| ACT I SCENE II | 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! | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| ALEXAS | Show him your hand. |
| [Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS] |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | 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. | 15 |
| 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! | 20 |
| 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. | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| 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: | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| CHARMIAN | Nay, come, tell Iras hers. |
| ALEXAS | We'll know all our fortunes. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall |
| be--drunk to bed. |
| IRAS | There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else. | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| 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 | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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! | 65 |
| 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! | 70 |
| 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 ENOBARBUS | Hush! here comes Antony. | 75 |
| CHARMIAN | Not he; the queen. |
| [Enter CLEOPATRA] |
| CLEOPATRA | Saw you my lord? |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | No, lady. |
| CLEOPATRA | Was he not here? |
| CHARMIAN | No, madam. | 80 |
| CLEOPATRA | He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden |
| A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus! |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Madam? |
| CLEOPATRA | Seek him, and bring him hither. |
| Where's Alexas? | 85 |
| 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. |
| MARK ANTONY | Against my brother Lucius? |
| Messenger | Ay: | 90 |
| 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. |
| MARK ANTONY | Well, what worst? | 95 |
| Messenger | The nature of bad news infects the teller. |
| MARK 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. | 100 |
| 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-- | 105 |
| MARK ANTONY | Antony, thou wouldst say,-- |
| Messenger | O, my lord! |
| MARK 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 | 110 |
| 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. | 115 |
| [Exit] |
| MARK 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. |
| MARK ANTONY | Let him appear. |
| These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, | 120 |
| Or lose myself in dotage. |
[Enter another Messenger] |
| What are you? |
| Second Messenger | Fulvia thy wife is dead. |
| MARK ANTONY | Where died she? |
| Second Messenger | In Sicyon: | 125 |
| Her length of sickness, with what else more serious |
| Importeth thee to know, this bears. |
| [Gives a letter] |
| MARK 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, | 130 |
| 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: | 135 |
| Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know, |
| My idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus! |
| [Re-enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS] |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | What's your pleasure, sir? |
| MARK ANTONY | I must with haste from hence. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Why, then, we kill all our women: | 140 |
| we see how mortal an unkindness is to them; |
| if they suffer our departure, death's the word. |
| MARK ANTONY | I must be gone. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were |
| pity to cast them away for nothing; though, between | 145 |
| 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 | 150 |
| her, she hath such a celerity in dying. |
| MARK ANTONY | She is cunning past man's thought. |
| [Exit ALEXAS] |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | 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 | 155 |
| 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. |
| MARK ANTONY | Would I had never seen her. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece | 160 |
| of work; which not to have been blest withal would |
| have discredited your travel. |
| MARK ANTONY | Fulvia is dead. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Sir? |
| MARK ANTONY | Fulvia is dead. | 165 |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | Fulvia! |
| MARK ANTONY | Dead. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | 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; | 170 |
| 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 | 175 |
| petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion |
| that should water this sorrow. |
| MARK ANTONY | The business she hath broached in the state |
| Cannot endure my absence. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | And the business you have broached here cannot be | 180 |
| without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which |
| wholly depends on your abode. |
| MARK ANTONY | No more light answers. Let our officers |
| Have notice what we purpose. I shall break |
| The cause of our expedience to the queen, | 185 |
| 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 | 190 |
| 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 | 195 |
| 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, | 200 |
| And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure, |
| To such whose place is under us, requires |
| Our quick remove from hence. |
| DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS | I shall do't. |
| [Exeunt] |
Plutarch's Influence on Shakespeare and Other Writers of the Sixteenth Century