Act IScene II
Alexandria. Another Room in Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Enobarbus, a Soothsayer, Charmian, Iras, Mardian and Alexas.
Charmian
Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where’s the soothsayer that you praised so to th’ queen? O, that I knew this husband which you say must charge his horns with 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.
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 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.
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.
Enobarbus
Mine, and most of our fortunes tonight, shall be 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 fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee, tell her but workaday 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 than 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 her die too, and give him a worse, and let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave, fiftyfold 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 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!
Charmian
Amen.
Alexas
Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores but they’d do’t!
Enter Cleopatra.
Enobarbus
Hush, Here comes Antony.
Charmian
Not he, the queen.
Cleopatra
Saw you my lord?
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!
Enobarbus
Madam?
Cleopatra
Seek him and bring him hither. Where’s Alexas?
Alexas
Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
Enter Antony with a Messenger.
Cleopatra
We will not look upon him. Go with us.
Exeunt Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, Iras, Alexas and Soothsayer.
Messenger
Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Antony
Against my brother Lucius.
Messenger
Ay.But soon that war had end, and the time’s stateMade friends of them, jointing their force ’gainst Caesar,Whose better issue in the war from ItalyUpon the first encounter drave them.
Antony
Well, what worst?
Messenger
The nature of bad news infects the teller.
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 flattered.
Messenger
Labienus—This is stiff news—hath with his Parthian forceExtended Asia from EuphratesHis conquering banner shook from SyriaTo Lydia and to Ionia,Whilst—
Antony
“Antony”, thou wouldst say—
Messenger
O, my lord!
Antony
Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue.Name Cleopatra as she is called 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 weedsWhen our quick minds lie still, and our ills told usIs as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
Messenger
At your noble pleasure.
Exit Messenger.
Enter another Messenger.
Antony
From Sicyon, ho, the news? Speak there!
Second Messenger
The man from Sicyon—
Antony
Is there such a one?
Second Messenger
He stays upon your will.
Antony
Let him appear.
Exit second Messenger.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,Or lose myself in dotage.
Enter another Messenger with a letter.
What are you?
Third Messenger
Fulvia thy wife is dead.
Antony
Where died she?
Third Messenger
In Sicyon:Her length of sickness, with what else more seriousImporteth thee to know, this bears.
Gives a letter.
Antony
Forbear me.
Exit third Messenger.
There’s a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.What our contempts 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!
Enter Enobarbus.
Enobarbus
What’s your pleasure, sir?
Antony
I must with haste from hence.
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.
Antony
I must be gone.
Enobarbus
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. I do think there is mettle in death which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying.
Antony
She is cunning past man’s thought.
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 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.
Antony
Would I had never seen her!
Enobarbus
O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work, which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.
Antony
Fulvia is dead.
Enobarbus
Sir?
Antony
Fulvia is dead.
Enobarbus
Fulvia?
Antony
Dead.
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; 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 petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.
Antony
The business she hath broached in the stateCannot endure my absence.
Enobarbus
And the business you have broached here cannot be without you, especially that of Cleopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.
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 linked 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’ th’ world may danger. Much is breedingWhich, like the courser’s hair, hath yet but lifeAnd not a serpent’s poison. Say our pleasureTo such whose place is under us, requiresOur quick remove from hence.
Enobarbus
I shall do’t.
Exeunt.