Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume I.djvu/264

Rh criminal ready to hand, she did call this fellow to her and made them give him the draught Mark Antony was about to swallow. On drinking this he fell down dead; and she turning to Antony, said, "And if I did not love you as I do, I should e'en now have been rid of you; yea! and would gladly have had it so, only that I see plainly I cannot live without you." These words and this device were well fitted to confirm Mark Antony in his passion, and to make him even more submissive before his charmer's feet.

In such ways did her cleverness of tongue serve Cleopatra, whom all the Historians do describe as having been exceedingly ready of speech. Mark Antony was used never to call her anything but "the Queen," by way of greater distinction. So he did write to Octavius Caesar, previous to the time when they were declared open enemies: "What hath changed you," he writes, "concerning my loving the Queen? She is my wife. Is it but now I have begun the connection? You fondle Drusilla, Tortale, Leontiphe and a dozen others; what reck you on whom you do bestow your favour, when the caprice seizeth you?"

In this letter Mark Antony was for extolling his own constancy, and reproaching the other's changeableness, for loving so many women at once, while himself did love only the Queen. And I only wonder Octavius did not love her too after Antony's death. It may well be he had his pleasure when he had her come alone to his chamber, and he there beheld her beauty and heard her address him; or mayhap he found her not so fair as he had thought, or scorned her for some other reason, and did wish to make his triumph of her at Rome and show her in his public