Antony and Cleopatra

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 Enobarbas. Enobarbas

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. Enobarbas 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 worst 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! Enobarbas Hush! here comes Antony. Charmian Not he; the queen. Enter Cleopatra. Cleopatra Saw you my lord? Enobarbas 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!

Enobarbas 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, joining 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 license 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 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 Second Messenger.
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 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 Enobarbas. Enobarbas What’s your pleasure, sir? Antony I must with haste from hence. Enobarbas 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. Enobarbas 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