Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

Act I, Scene II

The same. Another room.

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer

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
with garlands!

Soothsayer!

Your will?

Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?

In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.

Show him your hand.

Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
Cleopatra's health to drink.

Good sir, give me good fortune.

I make not, but foresee.

Pray, then, foresee me one.

You shall be yet far fairer than you are.

He means in flesh.

No, you shall paint when you are old.

Wrinkles forbid!

Vex not his prescience; be attentive.

Hush!

You shall be more beloving than beloved.

I had rather heat my liver with drinking.

Nay, hear him.

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
Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.

You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.

O excellent! I love long life better than figs.

You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
Than that which is to approach.

Then belike my children shall have no names:
prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

If every of your wishes had a womb.
And fertile every wish, a million.

Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.

You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.

Nay, come, tell Iras hers.

We'll know all our fortunes.

Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall
be—drunk to bed.

There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.

E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.

Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.

Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful
prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee,
tell her but a worky-day fortune.

Your fortunes are alike.

But how, but how? give me particulars.

I have said.

Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than
I, where would you choose it?

Not in my husband's nose.

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!

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!

Amen.

Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a
cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but
they'ld do't!

Hush! here comes Antony.

Not he; the queen.

Enter CLEOPATRA

Saw you my lord?

No, lady.

Was he not here?

No, madam.

He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!

Madam?

Seek him, and bring him hither.
Where's Alexas?

Here, at your service. My lord approaches.

We will not look upon him: go with us.

Exeunt

Enter MARK ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants

Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.

Against my brother Lucius?

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.

Well, what worst?

The nature of bad news infects the teller.

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.

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—

Antony, thou wouldst say,—

O, my lord!

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.

At your noble pleasure.

Exit

From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!

The man from Sicyon,—is there such an one?

He stays upon your will.

Let him appear.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.

Enter another Messenger

What are you?

Fulvia thy wife is dead.

Where died she?

In Sicyon:
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears.

Gives a letter

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

What's your pleasure, sir?

I must with haste from hence.

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.

I must be gone.

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.

She is cunning past man's thought.

Exit ALEXAS

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.

Would I had never seen her.

O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece
of work; which not to have been blest withal would
have discredited your travel.

Fulvia is dead.

Sir?

Fulvia is dead.

Fulvia!

Dead.

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
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.

The business she hath broached in the state
Cannot endure my absence.

And the business you have broached here cannot be
without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which
wholly depends on your abode.

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,
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,
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
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
Our quick remove from hence.

I shall do't.

Exeunt

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