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, 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.—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, CHAR., IRAS, ALEX., 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 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