Sir, I will eat no meat; I'll not drink, sir:
If idle talk will once be necessary.
I'll not sleep neither; this mortal house I'll ruin,
Do Caesar what he can! Know, sir, that I
Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,
And show me to the shouting varletry
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave to me! Rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring! Rather make
My country's high pyramids my gibbet,
And hang me up in chains!

In the same spirit of royal bravado, but finer still, and worked up with
a truly Oriental exuberance of fancy and imagery, is her famous
description of Antony, addressed to Dolabella:--

Most noble empress you have heard of me?

CLEOPATRA.

I cannot tell.

DOLABELLA.

Assuredly, you know me.

CLEOPATRA.

No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
You laugh when boys, or women, tell their dreams
Is't not your trick?

DOLABELLA.

I understand not, madam.

CLEOPATRA.

I dream'd there was an emperor Antony;
O such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man!

DOLABELLA.

If it might please you--

CLEOPATRA.

His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
A sun and moon; which kept their course, and lighted
The little O, the earth.

DOLABELLA.

Most sovereign creature--

CLEOPATRA.

His legs bestrid the ocean: his reared arm
Crested the world; his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail or shake the orb
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas,
That grew the more by reaping. His delights
Were dolphin like; they show'd his back above
The element they liv'd in. In his livery[72]
Walk'd crowns and coronets; realms and islands were
As plates[73] dropp'd from his pocket.

DOLABELLA.

Cleopatra!

CLEOPATRA.

Think you there was, or might be, such a man
As this I dream'd of?