆSAR

Wherefore is that? and what art thou that dar'st

Appear thus to us?

DERCETAS

I am call'd Dercetas;

Mark Antony I serv'd, who best was worthy
Best to be serv'd: whilst he stood up and spoke,
He was my master; and I wore my life

To spend upon his haters. If thou please
To take me to thee, as I was to him
I'll be to Cæsar; if thou pleasest not,

I yield thee up my life.

CÆSAR

What is 't thou say'st?

DERCETAS

I say, O Cæsar, Antony is dead.

CÆSAR

The breaking of so great a thing should make

A greater crack: the wounded world

Should have shook lions into civil streets,

And citizens to their dens the death of Antony

Is not a single doom; in the name lay

A moiety of the world.

DERCETAS

He is dead, Cæsar;

Not by a public minister of justice,
Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand,
Which writ his honour in the acts it did,

Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, Splitted the heart. This is his sword;

I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd

With his most noble blood.

CÆSAR

Look you sad, friends?

The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings

To wash the eyes of kings.

AGRIPPA

And strange it is,

That nature must compel us to lament

Our most persisted deeds.

Waged equal with him.

MECENAS

His taints and honours

AGRIPPA

A rarer spirit never

Did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us
Some faults to make us men. Cæsar is touch'd.

MECENAS

When such a spacious mirror 's set before him,
He needs must see himself.

CÆSAR

O Antony!

I have follow'd thee to this; but we do lance
Diseases in our bodies: I must perforce
Have shown to thee such a declining day,
Or look on thine; we could not stall together
In the whole world but yet let me lament,
With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,