Chapter 2Act I, Scene 1

Act I Antioch. The Palace; a house by the sea. Scene 1 The Palace in Antioch; Cleopatra’s antechamber. Cleone is seated; to her enters Eunice. CLEONE Always he lives! EUNICE No, his disease, not he. For the divinity that sits in man From that afflicted body has withdrawn, — Its pride, its greatness, joy, command, the Power Unnameable that struggles with its world: The husk, the creature only lives. But that husk Has a heart, a mind and all accustomed wants, And having these must be, — O, it is pitiful, — Stripped of all real homage, forced to see That none but Death desires him any more. CLEONE You pity? EUNICE Seems it strange to you? I pity. I loved him not, — who did? But I am human And feel the touch of tears. A death desired Is still a death and man is always man

Rodogune Although an enemy. If I ever slew, I think ’twould be with pity in the blow That it was needed. CLEONE That’s a foolish thought. EUNICE If it were weakness and delayed the stroke. CLEONE The Queen waits by him still? EUNICE No longer now. For while officiously she served her lord, The dying monarch cast a royal look Of sternness on her. “Cease,” he said, “O woman, To trouble with thy ill-dissembled joy My passing. Call thy sons! Before they come I shall have gone into the shadow. Yet Too much exult not, lest the angry gods Chastise thee with the coming of thy sons At which thou now rejoicest.” CLEONE Where is she then Or who waits on her? EUNICE Rodogune. CLEONE That slave! No nobler attendance?

Act I, Scene 1 EUNICE I think I hear the speech Of upstarts. Are you, Cleone, of that tribe? CLEONE I marvel at your strange attraction, Princess, You fondle and admire a statue of chalk In a black towel dismally arranged! EUNICE She has roses in her pallor, but they are The memory of a blush in ivory. She is all silent, gentle, pale and pure, Dim-natured with a heart as soft as sleep. CLEONE She is a twilight soul, not frank, not Greek, Some Magian’s daughter full of midnight spells. I think she is a changeling from the dead. I hate the sorceress! EUNICE We shall have a king Who’s young, Cleone; Rodogune is fair. What think you of it, you small bitter heart? CLEONE He will prefer the roses and the day, I hope! EUNICE Yourself, you think? O, see her walk! A floating lily in moonlight was her sister. Rodogune enters. RODOGUNE His agony ends at last.

Rodogune CLEONE Why have you left Your mistress and your service, Rodogune? RODOGUNE She will not have me near her now; she says I look at her with eyes too wondering and too large. So she expects alone her husband’s end And her release. Alas, the valiant man, The king, the trampler of the fields of death! He called to victory and she ran to him, He made of conquest his camp-follower. How He lies forsaken! None regard his end; His flatterers whisper round him, his no more; His almost widow smiles. Better would men, Could they foresee their ending, understand The need of mercy. CLEONE My sandal-string is loose; Kneel down and tie it, Parthian Rodogune. EUNICE You too may feel the need of mercy yet, Cleone. Cleopatra enters swiftly from the corridors of the Palace. CLEOPATRA Antiochus is dead, is dead, and I Shall see at last the faces of my sons. O, I could cry upon the palace-tops My exultation! Gaze not on me so, Eunice. I have lived for eighteen years With silence and my anguished soul within While all the while a mother’s heart in me Cried for her children’s eyelids, wept to touch

Act I, Scene 1 The little bodies that with pain I bore. The long chill dawnings came without that joy. Only my hateful husband and his crown, — His crown! EUNICE To the world he was a man august, High-thoughted, grandiose, valiant. Leave him to death, And thou enjoy thy children. CLEOPATRA He would not let my children come to me, Therefore I spit upon his corpse. Eunice, Have you not thought sometimes how strange it will feel To see my tall strong sons come striding in Who were two lisping babes, two pretty babes? Sometimes I think they are not changed at all And I shall see my small Antiochus With those sweet sunlight curls, his father’s curls, And eyes in which an infant royalty Expressed itself in glances, Timocles Holding his brother’s hand and toiling to me With eyes like flowers wide-opened by the wind And rosy lips that laugh towards my breast. Will it not be strange, so sweet and strange? EUNICE And when Will they arrive from Egypt? CLEOPATRA Ah, Eunice, From Egypt! They are here, Eunice. EUNICE Here!

Rodogune CLEOPATRA Not in this room, dear fool; in Antioch, hid Where never cruel eyes could come at them. O, did you think a mother’s hungry heart Could lose one fluttering moment of delight After such empty years? Theramenes, — The swift hawk he is, — by that good illness helped Darted across and brought them. They’re here, Eunice! I saw them not even then, not even then Could clasp, but now Antiochus is dead, Is dead, my lips shall kiss them! Messengers Abridge the road with tempest in their hooves To bring them to me! EUNICE Imperil not with memories of hate The hour of thy new-found felicity; For souls dislodged are dangerous and the gods Have their caprices. CLEOPATRA Will the Furies stir Because I hated grim Antiochus? When I have slain my kin, then let them wake. The man who’s dead was nothing to my heart: My husband was Nicanor, my beautiful High-hearted lord with his bright auburn hair And open face. When he died miserably A captive in the hated Parthian’s bonds, My heart was broken. Only for my babes I knit the pieces strongly to each other, My little babes whom I must send away To Egypt far from me! But for Antiochus, That gloomy, sullen and forbidding soul, Harsh-featured, hard of heart, rough mud of camps And marches, — he was never lord of me. He was a reason of State, an act of policy;

Act I, Scene 1 And he exiled my children. You have not been A mother! EUNICE I will love with you, Cleopatra, Although to hate unwilling. CLEOPATRA Love me and with me As much as your pale quiet Parthian’s loved Whom for your sake I have not slain. CLEONE She too, The Parthian! — blames you. Was it not she who said, Your joy will bring a curse upon your sons? CLEOPATRA Hast thou so little terror? EUNICE Never she said it! CLEOPATRA Fear yet; be wise! I cannot any more Feel anger! Never again can grief be born In this glad world that gives me back my sons. I can think only of my children’s arms. There is a diphony of music swells Within me and it cries a double name, Twin sounds, Antiochus and Timocles, Timocles and Antiochus, the two Changing their places sweetly like a pair Of happy lovers in my brain. CLEONE But which

Rodogune Shall be our king in Syria? CLEOPATRA Both shall be kings, My kings, my little royal faces made To rule my breast. Upon a meaner throne What matters who shall reign for both? Zo¨yla enters. ZO¨YLA Madam, The banner floats upon that seaward tower. CLEOPATRA O my soul, fly to perch there! Shall it not seem My children’s robes as motherwards they run to me Tired of their distant play? She leaves the room followed by Zo¨yla. EUNICE You, you, Cleone! gods are not in the world If you end happily. RODOGUNE Do not reproach her. I have no complaint against one human creature; Nature and Fate do all. EUNICE Because you were born, My Rodogune, to suffer and be sweet As was Cleone to offend. O snake, For all thy gold and roses! RODOGUNE I did not think Her guiltless sons must pay her debt. Account

Act I, Scene 1 Is kept in heaven and our own offences Too heavy a load for us to bear. Rodogune and Eunice go out. CLEONE The doll, The Parthian puppet whom she fondles so, She hardly has a glance for me! I am glad This gloomy, grand Antiochus is dead. O now for pastime, dances, youth and flowers! Youth, youth! for we shall have upon the throne No grey beard longer, but some glorious boy Made for delight with whom we shall be young For ever. (to Phayllus, as he enters) Rejoice, brother; he is dead. PHAYLLUS It was my desire and fear that killed him then; For he was nosing into my accounts. When shall we have these two king-cubs and which Is the crowned lion? CLEONE That is hidden, Phayllus; You know it. PHAYLLUS I know; I wish I also knew Why it was hidden. Perhaps there is no cause Save the hiding! Women feign and lie by nature As the snake coils, no purpose served by it. Or was it the grim king who’ld have it so? CLEONE They are in Antioch.

Rodogune PHAYLLUS That I knew. CLEONE You knew? PHAYLLUS Before Queen Cleopatra. They do not sleep Who govern kingdoms; they have ears and eyes. CLEONE Knew and they live! PHAYLLUS Why should one slay in vain? A dying man has nothing left to fear Or hope for. He belongs to other cares. Whichever of these Syrian cubs be crowned, He will be hungry, young and African; He will need caterers. CLEONE Shall they not be found? PHAYLLUS In Egypt they have other needs than ours. There lust’s almost as open as feasting is; Science and poetry and learned tastes Are not confined to books, but life’s an art. There are faint mysteries, there are lurid pomps; Strong philtres pass and covert drugs. Desire Is married to fulfilment, pain’s enjoyed And love sometimes procures his prey for death. He’ll want those strange and vivid colours here, Not dull diplomacies and hard rough arms. Then who shall look to statecraft’s arid needs If not Phayllus?

Act I, Scene 1 CLEONE We shall rise? PHAYLLUS It is that I came to learn from you. I have a need for growth; I feel a ray come nearer to my brow, The world expands before me. Will you assist, — For you have courage, falsehood, brains, — my growth? Your own assisted, — that is understood. CLEONE Because I am near the Queen? PHAYLLUS That helps, perhaps, But falls below the mark at which I aim. If you were nearer to the King, — why, then! CLEONE Depend on me. PHAYLLUS Cleone, we shall rise.