So much as lank’d not.’
The passage after Antony’s defeat by Augustus, where he is made to say—
‘Yes, yes; he at Philippi kept
His sword e’en like a dancer; while I struck
The lean and wrinkled Cassius, and ’twas I
That the mad Brutus ended’—
is one of those fine retrospections which show us the winding and eventful march of human life. The jealous attention which has been paid to the unities both of time and place has taken away the principle of perspective in the drama, and all the interest which objects derive from distance, from contrast, from privation, from change of fortune, from long-cherished passion; and contrasts our view of life from a strange and romantic dream, long, obscure, and infinite, into a smartly contested, three hours’ inaugural disputation on its merits by the different candidates for theatrical applause.
The latter scenes of Antony and Cleopatra are full of the changes of accident and passion. Success and defeat follow one another with startling rapidity. Fortune sits upon her wheel more blind and giddy than usual. This precarious state and the approaching dissolution of his greatness are strikingly displayed in the dialogue of Antony with Eros.
‘Antony. Eros, thou yet behold’st me?
Eros. Ay, noble lord.