The triple pillar of the world transform'd

Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much. Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd3.

Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov❜d. Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

Enter an Attendant.

Att. News, my good lord, from Rome.

Ant.

Grates me:-The sum5.

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,

2 Triple is here used for third, or one of three; one of the Triumvirs, one of the three masters of the world. To sustain the pillars of the earth is scriptural phrase. Triple is used for third in All's Well that Ends Well:

6

Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,

He bade me store up as a triple eye.'

3 So in Romeo and Juliet:

They are but beggars that can count their worth.'

And in Much Ado about Nothing:

'I were but little happy, if I could say how much.'

4 Then must you set the boundary at a distance greater than the present visible universe affords.'

5 Be brief, sum thy business in a few words.'

6 i. e. the news; which was considered plural in Shakspeare's time. See King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4, note 38.

7 Take in, it has before been observed, signifies subdue, con quer.

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-tongu'd Fulvia scolds.—The mes-
sengers.

Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch
Of the rang'd9 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,

[Embracing. And such a twain can do't, in which, I bind, On pain of punishment, the world to weet 10, 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 11 stirr'd by Cleopatra.

'Lawyers call that the pro

8 Process here means summons.

cesse by which a man is called into the court, and no more. To serve with processe is to cite, to summon.'-Minsheu.

9 The rang'd empire is the well arranged, well ordered empire. Shakspeare uses the expression again in Coriolanus:

bury all which yet distinctly ranges

In heaps and piles of ruins.'

10 To weet is to know.

11 I think that Johnson has entirely mistaken the meaning of this passage, and believe Mason's explanation nearly correct. Cleopatra means to say that Antony will act like himself,' (i. e. nobly), without regard to the mandates of Cæsar or the anger of Fulvia. To which he replies, 'But stirr'd by Cleopatra,' i. e. Add if moved to it by Cleopatra.' This is a compliment to her. Johnson was wrong in supposing but to be used here in its exceptive sense.

Now, for the love of Love 12, and her soft hours, Let's not confound 13 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.

15

Ant.
Fye, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes 14, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose
every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admir'd!
No messenger; but thine and all alone,

To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and note
The qualities of people 16. 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 priz'd 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'm full sorry,

That he approves the common liar17, who
Thus speaks of him at Rome: But I will hope
Of better deeds to-morrow.

Rest you happy!

[Exeunt.

12 That is, for the sake of the Queen of Love.' See Comedy of Errors, vol. iv. p. 162, note 9.

13 To confound the time, is to consume it, to lose it. See vol. v. p. 139, note 11.

14

Quicquid enim dicit, seu facit, omne decet.'
Marullus, lib. ii.

See Shakspeare's 150th Sonnet.

15 The folio reads, who every, &c.: corrected by Rowe. 16 Sometime also when he would goe up and down the city disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into poor mens windows and their shops, and scold and brawl with them within the house; Cleopatra would be also in a chambermaid's array, and amble up and down the streets with him.'

Life of Antonius in North's Plutarch. 17 That he proves the common liar, Fame, in his case to be a true reporter. Shakspeare usually uses approve for prove, and approof for proof.

SCENE II. The same.

Another Room.

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Sooth

sayer.

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 garlands1!

Alex. Soothsayer.

Sooth. Your will?

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

Sooth. In nature's infinite book of

A little I can read,

Alex.

secrecy,

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 drinking2.

1 The old copy reads, change his horns,' &c. A similar error of change for charge is also found in Coriolanus.

2 The liver being considered the seat of love, Charmian says she would rather heat her liver with drinking than with love's fire. A heated liver was supposed to make a pimpled face.

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 homage3: 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 *: Pr'ythee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

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

to

Char. Out, fool; I forgive thee for a witch 6.

Alex. You think, none but your sheets are privy

3 This (says Johnson) is one of Shakspeare's natural touches. Few circumstances are more flattering to the fair sex, than breeding at an advanced period of life.' Charmian wishes for a son too who may arrive at such power and dominion that the proudest and fiercest monarchs of the earth may be brought under his yoke. It should be remembered that Herod of Jewry was a favourite character in the mysteries of the old stage, and that he was always represented a fierce, haughty, blustering tyrant.

4 That is, prove bastards. Thus in the Rape of Lucrece:Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy?

And Launce, in the third act of The Two Gentlemen of Verona :That's as much as to say bastard virtues, that indeed know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.' A fairer fortune means a more serene or more prosperous fortune.

5 The old copy reads, foretel. Warburton has the merit of

the emendation.

6 This has allusion to the common proverbial saying, 'You'll never be burnt for a witch,' spoken to a silly person, who is indeed no conjuror.