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Alexandria. Another Room in Cleopatra’s palace.
(Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer.)
Charmian: Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything 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 prov'd a fairer former fortune /Than that which is to approach.
Charmian: Then belike my children shall have no names: pr'ythee, 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. Pr'ythee, tell her but 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, 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!
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 dispos'd 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 Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and Soothsayer.)
(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 flatter'd.
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 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 /When our quick minds lie still; and our ills told us /Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
Messenger: At your noble pleasure.
(Exit.)
Antony: From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
First Attendant: The man from Sicyonis 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 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 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, ho, 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 crown'd 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 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 the courser's hair, hath yet but life /And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure /To such whose place is under us, requires /Our quick remove from hence.
Enobarbus: I shall do't.
(Exeunt.)
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