Cleopatra's dream
H. Mollicone
CLEOPATRA
I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony:
O, such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man!
DOLABELLA
If it might please ye,--
CLEOPATRA
[His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted
The little O, the earth.]
DOLABELLA
Most sovereign creature,--
CLEOPATRA
His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
Crested the world: [his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
That grew the more by reaping:] his delights
Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
The element they lived in: [in his livery
Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropp'd from his pocket.]
DOLABELLA
Cleopatra!
CLEOPATRA
Think you there was, or might be, such a man
As this I dream'd of?
DOLABELLA
Gentle madam, no.
CLEOPATRA
You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.
But, if there be, or ever were, one such,
It's past the size of dreaming: [nature wants stuff
To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine
And Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,
Condemning shadows quite.]