Act I, Scene 2

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 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 A little I can read.

Alexas - Show him your hand.

[Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS]

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

Charmian - Good sir, give me good fortune.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 Enobarus - 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 Enobarus - Hush! here comes Antony

Charmian - Not he; the queen.

[Enter CLEOPATRA]

Cleopatra - Saw you my lord?

Domitius Enobarus - 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 Enobarus - 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.

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.

Antony -  Well, what worst?

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: 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—

Antony -  Antony, thou wouldst say,—

Messenger -  O, my lord!

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]

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.

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.

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]

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 Enobarus - What's your pleasure, sir?

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.

Antony -  I must be gone.

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 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 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.

Antony -  Fulvia is dead.

Domitius Enobarus - Sir?

Antony -  Fulvia is dead.

Domitius Enobarus - Fulvia!

Antony -  Dead.

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 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.

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.

Antony -  No more light answers. Let our officers The cause of our expedience to the queen, And get her leave to part. For not alone Have notice what we purpose. I shall break 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.

Domitius Enobarus - I shall do't.

[Exeunt]