University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Alexas enters.
Cleo.
Alexas!

Alexas.
Sovereign of Egypt, hail!—Hail Cleopatra!
Shortly the mistress of the spacious East!

Cleo.
Alexas, thou art much unlike Marc Antony;
Yet, coming from him, he doth gild thy favour.
O, welcome!
Where is our emperor?

Alexas.
On his way to Egypt.

Cleo.
Coming?

Alexas.
If that the heavy grief he took, to hear
The tidings of your sickness, let him not,
He holds me hard in chace.

Cleo.
And how, Alexas?—well—and how?—thou hast put me
Almost beside my sense!

Alexas.
Ere we could overtake, or learn his course,
He reach'd Neapolis, where he met Cæsar,
Was reconciled, and wedded.

Cleo.
Lost again!—
Perdition stands confirm'd.

Alexas.
Your patience, mistress!
All's well as you could wish.—Your gallant brother
First came, while Antony was at high feast,
And sent a silver plate, thus mark'd in Syriac:
“Ptolemy Artuasdes, the last male offspring
“of the line of Lagos, comes to resume the
“shackles of the King of Armenia.”
This sentence, like a Sybil's, ope'd, at once,
His eye upon his error.

Cleo.
O, the gods,
O the bless'd gods!—and is he then convinced?

Alexas.
He is, and tasks his fault with deep atonements.
He rose, and down he came, and, to his breast,
Clasp'd, and reclasp'd, the royal Artuasdes;
Call'd him his brother, heap'd proud favours on him;
And added Media to his wide dominions.

Cleo.
A trumpet!—whence?

[Trumpet.
Alexas.
By Isis and Osiris, yes, 'tis he.
He comes!—the emperor's trumpet—I do know it,
By the pride of its tonance!

Cleo.
Now—
The gods defend us from a sudden death,
Although of transport!