These two last lines, referring to the asp, are sublime, as the bitter joke of a courtesan and an artist.
[407] Iras: "Call reason to assist you."
Cleopatra: "I have none,
And none would have: My love's a noble madness
Which shews the cause deserved it: Modest sorrow
Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man;
But I have loved with such transcendent passion,
I soared, at first, quite out of reason's view,
And now am lost above it."—"All for Love," V. 2, 1.
[408] Cleop.: "Come to me, come, my soldier, to my arms!
You've been too long away from my embraces;
But, when I have you fast, and all my own,
With broken murmurs, and with amorous sighs,
I'll say, you were unkind, and punish you,
And mark you red with many an eager kiss."—Ibid. V. 3, 1.
[409]Ibid. 4, 1.
[410]Dryden's Miranda says, in the "Tempest" (2, 2): "And if I can but escape with life, I had rather be in pain nine months, as my father threatened, than lose my longing." Miranda has a sister; they quarrel, are jealous of each other, and so on. See also in "The State of Innocence," 3, 1, the description which Eve gives of her happiness, and the ideas which her confidences suggest to Satan.
[411]This impotence reminds one of Casimir Delavigne.
[412]See the introductory notice, by Sir Walter Scott, of "All for Love," V. 290.
[413]Ibid. V. 307.
[414]Ibid. V. 319.
[415]"All for Love," V. 3, 1.