And where I love will triumph!

CAESAR.

So you shall:
My heart shall be the chariot that shall bear you:
All I have won shall wait upon you. By the gods,
The bravery of this woman's mind has fir'd me!
Dear mistress, shall I but this once----

CLEOPATRA.

How! Caesar!
Have I let slip a second vanity
That gives thee hope?

CAESAR.

You shall be absolute,
And reign alone as queen; you shall be any thing.

CLEOPATRA.

* * * *

Farewell, unthankful!

CAESAR.

Stay!

CLEOPATRA.

I will not.

CAESAR.
I command.

CLEOPATRA.

Command, and go without, sir,
I do command _thee_ be my slave forever,
And vex, while I laugh at thee!

CAESAR.

Thus low, beauty---- [_He kneels_

CLEOPATRA.

It is too late; when I have found thee absolute,
The man that fame reports thee, and to me,
May be I shall think better. Farewell, conqueror!

(_Exit._)

Now this is magnificent poetry, but this is not Cleopatra, this is not
"the gipsey queen." The sentiment here is too profound, the majesty too
real, and too lofty. Cleopatra could be great by fits and starts, but
never sustained her dignity upon so high a tone for ten minutes
together. The Cleopatra of Fletcher reminds us of the antique colossal
statue of her in the Vatican, all grandeur and grace. Cleopatra in
Dryden's tragedy is like Guido's dying Cleopatra in the Pitti Palace,
tenderly beautiful. Shakspeare's Cleopatra is like one of those graceful
and fantastic pieces of antique Arabesque, in which all anomalous shapes
and impossible and wild combinations of form are woven together in
regular confusion and most harmonious discord: and such, we have reason
to believe, was the living woman herself, when she existed upon this
earth.

OCTAVIA.

I do not understand the observation of a late critic, that in this play
"Octavia is only a dull foil to Cleopatra." Cleopatra requires no foil,
and Octavia is not dull, though in