English

O CTAVIUS . A GRIPPA . C ÆSARION . M ECÆNAS

Octavius . What said that obstinate and proud old thief?
Couldst thou not draw him from his den, Agrippa?
Agrippa . I tried not.
Octavius . Nor perhaps desired.
Agrippa . 'Tis true,
I entered not by stealth, and broke no confidence;
Tatius, who knew and once fought under me . .
Octavius . And would not he who knows thy power, and who

A NTONY AND A GRIPPA

Antony . And so, the victor comes to taunt the vanquisht!
Is this well done, Agrippa?
Agrippa . 'Twere ill done,
And never done by me.
There have been some
Who carried to the forum and there cast
The tags and rags of mimes, and tarnisht spangles
Bag'd from the dusthole corner; gravity
Becomes me better and plain Roman garb
In action and in speech; no taunt is mine.

A NTONY AND D OLABELLA

Antony . Welcome, my Dolabella! There is none
From yonder camp I would embrace beside.
My little queen hath given at last an audience
To thy persuasive tongue?
Dolabella . Most graciously.
Antony . I never thought she would permit Caesarion
To leave her side; hardly can I myself
Bear separation from that brave young boy;
I love him as my own.
Dolabella . Your own thus stand

O CTAVIUS . M ECÆNAS . Gallus .

Octavius . Is Dolabella to be trusted?
Mecaenas . Youth
There is on Dolabella's side; with youth
Comes always eloquence where women are.
Octavius . Gallus is honester and prudenter.
Mecaenas . But Gallus is the older by some years.
Octavius . A poet says, Love at odd hours hath smiled
And covered with his pinions sportively,

[At Alexandria, after arrival of Octavius, 30 B.C.]

C LEOPATRA . C HARMIAN . I RAS

Cleopatra . At the first entrance of your lord, before
He ordered you, before he spake a word,
Why did ye run away?
Charmian . I was afraid,
Never so in my life; he lookt so fierce
He fear'd his own wild eyes, he placed one hand
(His right) across them on lowered brow, his left
Waved us away as would a hurricane
A palm-tree on the desert.

[after the battle of Actium]

A NTONY AND C LEOPATRA

Antony . What demon urged thy flight?
Cleopatra . The demon Love.
I am a woman, with a woman's fears,
A mother's, and, alas O Antony!
More fears than these.
Antony . Of whom?
Cleopatra . Ask not of whom
But ask for whom, if thou must ask at all,
Nor knowest nor hast known. Yes, I did fear
For my own life . . ah! lies it not in thine?

[Before the battle of Actium 31 B.C.]

Soothsayer AND C LEOPATRA

Soothsayer . Our lord Antonius wafts away all doubt
Of his success.
Cleopatra . What! against signs and tokens?
Soothsayer . Even so!
Cleopatra . Perhaps he trusts himself to Hercules,
Become of late progenitor to him.
Soothsayer . Ah! that sweet smile might bring him back; he once
Was flexible to the bland warmth of smiles.

[Near Actium, 31 B.C.]

Soothsayer AND A NTONY

Soothsayer . Speak it I must. Ill are the auguries.
Antony . Ill ever are the auguries, O priest,
To those who fear them: at one hearty stroke
The blackest of them scud and disappear.
Now, not a word of any less than good
To Cleopatra.
Soothsayer . 'Twas at her command
I hasten'd to consult them.
Antony . Rightly done

STUDY IN WHITES

Wax-white —
Floor, ceiling, walls.
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement
Polished to cream surfaces
By constant sweeping.
The big room is coloured like the petals
Of a great magnolia,
And has a patina
Of flower bloom
Which makes it shine dimly
Under the electric lamps.
Chairs are ranged in rows
Like sepia seeds
Waiting fulfilment.
The chalk-white spot of a cook's cap
Moves unglossily against the vaguely bright wall —

RED S LIPPERS

Red slippers in a shop-window, and outside in the street, flaws of grey, windy sleet!
Behind the polished glass, the slippers hang in long threads of red, festooning from the ceiling like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes of passers-by with dripping colour, jamming their crimson reflections against the windows of cabs and tramcars, screaming their claret and salmon into the teeth of the sleet, plopping their little round maroon lights upon the tops of umbrellas.