_Alex._ You must not; haste you to your monument, While I make speed to Caesar. _Cleo._ Caesar! No, I have no business with him. _Alex._ I can work him To spare your life, and let this madman perish. _Cleo._ Base fawning wretch! would'st thou betray him too? Hence from my sight! I will not hear a traitor; 'Twas thy design brought all this ruin on us.-- Serapion, thou art honest; counsel me: But haste, each moment's precious. _Serap._ Retire; you must not yet see Antony. He who began this mischief, 'Tis just he tempt the danger; let him clear you: And, since he offered you his servile tongue, To gain a poor precarious life from Caesar, Let him expose that fawning eloquence, And speak to Antony. _Alex._ O heavens! I dare not; I meet my certain death. _Cleo._ Slave, thou deservest it,-- Not that I fear my lord, will I avoid him; I know him noble: when he banished me, And thought me false, he scorned to take my life; But I'll be justified, and then die with him. _Alex._ O pity me, and let me follow you. _Cleo._ To death, if thou stir hence. Speak, if thou canst, Now for thy life, which basely thou wouldst save; While mine I prize at this. Come, good Serapion. [_Exeunt_ CLEO. SERAP. CHAR. _and_ IRAS. _Alex._ O that I less could fear to lose this being, Which, like a snow-ball in my coward hand, The more 'tis grasped, the faster melts away. Poor reason! what a wretched aid art thou! For still, in spite of thee, These two long lovers, soul and body, dread Their final separation. Let me think: What can I say, to save myself from death? No matter what becomes of Cleopatra. _Ant._ Which way? where? [_Within._ _Vent._ This leads to the monument. [_Within._ _Alex._ Ah me! I hear him; yet I'm unprepared: My gift of lying's gone; And this court-devil, which I so oft have raised, Forsakes me at my need. I dare not stay; Yet cannot far go hence. [_Exit._ _Enter_ ANTONY _and_ VENTIDIUS. _Ant._ O happy Caesar! thou hast men to lead: Think not 'tis thou hast conquered Antony; But Rome has conquered Egypt. I'm betrayed. _Vent._ Curse on this treacherous train! Their soil and heaven infect them all with baseness: And their young souls come tainted to the world With the first breath they draw. _Ant._ The original villain sure no God created; He was a bastard of the sun, by Nile, Aped into man; with all his mother's mud Crusted about his soul. _Vent._ The nation is One universal traitor; and their queen The very spirit and extract of them all. _Ant._ Is there yet left A possibility of aid from valour? Is there one god unsworn to my destruction? The least unmortgaged hope? for, if there be, Methinks I cannot fall beneath the fate Of such a boy as Caesar. The world's one half is yet in Antony; And from each limb of it, that's hewed away, The soul comes back to me.