Chapter 9Scene 5

Cleopatra’s chamber. Cleopatra, Cleone. CLEOPATRA I am resolved; but Mentho the Egyptian knows The true precedence of the twins. Send her to me. Cleone goes out. O you, high-seated cold divinities, You sleep sometimes, they say you sleep. Sleep now! I only loosen what your careless wills Have tangled. Mentho enters. Mentho, sit by me. Mentho, You have not breathed our secret? Keep it, Mentho, Dead in your bosom, buy a queen for slave. MENTHO Dead! Can truth die? CLEOPATRA Ah, Mentho, truth! But truth Is often terrible. Justice! but was ever Justice yet seen upon the earth? Man lives Because he is not just and real right Dwells not with law and custom but for him It grows by whose arriving our brief happiness Is best assured and grief prohibited For a while to mortals. MENTHO This is the thing I feared.

Rodogune O wickedness! Well, Queen, I understand. CLEOPATRA Not less than you I love Antiochus; But Timocles seeks Parthian Rodogune. O, if these brother-loves should turn to hate And slay us all! Then rather let thy nursling stand, — Will he not rule whoever fills the throne? — Approved of heaven and earth, indeed a king, Protector of the weaker Timocles, His right hand in his wars, his pillar, guard And sword of action, grand in loyalty, Kingly in great subjection, famed for love. Then there shall be no grief for anyone And everything consent to our desires. MENTHO Queen Cleopatra, shall I speak? shall I Forget respect? The god demands my voice. I tell thee then that thy rash brain has hatched A wickedness beyond all parallel, A cold, unmotherly and cruel plot Thou striv’st in vain to alter with thy words. O nature self-deceived! O blinded heart! It is the husband of thy boasted love, Woman, thou wrongest in thy son. CLEOPATRA Alas, Mentho, my nurse, thou knowest not the cause. MENTHO I do not need to know. Art thou Olympian Zeus? Has he given thee his sceptre and his charge To guide the tangled world? Wilt thou upset His rulings? wilt thou improve his providence? Are thy light woman’s brain and shallow love

Act II, Scene 5 A better guide than his all-seeing eye? O wondrous arrogance of finite men Who would know better than omniscient God! Beware his thunders and observe his will. What he has made, strive not to unmake, but shun The tragical responsibility Of such dire error. If from thy act spring death And horror, are thy human shoulders fit To bear that heavy load? Observe his will, Do right and leave the rest to God above. CLEOPATRA Thy words have moved me. MENTHO Let thy husband move thee. How wilt thou meet him in the solemn shades? Will he not turn his royal face from thee Saying, “Murderess of my children, come not near me!” CLEOPATRA O Mentho, curse me not. My husband’s eyes Shall meet me with a smile. Mentho, my nurse, You will not tell this to Antiochus? MENTHO I am not mad nor wicked. Remain fixed In this resolve. Dream not that happiness Can spring from wicked roots. God overrules And Right denied is mighty.