| ACT ISCENE II | The same. Another room. | |
| | Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer | |
| CHARMIAN | Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, | |
| | almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer | |
| | that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew | |
| | this husband, which, you say, must charge his horns | 5 |
| | with garlands! | |
| ALEXAS | Soothsayer! | |
| Soothsayer | Your will? | |
| CHARMIAN | Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things? | |
| Soothsayer | In nature's infinite book of secrecy | 10 |
| | A little I can read. | |
| ALEXAS | Show him your hand. | |
| | Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough | |
| | Cleopatra's health to drink. | |
| CHARMIAN | Good sir, give me good fortune. | 15 |
| Soothsayer | I make not, but foresee. | |
| CHARMIAN | Pray, then, foresee me one. | |
| Soothsayer | You shall be yet far fairer than you are. | |
| CHARMIAN | He means in flesh. | |
| IRAS | No, you shall paint when you are old. | 20 |
| CHARMIAN | Wrinkles forbid! | |
| ALEXAS | Vex not his prescience; be attentive. | |
| CHARMIAN | Hush! | |
| Soothsayer | You shall be more beloving than beloved. | |
| CHARMIAN | I had rather heat my liver with drinking. | 25 |
| ALEXAS | Nay, hear him. | |
| CHARMIAN | Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married | |
| | 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 | 30 |
| | Caesar, and companion me with my mistress. | |
| Soothsayer | You shall outlive the lady whom you serve. | |
| 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. | 35 |
| CHARMIAN | Then belike my children shall have no names: | |
| | prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have? | |
| Soothsayer | If every of your wishes had a womb. | |
| | And fertile every wish, a million. | |
| CHARMIAN | Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch. | 40 |
| ALEXAS | You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes. | |
| CHARMIAN | Nay, come, tell Iras hers. | |
| ALEXAS | We'll know all our fortunes. | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall | |
| | be--drunk to bed. | 45 |
| IRAS | There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else. | |
| CHARMIAN | E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine. | |
| 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, | 50 |
| | tell her but a worky-day fortune. | |
| Soothsayer | Your fortunes are alike. | |
| IRAS | But how, but how? give me particulars. | |
| Soothsayer | I have said. | |
| IRAS | Am I not an inch of fortune better than she? | 55 |
| CHARMIAN | Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than | |
| | I, where would you choose it? | |
| 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 | 60 |
| | that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and let | |
| | her die too, and give him a worse! and let worst | |
| | 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 | 65 |
| | matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee! | |
| IRAS | Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! | |
| | 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 | 70 |
| | decorum, and fortune him accordingly! | |
| CHARMIAN | Amen. | |
| ALEXAS | Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a | |
| | cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but | |
| | they'ld do't! | 75 |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Hush! here comes Antony. | |
| CHARMIAN | Not he; the queen. | |
| | Enter CLEOPATRA | |
| CLEOPATRA | Saw you my lord? | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | No, lady. | |
| CLEOPATRA | Was he not here? | 80 |
| CHARMIAN | No, madam. | |
| CLEOPATRA | He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden | |
| | A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus! | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Madam? | |
| CLEOPATRA | Seek him, and bring him hither. | 85 |
| | Where's Alexas? | |
| 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. | |
| MARK ANTONY | Against my brother Lucius? | 90 |
| 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, | |
| | Upon the first encounter, drave them. | 95 |
| MARK ANTONY | Well, what worst? | |
| Messenger | The nature of bad news infects the teller. | |
| MARK ANTONY | When it concerns the fool or coward. On: | |
| | Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus: | |
| | Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, | 100 |
| | I hear him as he flatter'd. | |
| Messenger | Labienus-- | |
| | This is stiff news--hath, with his Parthian force, | |
| | Extended Asia from Euphrates; | |
| | His conquering banner shook from Syria | 105 |
| | To Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst-- | |
| MARK ANTONY | Antony, thou wouldst say,-- | |
| Messenger | O, my lord! | |
| MARK ANTONY | Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue: | |
| | Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome; | 110 |
| | 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 | |
| | Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile. | 115 |
| Messenger | At your noble pleasure. | |
| | Exit | |
| MARK ANTONY | From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there! | |
| First Attendant | The man from Sicyon,--is there such an one? | |
| Second Attendant | He stays upon your will. | |
| MARK ANTONY | Let him appear. | 120 |
| | These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, | |
| | Or lose myself in dotage. | |
| | Enter another Messenger | |
| | What are you? | |
| Second Messenger | Fulvia thy wife is dead. | |
| MARK ANTONY | Where died she? | 125 |
| Second Messenger | In Sicyon: | |
| | Her length of sickness, with what else more serious | |
| | Importeth thee to know, this bears. | |
| | Gives a letter | |
| MARK ANTONY | Forbear me. | |
| | Exit Second Messenger | |
| | There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it: | 130 |
| | 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. | 135 |
| | 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 | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | What's your pleasure, sir? | |
| MARK ANTONY | I must with haste from hence. | 140 |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | 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. | |
| MARK ANTONY | I must be gone. | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were | 145 |
| | 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 | |
| | times upon far poorer moment: I do think there is | 150 |
| | mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon | |
| | her, she hath such a celerity in dying. | |
| MARK ANTONY | She is cunning past man's thought. | |
| | Exit ALEXAS | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but | |
| | the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her | 155 |
| | 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 | |
| | shower of rain as well as Jove. | |
| MARK ANTONY | Would I had never seen her. | 160 |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece | |
| | of work; which not to have been blest withal would | |
| | have discredited your travel. | |
| MARK ANTONY | Fulvia is dead. | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Sir? | 165 |
| MARK ANTONY | Fulvia is dead. | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Fulvia! | |
| MARK ANTONY | Dead. | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When | |
| | it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man | 170 |
| | 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 | |
| | no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, | |
| | and the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned | 175 |
| | with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new | |
| | petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion | |
| | that should water this sorrow. | |
| MARK ANTONY | The business she hath broached in the state | |
| | Cannot endure my absence. | 180 |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | And the business you have broached here cannot be | |
| | without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which | |
| | wholly depends on your abode. | |
| MARK ANTONY | No more light answers. Let our officers | |
| | Have notice what we purpose. I shall break | 185 |
| | 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, | |
| | Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too | |
| | Of many our contriving friends in Rome | 190 |
| | Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius | |
| | Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands | |
| | The empire of the sea: our slippery people, | |
| | Whose love is never link'd to the deserver | |
| | Till his deserts are past, begin to throw | 195 |
| | 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 | |
| | For the main soldier: whose quality, going on, | |
| | The sides o' the world may danger: much is breeding, | 200 |
| | 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 | |
| | Our quick remove from hence. | |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | I shall do't. | 205 |
| | Exeunt | |
