“Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed.”
On the other slab is a Cleopatra, with the deadly creature in her hand, though not at the very moment when she addressed the asp;—act. v. sc. 2, l. 305, vol. ix. p. 151,—
“Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?”
The cross slab represents the hunting of stag and hare, which with the hounds have wonderfully human faces. Here might the words of Titus Andronicus, act. ii. sc. 2, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 456, be applied,—
“The hunt is up, the moon is bright and gray,
The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green;
Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,