Char. Nay, come, tell Iras hers. Eno. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be drunk to bed. Iras. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else. Char. Even as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine. Iras. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot sooth say. Char. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear.Pr'ythee, tell her but a worky-day fortune. Sooth. Your fortunes are alike. Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars. Sooth. I have said. 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 loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded; Therefore, 7 This prognostic is alluded to in Othello: This hand is moist, my lady: This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart.' 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'd do't. Eno. Hush! here comes Antony. Char. Not he, the queen. Cleo. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden A Roman thought hath struck him.-Enobarbus,Eno. Madam. Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas? Alex. Here, madam, at your service.-My lord approaches. Enter ANTONY, with a Messenger and Attendants. Cleo. We will not look upon him: Go with us. [Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, ALEXAS, IRAS, CHARMIAN, Soothsayer, 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. 8 Drave is the ancient preterite of the verb to drive, and fre quently occurs in the Bible. Ant. What worst? Well, 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. Mess. Labienus (This is stiff9 news) hath, with his Parthian force, Extended 10 Asia from Euphrates; His conquering banner shook, from Syria Whilst Ant. Antony, thou would'st say, Mess. O, my lord! Ant. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue; 9 Stiff news' is 'hard news.' As in Shakspeare's Rape of Lucrece: 10 Fearing some hard news from the warlike band.' Extended Asia from Euphrates.' To extend is a law term for to seize. Thus in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, 1594: 'Ay, though on all the world we make extent From the south pole unto the northern bear.' So Massinger in A New Way to Pay Old Debts:— The poet has used the word in its legal signification more than once.. Thus in As You Like It : And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands.' And in Twelfth Night : This uncivil and unjust extent Plutarch tells us that Labienus was by the Parthian king made general of his troops, and had overrun Asia from Euphrates, and Syria to Lydia and Iona. Our ancient writers generally give us Euphrates instead of Euphrates. Thus Drayton, Polyolb. Song 21:— That gliding go in state, like swelling Euphrates.' Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome: Mess. At your poble pleasure. [Exit. Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there. 1 Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is there such a one? 2 Att. He stays upon your will. Ant. Let him appear,— These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Enter another Messenger. Or lose myself in dotage.-What are you? 2 Mess. In Sicyon: Where died she? Her length of sickness, with what else more serious Importeth thee to know, this bears. [Gives a letter. Ant. Forbear me.[Exit Messenger. There's a great spirit gone: Thus did I desire it: The opposite of itself12: she's good, being gone; 11 The old copy reads, 'quick winds;' an error which has occurred elsewhere. Warburton made the correction. Our quick minds' means our lively apprehensive minds; which, when they lie idle, bring forth vices instead of virtues, weeds instead of flowers and fruits; to tell us of our faults is, as it were, the first culture of the mind, and is the way to kill these weeds. 12 The pleasure of to-day, by revolution of events and change of circumstances, often loses all its value to us, and becomes tomorrow a pain.' The hand could 13 pluck her back, that shov'd her on. 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 14: 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 almanacks 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 blessed withal, would have discredited your travel. 13 Could is here used with an optative meaning. Could, would, and should are often used by our old writers, in what appears to us an indiscriminate manner, and yet appear to have been so employed rather by choice than chance. 14 i. e. for less reason, upon a weaker motive. |