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Cleopatra’s chamber.
Cleopatra, Cleone.
CLEOPATRA
I am resolved; but Mentho the Egyptian knows
The true precedence of the twins. Send her to me.
Cleone goes out.
O you high-seated cold divinities,
You sleep sometimes, they say you sleep. Sleep now!
I only loosen what your careless wills
Have tangled.
Mentho enters.
Mentho, sit by me, Mentho,
You have not breathed our secret ? Keep it, Mentho,
Dead in your bosom, buy a queen for slave.
MENTHO
Dead! Can truth die?
CLEOPATRA
Ah, Mentho, truth! But truth
Is often terrible. Justice! but was ever
Justice yet seen upon the earth? Man lives
Because he is not just and real right
Dwells not with law and custom but for him
It grows by whose arriving our brief happiness
Is best assured and grief prohibited
For a while to mortals.
MENTHO
This is the thing I feared.
O wickedness! Well, Queen, I understand.
CLEOPATRA
Not less than you I love Antiochus;
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But Timocles seeks Parthian Rodogune.
O, if these brother-loves should turn to hate
And slay us all! Then rather let thy nursling stand,
Will he not rule whoever fills the throne ? —
Approved of heaven and earth, indeed a king,
Protector of the weaker Timocles,
His right hand in his wars, his pillar, guard
And sword of action, grand in loyalty,
Kingly in great subjection, famed for love.
Then there shall be no grief for any one
And everything consent to our desires.
MENTHO
Queen Cleopatra, shall I speak, shall I
Forget respect ? The God demands my voice.
I tell thee then that thy rash brain has hatched
A wickedness beyond all parallel,
A cold, unmotherly and cruel plot
Thou striv’st in vain to alter with thy words.
O nature self-deceived! O blinded heart!
It is the husband of thy boasted love,
Woman, thou wrongest in thy son.
CLEOPATRA
Alas,
Mentho, my nurse, thou knowest not the cause.
MENTHO
I do not need to know. Art thou Olympian Zeus ?
Has he given thee his sceptre and his charge
To guide the tangled world ? Wilt thou upset
His rulings ? wilt thou improve his providence ?
Are thy light woman’s brain and shallow love
A better guide than his all-seeing eye ?
O wondrous arrogance of finite men
Who would know better than omniscient God!
Beware his thunders and observe his will.
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What he has made strive not to unmake but shun
The tragical responsibility
Of such dire error. If from thy act spring death
And horror, are thy human shoulders fit
To bear that heavy load ? Observe his will,
Do right and leave the rest to God above.
CLEOPATRA
Thy words have moved me.
MENTHO
Let thy husband move thee.
How wilt thou meet him in the solemn shades ?
Will he not turn his royal face from thee
Saying, "Murderess of my children, come not near me!"?
CLEOPATRA
O Mentho, curse me not. My husband’s eyes
Shall meet me with a smile. Mentho, my nurse,
You will not tell this to Antiochus ?
MENTHO
I am not mad nor wicked. Remain fixed
In this resolve. Dream not that happiness
Can spring from wicked roots. God overrules
And Right denied is mighty.
Curtain
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