}
}
_Vent._ See, how he winks! how he dries up a tear, }
That fain would fall! }

_Ant._ Octavia, I have heard you, and must praise
The greatness of your soul;
But cannot yield to what you have proposed:
For I can ne'er be conquered but by love;
And you do all for duty. You would free me,
And would be dropt at Athens; was't not so?

_Octav._ It was, my lord.

_Ant._ Then I must be obliged
To one who loves me not; who, to herself,
May call me thankless and ungrateful man:--
I'll not endure it; no.

_Vent._ I am glad it pinches there. [_Aside._

_Octav._ Would you triumph o'er poor Octavia's virtue?
That pride was all I had to bear me up;
That you might think you owed me for your life,
And owed it to my duty, not my love.
I have been injured, and my haughty soul
Could brook but ill the man, who slights my bed.

_Ant._ Therefore you love me not.

_Octav._ Therefore, my lord,
I should not love you.

_Ant._ Therefore you would leave me?

_Octav._ And therefore I should leave you--if I could.

_Dola._ Her soul's too great, after such injuries,
To say she loves; and yet she lets you see it.
Her modesty and silence plead her cause.

_Ant._ O, Dolabella, which way shall I turn?
I find a secret yielding in my soul;
But Cleopatra, who would die with me,
Must she be left? pity pleads for Octavia;
But does it not plead more for Cleopatra?

_Vent._ Justice and pity both plead for Octavia;
For Cleopatra, neither.
One would be ruined with you; but she first
Had ruined you: The other, you have ruined,
And yet she would preserve you.
In every thing their merits are unequal.

_Ant._ O, my distracted soul!

_Octav._ Sweet heaven compose it!--
Come, come, my lord, if I can pardon you,
Methinks you should accept it. Look on these;
Are they not yours? or stand they thus neglected,
As they are mine? go to him, children, go;
Kneel to him, take him by the hand, speak to him;
For you may speak, and he may own you too,
Without a blush; and so he cannot all
His children: go, I say, and pull him to me,
And pull him to yourselves, from that bad woman.
You, Agrippina, hang upon his arms;
And you, Antonia, clasp about his waist:
If he will shake you off, if he will dash you
Against the pavement, you must bear it, children;
For you are mine, and I was born to suffer.