ses to forget

Give me to drink mandragora,
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.

O Charmian!
Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he,
Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st?
The demi-Atlas of this earth--the arm
And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
Or murmuring, Where's my serpent of old Nile?
For so he calls me.
Met'st thou my posts?

ALEXAS.

Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick?

CLEOPATRA.

Who's born that day
When I forget to send to Antony,
Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Caesar so?

CHARMIAN.

O that brave Caesar!

CLEOPATRA.

Be chok'd with such another emphasis!
Say, the brave Antony.

CHARMIAN.

The valiant Caesar!

CLEOPATRA.

By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
If thou with Caesar paragon again
My man of men!

CHARMIAN.

By your most gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.

CLEOPATRA.

My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then. But, come away--
Get me some ink and paper: he shall have every day
A several greeting, or I'll unpeople Egypt.

We learn from Plutarch, that it was a favorite amusement with Antony and
Cleopatra to ramble through the streets at night, and bandy ribald jests
with the populace of Alexandria. From the same authority, we know that
they were accustomed to live on the most familiar terms with their
attendants and the companions of their revels. To these traits we must
add, that with all her violence, perverseness, egotism, and caprice,
Cleopatra mingled a capability for warm affections and kindly feeling,
or rather what we should call in these days, a constitutional
_good-nature_; and was lavishly generous to her favorites and
dependents. These characteristics we find scattered through the play;
they are not only faithfully rendered