ARKCODEX
Act I, Scene 2
1The same. Another room.
2Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer.
3CharmianLord 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!
4AlexasSoothsayer!
5SoothsayerYour will?
6CharmianIs this the man? Is’t you, sir, that know things?
7SoothsayerIn nature’s infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
8AlexasShow him your hand.
9Enter Enobarbas.
10EnobarbasBring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
Cleopatra’s health to drink.
11CharmianGood sir, give me good fortune.
12SoothsayerI make not, but foresee.
13CharmianPray, then, foresee me one.
14SoothsayerYou shall be yet far fairer than you are.
15CharmianHe means in flesh.
16IrasNo, you shall paint when you are old.
17CharmianWrinkles forbid!
18AlexasVex not his prescience; be attentive.
19CharmianHush!
20SoothsayerYou shall be more beloving than beloved.
21CharmianI had rather heat my liver with drinking.
22AlexasNay, hear him.
23CharmianGood 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.
24SoothsayerYou shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
25CharmianO excellent! I love long life better than figs.
26SoothsayerYou have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
Than that which is to approach.
27CharmianThen belike my children shall have no names: prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?
28SoothsayerIf every of your wishes had a womb,
And fertile every wish, a million.
29CharmianOut, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
30AlexasYou think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.
31CharmianNay, come, tell Iras hers.
32AlexasWe’ll know all our fortunes.
33EnobarbasMine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be—drunk to bed.
34IrasThere’s a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
35CharmianE’en as the o’erflowing Nilus presageth famine.
36IrasGo, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.
37CharmianNay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee, tell her but a worky-day fortune.
38SoothsayerYour fortunes are alike.
39IrasBut how, but how? give me particulars.
40SoothsayerI have said.
41IrasAm I not an inch of fortune better than she?
42CharmianWell, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?
43IrasNot in my husband’s nose.
44CharmianOur 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!
45IrasAmen. 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!
46CharmianAmen.
47AlexasLo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they’ld do’t!
48EnobarbasHush! here comes Antony.
49CharmianNot he; the queen.
50Enter Cleopatra.
51CleopatraSaw you my lord?
52EnobarbasNo, lady.
53CleopatraWas he not here?
54CharmianNo, madam.
55CleopatraHe was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
56EnobarbasMadam?
57CleopatraSeek him, and bring him hither. Where’s Alexas?
58AlexasHere, at your service. My lord approaches.
59CleopatraWe will not look upon him: go with us. Exeunt.
60Enter Antony with a Messenger and Attendants.
61MessengerFulvia thy wife first came into the field.
62AntonyAgainst my brother Lucius?
63MessengerAy:
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.
64AntonyWell, what worst?
65MessengerThe nature of bad news infects the teller.
66AntonyWhen 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.
67MessengerLabienus—
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—
68AntonyAntony, thou wouldst say—
69MessengerO, my lord!
70AntonySpeak 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.
71MessengerAt your noble pleasure. Exit.
72AntonyFrom Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
73First AttendantThe man from Sicyon—is there such an one?
74Second AttendantHe stays upon your will.
75AntonyLet him appear.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.
76Enter another Messenger.
77What are you?
78Second MessengerFulvia thy wife is dead.
79AntonyWhere died she?
80Second MessengerIn Sicyon:
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears. Gives a letter.
81AntonyForbear 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!
82Reenter Enobarbas.
83EnobarbasWhat’s your pleasure, sir?
84AntonyI must with haste from hence.
85EnobarbasWhy, then, we kill all our women: we see how mortal an unkindness is to them; if they suffer our departure, death’s the word.
86AntonyI must be gone.
87EnobarbasUnder 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.
88AntonyShe is cunning past man’s thought.
89EnobarbasAlack, 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.
90AntonyWould I had never seen her!
91EnobarbasO, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work; which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.
92AntonyFulvia is dead.
93EnobarbasSir?
94AntonyFulvia is dead.
95EnobarbasFulvia!
96AntonyDead.
97EnobarbasWhy, 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.
98AntonyThe business she hath broached in the state
Cannot endure my absence.
99EnobarbasAnd the business you have broached here cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.
100AntonyNo 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.
101EnobarbasI shall do’t. Exeunt.