Scene First.
Cleopatra sola.
Cleop.
YEs, I do Love, but must not let the flame
Dazle me so as to neglect my Fame;
My heart feels both its Duties, and by turns,
It sighs for Pompey, and for Caesar burns:
Nor shall the Victors passion make me lose
The sense of what our House to Pompey owes.
She that great Caesar loves, should in her Soul
Abhorr th' appearance of a Crime so foul;
It were an Injury to his Desire,
To think that Baseness can foment the Fire.
Enter Charmion.
Charm.
VVhat, do you Caesar love, and yet would raise
Aegypt to trample on Pharsalia's Bays,
Stop the high course of Fate, your Force direct
'Gainst him you Love, and his great Foe protect?
Love is no Tyrant with you I perceive.
Cleop.
VVith their high Birth Princes this good receive,
Their Souls partake their Generous race, and so
Their rudest Passions to their Virtue bow,
And whilst the Dictates of their own high Blood
They dare observe, Illustrious, and all good
That they determine, and the ill we find,
Flows from the Counsel of some Baser Mind;
Thus is great Pompey lost, the King would save
A friend distress'd, Photinus diggs his Grave.
Charm.
Thus then of Caesar, we in one Person see
At once the Lover and the Enemy.