ift he could not take.
You would be killed like Tully, would you? do,
Hold out your throat to Caesar, and die tamely.

_Ant._ No, I can kill myself; and so resolve.

_Vent._ I can die with you too, when time shall serve;
But fortune calls upon us now to live,
To fight, to conquer.

_Ant._ Sure thou dream'st, Ventidius.

_Vent._ No; 'tis you dream; you sleep away your hours
In desperate sloth, miscalled philosophy.
Up, up, for honour's sake; twelve legions wait you,
And long to call you chief: By painful journeys,
I led them, patient both of heat and hunger,
Down from the Parthian marches to the Nile.
'Twill do you good to see their sun-burnt faces,
Their scarred cheeks, and chopt hands: there's virtue in them.
They'll sell those mangled limbs at dearer rates
Than yon trim bands can buy.

_Ant._ Where left you them?

_Vent._ I said in Lower Syria.

_Ant._ Bring them hither;
There may be life in these.

_Vent._ They will not come.

_Ant._ Why didst thou mock my hopes with promised aids,
To double my despair? They're mutinous.

_Vent._ Most firm and loyal.

_Ant._ Yet they will not march
To succour me. Oh trifler!

_Vent._ They petition
You would make haste to head them.

_Ant._ I'm besieged.

_Vent._ There's but one way shut up: How came I hither?

_Ant._ I will not stir.

_Vent._ They would perhaps desire
A better reason.

_Ant._ I have never used
My soldiers to demand a reason of
My actions. Why did they refuse to march?

_Vent._ They said they would not fight for Cleopatra.

_Ant._ What was't they said?

_Vent._ They said they would not fight for Cleopatra.
Why should they fight indeed, to make her conquer,
And make you more a slave? to gain you kingdoms,
Which, for a kiss, at your next midnight feast,
You'll sell to her? Then she new-names her jewels,
And calls this diamond such or such a tax;
Each pendant in her ear shall be a province.

_Ant._ Ventidius, I allow your tongue free licence
On all my other faults; but, on your life,
No word of Cleopatra: she deserves
More worlds than I can lose.

_Vent._ Behold, you Powers,
To whom you have entrusted human kind!
See Europe, Afric, Asia, put in balance,
And all weighed down by one light, worthless woman!
I think the Gods are Antonies, and give,
Like prodigals, this nether world away
To none but wasteful hands.

_Ant._ You grow presumptuous.

_Vent._ I take the privilege of plain love to speak.

_Ant._ Plain love! plain arro