[Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer]
- Charmian. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas,
almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer
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that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew
this husband, which, you say, must charge his horns
with garlands!
- Charmian. Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?
- Soothsayer. In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
[Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]
- Domitius Enobarus. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
Cleopatra's health to drink.
- Charmian. Good sir, give me good fortune.
- Charmian. Pray, then, foresee me one.
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- Soothsayer. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.
- Iras. No, you shall paint when you are old.
- Alexas. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
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- Soothsayer. You shall be more beloving than beloved.
- Charmian. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
- Charmian. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married
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to three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all:
let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry
may do homage: find me to marry me with Octavius
Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.
- Soothsayer. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
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- Charmian. O excellent! I love long life better than figs.
- Soothsayer. You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
Than that which is to approach.
- Charmian. Then belike my children shall have no names:
prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?
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- Soothsayer. If every of your wishes had a womb.
And fertile every wish, a million.
- Charmian. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
- Alexas. You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.
- Charmian. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
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- Alexas. We'll know all our fortunes.
- Iras. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
- Charmian. E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.
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- Iras. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.
- Charmian. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful
prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee,
tell her but a worky-day fortune.
- Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars.
- Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?
- Charmian. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than
I, where would you choose it?
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- Iras. Not in my husband's nose.
- Charmian. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,—come,
his fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman
that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and let
her die too, and give him a worse! and let worst
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follow worse, till the worst of all follow him
laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good
Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a
matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!
- Iras. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people!
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for, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man
loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a
foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep
decorum, and fortune him accordingly!
- Alexas. Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a
cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but
they'ld do't!
[Enter CLEOPATRA]
- Cleopatra. He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
- Cleopatra. Seek him, and bring him hither.
Where's Alexas?
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- Alexas. Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
- Cleopatra. We will not look upon him: go with us.
[Exeunt]
[Enter MARK ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants]
- Messenger. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
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- Antony. Against my brother Lucius?
- Messenger. Ay:
But soon that war had end, and the time's state
Made friends of them, joining their force 'gainst Caesar;
Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
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Upon the first encounter, drave them.
- Messenger. The nature of bad news infects the teller.
- Antony. When it concerns the fool or coward. On:
Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:
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Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
I hear him as he flatter'd.
- Messenger. Labienus—
This is stiff news—hath, with his Parthian force,
Extended Asia from Euphrates;
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His conquering banner shook from Syria
To Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst—
- Antony. Antony, thou wouldst say,—
- Antony. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue:
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Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my faults
With such full licence as both truth and malice
Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,
When our quick minds lie still; and our ills told us
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Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
[Exit]
- Antony. From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
- Antony. Let him appear.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.
[Enter another Messenger]
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What are you?
- Second Messenger. In Sicyon:
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
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Importeth thee to know, this bears.
[Gives a letter]
- Antony. Forbear me.
[Exit Second Messenger]
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
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What our contempt doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
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I must from this enchanting queen break off:
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus!
[Re-enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]
- Antony. I must with haste from hence.
- Domitius Enobarus. Why, then, we kill all our women:
we see how mortal an unkindness is to them;
if they suffer our departure, death's the word.
- Domitius Enobarus. Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were
pity to cast them away for nothing; though, between
them and a great cause, they should be esteemed
nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of
this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty
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times upon far poorer moment: I do think there is
mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon
her, she hath such a celerity in dying.
- Antony. She is cunning past man's thought.
[Exit ALEXAS]
- Domitius Enobarus. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but
the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her
winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater
storms and tempests than almanacs can report: this
cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a
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shower of rain as well as Jove.
- Antony. Would I had never seen her.
- Domitius Enobarus. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece
of work; which not to have been blest withal would
have discredited your travel.
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- Domitius Enobarus. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When
it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man
from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth;
comforting therein, that when old robes are worn
out, there are members to make new. If there were
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no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,
and the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned
with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new
petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion
that should water this sorrow.
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- Antony. The business she hath broached in the state
Cannot endure my absence.
- Domitius Enobarus. And the business you have broached here cannot be
without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which
wholly depends on your abode.
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- Antony. No more light answers. Let our officers
Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
The cause of our expedience to the queen,
And get her leave to part. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
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Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
Of many our contriving friends in Rome
Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands
The empire of the sea: our slippery people,
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Whose love is never link'd to the deserver
Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
Pompey the Great and all his dignities
Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
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For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
The sides o' the world may danger: much is breeding,
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure,
To such whose place is under us, requires
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Our quick remove from hence.
[Exeunt]
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