Chapter 4Scene 3

Cleopatra’s antechamber in the Palace. Cleopatra, seated; Rodogune. CLEOPATRA It is their horsehooves ride into my heart. It shall be done. What have I any more To do with hatred? Parthian Rodogune, Have you forgotten now your former pomps And princely thoughts in high Persepolis, Or do your dreams still linger near a throne? RODOGUNE I think all fallen beings needs must keep Some dream out of their happier past, — or else How hard it would be to live! CLEOPATRA O, if some hope survive In the black midst of care, however small, We can live, then only, O then only. RODOGUNE Hope! I have forgotten how men hope. CLEOPATRA Is your life hard In Syrian Antioch, Rodogune, a slave To your most bitter foemen?

Rodogune RODOGUNE Not when you speak So gently. Always I strive to make it sweet By outward harmony with circumstance And a calm soul within that is above My fortunes. CLEOPATRA Parthian, you have borne the hate My husband’s murder bred in me towards all Your nation. When I felt you with my heel, I trampled Tigris and Euphrates then And Parthia suffered. Therefore I let you live Half-loving in your body my revenge. But these are cruel and unhappy thoughts I hope to slay and bury with the past Which gave them birth. Will you assist me, girl? Will you begin with me another life And other feelings? RODOGUNE If our fates allow Which are not gentle. CLEOPATRA My life begins again, My life begins again in my dear sons And my dead husband lives. All’s sweetly mended. I do not wish for hatred any more. The horrible and perilous hands of war Appal me. O, let our peoples sit at ease In Grecian Antioch and Persepolis, Mothers and children, clasping those golden heads Deep, deep within our bosoms, never allow Their going forth again to bonds and death. Peace, peace, let us have peace for ever more.

Act I, Scene 3 RODOGUNE And will peace take me to my father’s arms? CLEOPATRA Or else detain you on a kingly throne. There are happier fetters. RODOGUNE If it must be so! CLEOPATRA Art thou insensible or fearst to rise? I cannot think that even in barbarous lands Any called human are so made that they prefer Serfhood and scourge to an imperial throne. Or is there such a soul? RODOGUNE Shall I not know My husband first? CLEOPATRA I did not ask your choice, But gave you a command to be obeyed Like any other that each day I give. RODOGUNE Shall I be given him as a slave, not wife? CLEOPATRA You rise, I think, too quickly with your fate. Or art thou other than I saw or thou Feignedst to be? Hast thou been wearing all this while Only a mask of smooth servility, Thou subtle barbarian?

Rodogune RODOGUNE Speak not so harshly to me Who spoke so gently now. I will obey. CLEOPATRA Hop’st thou by reigning to reign over me Restoring on a throne thy Parthian soul? RODOGUNE What shall I be upon the Syrian throne Except your first of slaves who am now the last, The least considered? I hope not to reign, Nor ever have desired ambitious joys, Only the love that I have lacked so long Since I left Parthia. CLEOPATRA Obey me then. Remember, The hand that seats thee can again unthrone. RODOGUNE I shall remember and I shall obey. She retires to her station. CLEOPATRA Her flashes of quick pride are quickly past. After so many cruel, black and pitiless years Shall not the days to come conspire for joy? The Queen shall be my slave, a mind that’s trained To watch for orders, one without a party In Syria, with no will to take my son from me Or steal my sovereign station. O, they come! Slowly, my heart! break not with too much bliss. Eunice comes in swiftly. EUNICE Am I the first to tell you they have come?

Act I, Scene 3 CLEOPATRA O girl, thy tongue rain joy upon the world, That speaks to me of heaven! Cleone enters. CLEONE (to Eunice) They are more beautiful than heaven and earth. (to Cleopatra) Thy children’s feet are on the palace stairs. CLEOPATRA O no! not of the palace but my heart; I feel their tread ascending. Be still, be still, Thou flutterer in my breast: I am a queen And must not hear thee. Thoas and Melitus enter bringing in Antiochus and Timocles. THOAS Queen, we bring her sons To Cleopatra. CLEOPATRA I thank you both. Approach. Why dost thou beat so hard within to choke me? She motions to them to stop and gazes on them in silence. TIMOCLES This is my mother. She is what I dreamed! EUNICE O high inhabitants of Greek Olympus, Which of you all comes flashing down from heaven To snare us mortals with this earthly gaze, These simulations of humanity?

Rodogune CLEOPATRA Say to the Syrians they shall know their king In the gods’ time and hour. But these first days Are for a mother. THOAS None shall grudge them to thee, Remembering the gods’ debt to thee, Cleopatra. Thoas and Melitus leave the chamber. CLEOPATRA My children, O my children, my sweet children! Come to me, come to me, come into my arms. You beautiful, you bright, you tall heart-snarers, You are all your father. TIMOCLES Mother, my sweet mother! I have been dreaming of you all these years, Mother! CLEOPATRA And was the dream too fair, my child? O strange, sweet bitterness that I must ask My child his name! TIMOCLES I am your Timocles. CLEOPATRA You first within my arms! O right, ’tis right! It is your privilege, my sweet one. Kiss me. O yet again, my young son Timocles. O bliss, to feel the limbs that I have borne Within me! O my young radiant Timocles, You have outgrown to lie upon my lap: I have not had that mother’s happiness.

Act I, Scene 3 TIMOCLES Mother, I am still your little Timocles Playing at bigness. You shall not refuse me The sweet dependent state which I have lost In that far motherless Egypt where I pined. CLEOPATRA And like a child too, little one, you’ld have All of your mother to yourself. Must I Then thrust you from me? Let Antiochus, My tall Antiochus have now his share. RODOGUNE He is all high and beautiful like heaven From which he came. I have not seen before A thing so mighty. ANTIOCHUS Madam, I seek your blessing; let me kneel To have it. CLEOPATRA Kneel! O, in my bosom, son! Have you too dreamed of me, Antiochus? ANTIOCHUS Of great Nicanor’s widow and the Queen Of Syria and my sacred fount of life. CLEOPATRA These are cold haughty names, Antiochus. Not of your mother, not of your dear mother? ANTIOCHUS You were for me the thought of motherhood, A noble thing and sacred. This I loved.

Rodogune CLEOPATRA No more? Are you so cold in speech, my son? O son Antiochus, you have received Your father’s face; I hope you have his heart. Do you not love me? ANTIOCHUS Surely I hope to love. CLEOPATRA You hope! ANTIOCHUS O madam, do not press my words. CLEOPATRA I do press them. Your words, your lips, your heart, Your radiant body noble as a god’s I, I made in my womb, to give them light Bore agony. I have a claim upon them all. You do not love me? ANTIOCHUS The thought of you I have loved, Honoured and cherished. By your own decree We have been to each other only thoughts; But now we meet. I trust I shall not fail In duty, love and reverence to my mother. EUNICE His look is royal, but his speech is cold. RODOGUNE Should he debase his godhead with a lie? She is to blame and her unjust demand.

Act I, Scene 3 CLEOPATRA It is well. My heart half slew me for only this! O Timocles, my little Timocles, Let me again embrace you, let me feel My child who dreamed of me for eighteen years In Egypt. Sit down here against my knee And tell me of Egypt, — Egypt where I was born, Egypt where my sweet sons were kept from me, Dear Egypt, hateful Egypt! TIMOCLES I loved it well because it bore my mother, But not so well, my mother far from me. CLEOPATRA What was your life there? Your mornings and your evenings, Your dreams at night, I must possess them all, All the sweet years my arms have lost. Did you Rising in those clear mornings see the Nile, Our father Nile, flow through the solemn azure Past the great temples in the sands of Egypt? You have seen hundred-gated Thebes, my Thebes, And my high tower where I would sit at eve Watching your kindred sun? And Alexandria With the white multitude of sails! My brother, The royal Ptolemy, did he not love To clasp his sister in your little limbs? There is so much to talk of; but not now! Eunice, take them from me for a while. Take Rodogune and call the other slaves. Let them array my sons like the great kings They should have been so long. Go, son Antiochus; Go, Timocles, my little Timocles. ANTIOCHUS We are the future’s greatness, therefore owe Some duty to the grandeurs of the past.

Rodogune The great Antiochus lies hardly cold, Garbed for his journey. I would kneel by him And draw his mightiness into my soul Before the gloomy shades have taken away What earth could hardly value. EUNICE This was a stab. Is there some cold ironic god at work? CLEOPATRA The great Antiochus! Of him you dreamed? You are his nephew! Parthian, take the prince To the dead King’s death-chamber, then to his own. ANTIOCHUS She was the Parthian! Great Antiochus, Syria thou leav’st me and her and Persia afterwards To be my lovely captive. He goes out with Rodogune. TIMOCLES (as he follows Eunice) Tell me, cousin, — I knew not I had such sweet cousins here, — Was this the Parthian princess Rodogune? EUNICE Phraates’ daughter, Prince, your mother’s slave. TIMOCLES There are lovelier faces then than Syria owns. He goes out with Eunice. CLEOPATRA You gods, you gods in heaven, you give us hearts For life to trample on! I am sick, Cleone.

Act I, Scene 3 CLEONE Why, Madam, what a son you have in him, The joyous fair-faced Timocles, yet you are sick! CLEOPATRA But the other, oh, the other! Antiochus! He has the face that gives my husband back to me, But does not love me. CLEONE Yet he will be king. You said he was the elder. CLEOPATRA Did I say it? I was perplexed. CLEONE He will be king, a man With a cold joyless heart and thrust you back Into some distant corner of your house And rule instead and fill with clamorous war Syria and Parthia and the banks of Indus Taking our lovers and our sons to death! Our sons! Perhaps he will take Timocles And offer him, a lovely sacrifice, To the grim god of battles. CLEOPATRA My Timocles! my only joy! Oh, no! We will have peace henceforth and bloodless dawns. My envoys ride today. CLEONE He will recall them. This is no man to rest in peaceful ease While other sceptres sway the neighbouring realms.

Rodogune War and Ambition from his eyes look forth; His hand was made to grasp a sword-hilt. Queen, Prevent it; let our Timocles be king. CLEOPATRA What did you say? Have you gone mad, Cleone? The gods would never bless such vile deceit. O, if it could have been! but it cannot. CLEONE It must. Timocles dead, you a neglected mother, A queen dethroned, with one unloving child, — Childless were better, — and your age as lonely As these long nineteen years have been. Then you had hope, You will have none hereafter. CLEOPATRA If I thought that, I would transgress all laws yet known or made And dare Heaven’s utmost anger. Gods who mock me, I will not suffer to all time your wrongs. Hush, hush, Cleone! It shall not be so. I thought my heart would break with joy, but now What different passion tugs at my heart-strings, Cleone, O Cleone! O my sweet dreams, Where have you gone yielding to pangs and fears Your happy empire? Am I she who left Laughing the death-bed of Antiochus? She goes into her chamber. CLEONE We must have roses, sunlight, laughter, Prince, Not cold, harsh light of arms. Your laurels, laurels! We’ll blast them quickly with a good Greek lie. Where he has gone, admire Antiochus, Not here repeat him.