Cleo. Nay, hear them, Antony:

Fulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows
If the scarce-bearded Cæsar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you, 'Do this, or this
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
Perform 't, or else we damn thee.'

Ant.

How, my love!

Cleo. Perchance! nay, and most like:

You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from Cæsar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where 's Fulvia's process? Cæsar's I would say? both?
Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen,
Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine
Is Cæsar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers !

Ant. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.

Cleo.

Excellent falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony

Will be himself.

Ant.

But stirr'd by Cleopatra.

:

[Embracing.

Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,
Let's not confound the time with conference harsh:
There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now. What sport to-night?

Cleo. Hear the ambassadors.

Ant.

Fie, wrangling queen

Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,

To weep; whose every passion fully strives

To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!

No messenger but thine; and all alone

To-night we 'll wander through the streets and note

The qualities of people. Come, my queen;

Last night you did desire it. Speak not to us.

[Exeunt Ant. and Cleo. with their train.

Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonius prized so slight?

Phi. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,

He comes too short of that great property

Which still should go with Antony.

Dem.

I am full sorry

That he approves the common liar, who
Thus speaks of him at Rome: but I will hope
Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy.!

SCENE II

The same. Another room.

[Exeunt.

Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer.

Char. 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!

Alex. Soothsayer!

Sooth. Your will?

Char. Is this the man? Is 't you, sir, that know things?
Sooth. In nature's infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read.

Alex.

Show him your hand.

Enter Enobarbus.

Eno. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough

Cleopatra's health to drink.

Char. Good sir, give me good fortune.

Sooth. I make not, but foresee.

Char. Pray then, foresee me one.

Sooth. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.

Char. He means in flesh.

Iras. No, you shall paint when you are old.

Char. Wrinkles forbid!

Alex. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
Char. Hush!

Sooth. You shall be more beloving than beloved.
Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.

Alex. Nay, hear him.

Char. 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 Cæsar, and companion me with my mistress.

Sooth. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
Char. O excellent! I love long life better than figs.
Sooth. You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune

Than that which is to approach.......

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

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

Char. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.

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

Char. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.

Alex. We'll know all our fortunes.

Eno. Mine and most of our fortunes to-night shall be drunk Iras. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else. [to bed. Char. E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.

Iras. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.

Char. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee, tell her but a worky-day Sooth. Your fortunes are alike.

Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars.

Sooth. I have said.

[fortune.

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she? Char. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?

Iras. Not in my husband's nose.

Char. 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 worse 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 heart-breaking to see a handsome man loosewived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!

Char. Amen.

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

Eno. Hush! here comes Antony.

Char.

Not he; the queen.

Enter Cleopatra.

Cleo. Saw you my lord ?

Eno. No, lady.

Cleo. Was he not here?

Char. No, madam.

Cleo. He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden

A Roman thought has struck him. Enobarbus !

Eno. Madam?

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

Alex. Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
Cleo. We will not look upon him: go with us.

[Exeunt.

Enter Antony with a Messenger and Attendants.

Mess. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Ant. Against my brother Lucius?

Mess. Ay:

But soon that war had end, and the time's state
Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Cæsar,

Whose better issue in the war from Italy

Upon the first encounter drave them.

Ant.

Well, what worst ?

Mess. The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Ant. 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.

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

Ant. Antony, thou wouldst say,

Mess.

O, my lord!

:

Ant. 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 license 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.

Mess. At your noble pleasure.

Ant. From Sicyon, ho, the news!

Speak there!

First Att. The man from Sicyon, is there such an one?

Sec. Att. He stays upon your will.

Ant.

Let him appear.

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

[Exit.

Or lose myself in dotage.

Enter another Messenger.

What are you?

Ant.

Sec. Mess. In Sicyon :

Where died she?

Sec. Mess. Fulvia thy wife is dead.

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

[Gives a letter.

Ant.

Forbear me. [Exit Sec. Messenger.
desire it:

There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desir
What our contempts do 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 Enobarbus.

Eno. What's your pleasure, sir?

Ant. I must with haste from hence.

Eno. 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.

Ant. I must be gone.

Eno. 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.

Ant. She is cunning past man's thought.

Eno. 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.

Ant. Would I had never seen her!

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

Ant. Fulvia is dead.

Eno. Sir?

Ant. Fulvia is dead.

Eno. Fulvia!

Ant. Dead.

Eno. 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