Octav. All there are yours.
Enter Alexas hastily.
Alex. The queen, my mistress, sir, and yours—
Ant. 'Tis past.—Octavia, you shall stay this night;
To-morrow, Cæsar and we are one. [Ex. leading Octav. Dol. and the Children follow.
Vent. There's news for you; run, my officious eunuch,
Be sure to be the first; haste forward:
Haste, my dear eunuch, haste.[Exit.
Alex. This downright fighting fool, this thick-skulled hero,
This blunt unthinking instrument of death,
With plain dull virtue has out-gone my wit.
Pleasure forsook my earliest infancy;
The luxury of others robbed my cradle,
And ravished thence the promise of a man
Cast out from nature, disinherited
Of what her meanest children claim by kind,
Yet greatness kept me from contempt: that's gone:
Had Cleopatra followed my advice,
Then he had been betrayed, who now forsakes.
She dies for love; but she has known its joys:
Gods, is this just, that I, who know no joys,
Must die, because she loves?
Enter Cleopatra, Charmion, Iras, and Train.
Oh, madam, I have seen what blasts my eyes!
Octavia's here.
Cleo. Peace with that raven's note.
I know it too; and now am in
The pangs of death.
Alex. You are no more a queen;
Egypt is lost.