After the death of Ptolemy the king,
Who of all Egypt had the governing,
There reign his queen, Cleopatra;
Until it occurred, some brief time after,
That out of Rome was sent a senator
To conquer kingdoms and win honour
For the town of Rome, as was their custom,
And make all the world obedient to them,
And, truth to tell, Antonius was his name.
So it befell, Fortune brought him shame:
When he fell in with prosperity,
Rebel unto the town of Rome was he.
And with all this the sister of Caesar,
He left her falsely ere she was aware
And would take himself another wife,
So that he made with Rome and Caesar strife.
Nonetheless in truth this same senator
Was a full worthy noble warrior,
And from his death arose great damage,
Yet love had brought the man to such a rage
And he so tightly bound in the snare
All for the love of Cleopatra there,
That all the world he deemed of no value.
It seemed to him nothing less was due
To Cleopatra than to love and serve.
He cared not if he died in war for her,
In defence of her, and of her right.
The noble queen too so loved this knight,
For his merit and his chivalry.
And unless the books lie, certainly,
He was in person, and in nobleness
And in discretion and in hardiness,
As worthy as any man that lives today.
And she was fair as is the rose in May.
And since to write most briefly is the best,
She wedded him, and had him as she wished.
The wedding and the feast to devise,
For me, who undertake this enterprise,
And who so many stories must now make,
Would be too long indeed, lest I mistake
And fail in things of more weight and charge,
For men may overload a ship or barge;
And therefore to the main point I will skip,
And all the rest of it I shall let slip.
Octavian, enraged by this deed,
A host against Antony chose to lead
All utterly aimed at his destruction,
Of stout Romans, each cruel as a lion;
To ship they went, and so I’ll let them sail.
Antonius was aware, and would not fail
To meet with these Romans if he may;
He took counsel, and upon a day,
His wife and he and all his host forth went
To ship anon, all swift was their intent;
And on the sea they there chanced to meet –
High sounds the trumpet – and to shout, and beat
To arms, attacking with the sun.
With grisly sound out booms the mighty gun,
And fiercely they hurtle down at once,
And from the tops they fling great stones.
In goes the grapnel, so filled with crooks;
Among the ropes run the shearing-hooks.
In with the poleaxe presses he and he;
Behind the mast one begins to flee,
And out again, is driven overboard;
One with his own spear himself has gored;
One rends the sail with hooks like a scythe;
One brings a cup, and bids them all be blithe;
One pours dry peas, so on the deck all slither;
With pots of quicklime they clash together;
And thus the long day in fight they spend
Till, at the last, as everything has end,
Antony is beaten and put to flight,
And all his folk flee, as best they might.
The queen flees too, with all her purple sail;
From the blows that fell as thick as hail,
It was no wonder she could not endure.
When Antony saw the misadventure,
‘Alas,’ quoth he, ‘the day that I was born!
My honour this day is lost and gone.’
And, in despair, from his wits did depart,
And stabbed himself at once through the heart,
Before he sailed further from that place.
His wife, who could from Caesar win no grace,
To Egypt fled in fear and in distress.
But hearken all you who speak of kindness,
You men, who falsely swear many an oath
That you will die if your love shows wrath,
Here may you see in women such truth.
The woeful Cleopatra felt such ruth
That there is no tongue that may it tell.
But in the morn, she would not be still,
Until her clever craftsmen built a shrine
With all the rubies and the gemstones fine
Out of all Egypt that they could espy,
And filled the shrine all full with spice,
And had the body embalmed, and fetched up
The corpse into the shrine, which she shut.
And next the shrine she had dug a grave,
And all the serpents she could, displayed
And put them in that grave, and then she said:
‘Now, love, whom my sorrowful heart obeyed
So utterly that from that blissful hour
In which to be all freely yours I swore –
I mean you, Antonius, my knight –
Never, waking, in the day or night,
Were you out of my heart’s remembrance
For weal or woe, for carol or for dance;
And with myself this covenant I made so,
That, such as you suffered, weal or woe,
Insofar as in my power it lay,
Irreproachable my wifehood, always,
The same would I suffer, life or death.
And that covenant while lasts my breath
I will fulfil, it will be clearly seen,
Was never to her lover a truer queen.’
And with those words, with firm heart, naked,
Among the serpents into the pit she leapt,
And there she chose to make her ending.
Anon the vipers her began to sting,
And she her death received, with good cheer,
For love of Antony, to her so dear –
And this is history, it is no fable.
Now, where to find a man as reliable,
Who will for love his death so freely take,
I pray God may never our heads so ache!
Amen.
After the death of Ptolemy the king,
Who of all Egypt had the governing,
There reign his queen, Cleopatra;
Until it occurred, some brief time after,
That out of Rome was sent a senator
To conquer kingdoms and win honour
For the town of Rome, as was their custom,
And make all the world obedient to them,
And, truth to tell, Antonius was his name.
So it befell, Fortune brought him shame:
When he fell in with prosperity,
Rebel unto the town of Rome was he.
And with all this the sister of Caesar,
He left her falsely ere she was aware
And would take himself another wife,
So that he made with Rome and Caesar strife.
Nonetheless in truth this same senator
Was a full worthy noble warrior,
And from his death arose great damage,
Yet love had brought the man to such a rage
And he so tightly bound in the snare
All for the love of Cleopatra there,
That all the world he deemed of no value.
It seemed to him nothing less was due
To Cleopatra than to love and serve.
He cared not if he died in war for her,
In defence of her, and of her right.
The noble queen too so loved this knight,
For his merit and his chivalry.
And unless the books lie, certainly,
He was in person, and in nobleness
And in discretion and in hardiness,
As worthy as any man that lives today.
And she was fair as is the rose in May.
And since to write most briefly is the best,
She wedded him, and had him as she wished.
The wedding and the feast to devise,
For me, who undertake this enterprise,
And who so many stories must now make,
Would be too long indeed, lest I mistake
And fail in things of more weight and charge,
For men may overload a ship or barge;
And therefore to the main point I will skip,
And all the rest of it I shall let slip.
Octavian, enraged by this deed,
A host against Antony chose to lead
All utterly aimed at his destruction,
Of stout Romans, each cruel as a lion;
To ship they went, and so I’ll let them sail.
Antonius was aware, and would not fail
To meet with these Romans if he may;
He took counsel, and upon a day,
His wife and he and all his host forth went
To ship anon, all swift was their intent;
And on the sea they there chanced to meet –
High sounds the trumpet – and to shout, and beat
To arms, attacking with the sun.
With grisly sound out booms the mighty gun,
And fiercely they hurtle down at once,
And from the tops they fling great stones.
In goes the grapnel, so filled with crooks;
Among the ropes run the shearing-hooks.
In with the poleaxe presses he and he;
Behind the mast one begins to flee,
And out again, is driven overboard;
One with his own spear himself has gored;
One rends the sail with hooks like a scythe;
One brings a cup, and bids them all be blithe;
One pours dry peas, so on the deck all slither;
With pots of quicklime they clash together;
And thus the long day in fight they spend
Till, at the last, as everything has end,
Antony is beaten and put to flight,
And all his folk flee, as best they might.
The queen flees too, with all her purple sail;
From the blows that fell as thick as hail,
It was no wonder she could not endure.
When Antony saw the misadventure,
‘Alas,’ quoth he, ‘the day that I was born!
My honour this day is lost and gone.’
And, in despair, from his wits did depart,
And stabbed himself at once through the heart,
Before he sailed further from that place.
His wife, who could from Caesar win no grace,
To Egypt fled in fear and in distress.
But hearken all you who speak of kindness,
You men, who falsely swear many an oath
That you will die if your love shows wrath,
Here may you see in women such truth.
The woeful Cleopatra felt such ruth
That there is no tongue that may it tell.
But in the morn, she would not be still,
Until her clever craftsmen built a shrine
With all the rubies and the gemstones fine
Out of all Egypt that they could espy,
And filled the shrine all full with spice,
And had the body embalmed, and fetched up
The corpse into the shrine, which she shut.
And next the shrine she had dug a grave,
And all the serpents she could, displayed
And put them in that grave, and then she said:
‘Now, love, whom my sorrowful heart obeyed
So utterly that from that blissful hour
In which to be all freely yours I swore –
I mean you, Antonius, my knight –
Never, waking, in the day or night,
Were you out of my heart’s remembrance
For weal or woe, for carol or for dance;
And with myself this covenant I made so,
That, such as you suffered, weal or woe,
Insofar as in my power it lay,
Irreproachable my wifehood, always,
The same would I suffer, life or death.
And that covenant while lasts my breath
I will fulfil, it will be clearly seen,
Was never to her lover a truer queen.’
And with those words, with firm heart, naked,
Among the serpents into the pit she leapt,
And there she chose to make her ending.
Anon the vipers her began to sting,
And she her death received, with good cheer,
For love of Antony, to her so dear –
And this is history, it is no fable.
Now, where to find a man as reliable,
Who will for love his death so freely take,
I pray God may never our heads so ache!
Amen.
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