Act I · Scene II
The same. Another room.
Hover a speech to translate it — or press play to hear it performed.
Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer
CHARMIAN
Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas,almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayerthat you praised so to the queen? O, that I knewthis husband, which, you say, must charge his hornswith garlands!
ALEXAS
Soothsayer!
Soothsayer
Your will?
CHARMIAN
Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?
Soothsayer
In nature's infinite book of secrecyA little I can read.
ALEXAS
Show him your hand.
Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enoughCleopatra's health to drink.
CHARMIAN
Good sir, give me good fortune.
Soothsayer
I make not, but foresee.
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!
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.
CHARMIAN
Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be marriedto three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all:let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewrymay do homage: find me to marry me with OctaviusCaesar, and companion me with my mistress.
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 fortuneThan that which is to approach.
CHARMIAN
Then belike my children shall have no names: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.
CHARMIAN
Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
ALEXAS
We'll know all our fortunes.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shallbe--drunk to bed.
IRAS
There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
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 fruitfulprognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee,tell her but a worky-day fortune.
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 thanI, 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 womanthat cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and lether die too, and give him a worse! and let worstfollow worse, till the worst of all follow himlaughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! GoodIsis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me amatter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!
IRAS
Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people!for, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome manloose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold afoul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keepdecorum, and fortune him accordingly!
CHARMIAN
Amen.
ALEXAS
Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me acuckold, they would make themselves whores, butthey'ld do't!
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
Hush! here comes Antony.
CHARMIAN
Not he; the queen.
Enter CLEOPATRA
CLEOPATRA
Saw you my lord?
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
No, lady.
CLEOPATRA
Was he not here?
CHARMIAN
No, madam.
CLEOPATRA
He was disposed to mirth; but on the suddenA Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
Madam?
CLEOPATRA
Seek him, and bring him hither.Where's Alexas?
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:But soon that war had end, and the time's stateMade 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?
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.
Messenger
Labienus--This is stiff news--hath, with his Parthian force,Extended Asia from Euphrates;His conquering banner shook from SyriaTo Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--
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 faultsWith such full licence as both truth and maliceHave power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,When our quick minds lie still; and our ills told usIs as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
Messenger
At your noble pleasure.
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,Or lose myself in dotage.
Enter another Messenger
MARK ANTONY
What are you?
Second Messenger
Fulvia thy wife is dead.
MARK ANTONY
Where died she?
Second Messenger
In Sicyon:Her length of sickness, with what else more seriousImporteth thee to know, this bears.
Gives a letter
MARK ANTONY
Forbear me.
Exit Second Messenger
MARK ANTONY
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:What our contempt doth often hurl from us,We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,By revolution lowering, does becomeThe 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 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: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 werepity to cast them away for nothing; though, betweenthem and a great cause, they should be esteemednothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise ofthis, dies instantly; I have seen her die twentytimes upon far poorer moment: I do think there ismettle in death, which commits some loving act uponher, 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 butthe finest part of pure love: we cannot call herwinds and waters sighs and tears; they are greaterstorms and tempests than almanacs can report: thiscannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes ashower 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 pieceof work; which not to have been blest withal wouldhave discredited your travel.
MARK ANTONY
Fulvia is dead.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
Sir?
MARK ANTONY
Fulvia is dead.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
Fulvia!
MARK ANTONY
Dead.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. Whenit pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a manfrom him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth;comforting therein, that when old robes are wornout, there are members to make new. If there wereno more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,and the case to be lamented: this grief is crownedwith consolation; your old smock brings forth a newpetticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onionthat should water this sorrow.
MARK ANTONY
The business she hath broached in the stateCannot endure my absence.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
And the business you have broached here cannot bewithout you; especially that of Cleopatra's, whichwholly depends on your abode.
MARK ANTONY
No more light answers. Let our officersHave notice what we purpose. I shall breakThe cause of our expedience to the queen,And get her leave to part. For not aloneThe death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,Do strongly speak to us; but the letters tooOf many our contriving friends in RomePetition us at home: Sextus PompeiusHath given the dare to Caesar, and commandsThe empire of the sea: our slippery people,Whose love is never link'd to the deserverTill his deserts are past, begin to throwPompey the Great and all his dignitiesUpon his son; who, high in name and power,Higher than both in blood and life, stands upFor 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,And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure,To such whose place is under us, requiresOur quick remove from hence.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
I shall do't.
Exeunt