The office and devotion of their view
5
Upon a tawny front. His captain’s heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy’s lust.
Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her ladies
CHARMIAN and IRAS, the train, with eunuchs fanning her.
Look where they come!
10
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transformed
Into a strumpet’s fool. Behold and see.
CLEOPATRA If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
ANTONY
There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
15
CLEOPATRA I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
ANTONY
Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new
earth.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER News, my good lord, from Rome.
ANTONY Grates me! The sum.
CLEOPATRA Nay, hear them, Antony.
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Fulvia perchance is angry, or who knows
If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you: ‘Do this, or this;
Take in that kingdom and enfranchise that.
Perform’t, or else we damn thee.’
ANTONY How, my love?
25
CLEOPATRA Perchance? Nay, and most like.
You must not stay here longer; your dismission
Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where’s Fulvia’s process? – Caesar’s, I would say.
Both?
Call in the messengers! As I am Egypt’s Queen,
30
Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine
Is Caesar’s homager; else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
ANTONY Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space!
35
Kingdoms are clay! Our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus, when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do’t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
40
We stand up peerless.
CLEOPATRA Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia and not love her?
I’ll seem the fool I am not. Antony
Will be himself.
ANTONY But stirred by Cleopatra.
Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,
45
Let’s not confound the time with conference harsh.
There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?
CLEOPATRA Hear the ambassadors.
ANTONY Fie, wrangling queen,
Whom everything becomes – to chide, to laugh,
50
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger but thine, and all alone
Tonight we’ll wander through the streets and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen!
55
Last night you did desire it. [to the Messenger] Speak
not to us.
Exeunt Antony and Cleopatra with the train.
DEMETRIUS Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?
PHILO Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.
DEMETRIUS I am full sorry
60
That he approves the common liar who
Thus speaks of him at Rome, but I will hope
Of better deeds tomorrow. Rest you happy! Exeunt.
1.2 Enter ENOBARBUS and other Roman officers, a Soothsayer, CHARMIAN, IRAS, MARDIAN the Eunuch and ALEXAS.
CHARMIAN Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything
Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where’s the
soothsayer that you praised so to th’ Queen? O, that I
knew this husband which you say must charge his
horns with garlands!
5
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
10
A little I can read.
ALEXAS Show him your hand.
ENOBARBUS
Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
Cleopatra’s health to drink.
Enter servants with wine and other refreshments and exeunt.
CHARMIAN [Gives her hand to the Soothsayer.] Good sir,
give me good fortune.
15
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.
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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.
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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
30
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.
35
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.
40
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,
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shall be drunk to bed.
IRAS [Holds out her hand.] There’s a palm presages
chastity, if nothing else.
CHARMIAN E’en as the o’erflowing Nilus presageth
famine.
50
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 workaday fortune.
SOOTHSAYER Your fortunes are alike.
55
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?
60
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 the
e, and
let her die too, and give him a worse, and let worse
65
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
70
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.
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ALEXAS Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a
cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but
they’d do’t.
Enter CLEOPATRA.
ENOBARBUS Hush, here comes Antony.
CHARMIAN Not he, the Queen.
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CLEOPATRA Saw you my lord?
ENOBARBUS No, lady.
CLEOPATRA Was he not here?
CHARMIAN No, madam.
CLEOPATRA
He was disposed to mirth, but on the sudden
85
A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
ENOBARBUS Madam?
CLEOPATRA
Seek him and bring him hither. Exit Enobarbus.
Where’s Alexas?
ALEXAS Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
Enter ANTONY with a Messenger.
CLEOPATRA We will not look upon him. Go with us.
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Exeunt all but Antony and Messenger.
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,
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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!
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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 flattered.
MESSENGER Labienus –
This is stiff news – hath with his Parthian force
Extended Asia. From Euphrates
105
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 called in Rome;
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Rail thou in Fulvia’s phrase, and taunt my faults
With such full licence as both truth and malice
Have power to utter. Oh, then we bring forth weeds
When our quick minds lie still, and our ills told us
Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
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MESSENGER At your noble pleasure. Exit Messenger.
Enter another Messenger.
ANTONY From Sicyon how the news? Speak there!
2 MESSENGER The man from Sicyon –
ANTONY Is there such a one?
2 MESSENGER He stays upon your will.
ANTONY Let him appear.
Exit Second Messenger.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
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Or lose myself in dotage.
Enter another Messenger with a letter.
What are you?
MESSENGER Fulvia thy wife is dead.
ANTONY Where died she?
3 MESSENGER In Sicyon.
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
125
Importeth thee to know, this bears.
[Gives him the letter.]
ANTONY Forbear me.
Exit Third 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
130
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.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 46