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. ALEXAS We'll know all our fortunes. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be--drunk to bed. 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, 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? 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 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 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 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! 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? 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.
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? 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. 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, 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 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;
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. 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.
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? 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:
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.
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. 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 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 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 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. 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? MARK ANTONY Fulvia is dead. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Fulvia! MARK ANTONY Dead. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice.
