SCENE II. The same. Another room. Antony and Cleopatra  Shakespeare homepage  |  Antony and Cleopatra  | Act 1, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. The same. Another room. 

 Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer  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 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  DOMITIUS 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. 

 DOMITIUS 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 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! 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Hush! here comes Antony. 

 CHARMIAN  Not he; the queen. 



 Enter CLEOPATRA  CLEOPATRA  Saw you my lord? 

 DOMITIUS 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! 

 DOMITIUS 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 MARK ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants  Messenger  Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. 

 MARK 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  Well, what worst? 

 Messenger  The nature of bad news infects the teller. 

 MARK 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-- 

 MARK ANTONY  Antony, thou wouldst say,-- 

 Messenger  O, my lord! 

 MARK 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  MARK 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. 

 MARK 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. 

 MARK 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  MARK 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 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  What's your pleasure, sir? 

 MARK ANTONY  I must with haste from hence. 

 DOMITIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  I must be gone. 

 DOMITIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  She is cunning past man's thought. 



 Exit ALEXAS  DOMITIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  Would I had never seen her. 

 DOMITIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  Fulvia is dead. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Sir? 

 MARK ANTONY  Fulvia is dead. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Fulvia! 

 MARK ANTONY  Dead. 

 DOMITIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  The business she hath broached in the state 

 Cannot endure my absence. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  And the business you have broached here cannot be 

 without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which 

 wholly depends on your abode. 

 MARK 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. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  I shall do't. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Antony and Cleopatra  | Act 1, Scene 2 

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