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!

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.

Alexas

Show him your hand. Enter ENOBARBUS.

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.

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 fortune

Than 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, to-night, 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 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 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, 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 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'ld do't!

Enobarbus

Hush! here comes Antony.

Charmian

Not he; the queen. Enter CLEOPATRA.

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 sudden

A 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.

Cleopatra

We will not look upon him: go with us. Exeunt.Enter ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants.

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 state

Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Caesar;

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,

Upon 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 force,

Extended Asia from Euphrates;

His conquering banner shook from Syria

To 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 faults

With such full license as both truth and malice

Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,

When our quick winds lie still; and our ills told us

Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.

Messenger

At your noble pleasure. Exit.

Antony

From Sicyon, how, the news! Speak there!

First Attendant

The man from Sicyon, is there such an one?

Second Attendant

He stays upon your will.

Antony

Let him appear.

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Or lose myself in dotage. Enter another Messenger. What are you?

Second Messenger

Fulvia thy wife is dead.

Antony

Where died she?

Second Messenger

In Sicyon:

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious

Importeth thee to know, this bears. Gives a letter.

Antony

Forbear me. Exit Sec. 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 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:

Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,

My idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus! Re-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 state

cannot 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 officers

Have notice what we purpose. I shall break

The cause of our expedience to the queen,

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

Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands

The empire of the sea: our slippery people,

Whose love is never linked 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 the courser's hair, hath yet but life,

And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure,

To such whose places under us, require

Our quick remove from hence.

Enobarbus

I shall do't. Exeunt.