SCENE II.
Another part of the palace.
Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer6 note
.
Char.
Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing
Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the
soothsayer that you prais'd so to the queen? O!
that I knew this husband, which, you say, must
7 note
change his horns with garlands.
Alex.
Soothsayer.
Sooth.
Your will?
-- 129 --
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.
Shew 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 belov'd.
8 noteChar.
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, 9 noteto whom
-- 130 --
Herod of Jewry may do homage! find me to marry
with Octavius Cæsar, and companion me with my mistress!
Sooth.
You shall out-live the lady whom you serve.
Char.
O excellent! I love long life better than
figs1 note.
Sooth.
You have seen and prov'd a fairer former fortune
Than that which is to approach.
Char.
2 note
Then, belike, my children shall have no
names: Pr'ythee, how many boys and wenches must
I have?
Sooth.
3 note
If every of your wishes had a womb,
-- 131 --
And foretel 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 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 soothsay.
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.
4 note
Char.
Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,
-- 132 --
—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-wiv'd, 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'd 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 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?
-- 133 --
Alex.
Here, at your service.—My lord approaches.
Enter Antony, with a Messenger, and Attendants.
Cleo.
We will not look upon him: Go with us.
[Exeunt.
Mes.
Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Ant.
Against my brother Lucius?
Mes.
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?
Mes.
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.
Mes.
Labienus (this is stiff news)
Hath, with his Parthian force, 5 note
extended Asia,
-- 134 --
From Euphrates his conquering banner shook,
From Syria, to Lydia, and to Ionia;
Whilst—
Ant.
Antony, thou wouldst say,—
Mes.
O my lord!
Ant.
Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue;
Name Cleopatra as she's 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,
6 note
When our quick winds lie still; 9Q0945 and our ills told us,
Is as our earing. Fare thee well a while.
Mes.
At your noble pleasure.
[Exit.
Ant.
From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.
1 Att.
The man from Sicyon.—Is there such an one?
2 Att.
He stays upon your will.
Ant.
Let him appear.—
These strong Ægyptian fetters I must break,
Enter a second Messenger.
Or lose myself in dotage.—What are you?
2 Mes.
Fulvia thy wife is dead.
Ant.
Where died she?
-- 135 --
2 Mes.
In Sicyon:
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:
What our contempts do often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; 7 note
the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
8 note
The hand could pluck her back, that shov'd 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!
-- 136 --
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
esteem'd nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least
noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty
times upon far 9 notepoorer 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; 9Q0946 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 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
-- 137 --
man from him, 1 note
it shews 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 crown'd with consolation; your old smock brings
forth a new petticoat:—and, indeed, the tears live
in an onion, that should water this sorrow2 note.
Ant.
The business she hath broached in the state,
Cannot endure my absence.
Eno.
And the business you have broach'd here
cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra's,
which wholly depends on your abode.
Ant.
No more light answers. Let our officers
Have notice what we purpose: I shall break
3 noteThe cause of our expedience to the queen,
And get her love to part 9Q0947. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with 4 notemore urgent touches,
Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
Of many our contriving friends in Rome
-- 138 --
5 notePetition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Cæsar, 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 the6 note
courser's hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison. 7 note
Say, our pleasure,
-- 139 --
To such whose place is under us, requires
Our quick remove from hence.
Eno.
I shall do't.
[Exeunt.
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
