ACT III
SCENE I. A PLAIN IN SYRIA.
SCENE II. ROME. AN ANTE-CHAMBER IN OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S HOUSE.
SCENE III. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.
SCENE IV. ATHENS. A ROOM IN MARK ANTONY’S HOUSE.
SCENE V. THE SAME. ANOTHER ROOM.
SCENE VI. ROME. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S HOUSE.
SCENE VII. NEAR ACTIUM. MARK ANTONY’S CAMP.
SCENE VIII. A PLAIN NEAR ACTIUM.
SCENE IX. ANOTHER PART OF THE PLAIN.
SCENE X. ANOTHER PART OF THE PLAIN.
SCENE XI. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.
SCENE XII. EGYPT. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S CAMP.
SCENE XIII. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.
ACT IV
SCENE I. BEFORE ALEXANDRIA. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S CAMP.
SCENE II. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.
SCENE III. THE SAME. BEFORE THE PALACE.
SCENE IV. THE SAME. A ROOM IN THE PALACE.
SCENE V. ALEXANDRIA. MARK ANTONY’S CAMP.
SCENE VI. ALEXANDRIA. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S CAMP.
SCENE VII. FIELD OF BATTLE BETWEEN THE CAMPS.
SCENE VIII. UNDER THE WALLS OF ALEXANDRIA.
SCENE IX. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S CAMP.
SCENE X. BETWEEN THE TWO CAMPS.
SCENE XI. ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME.
SCENE XII. ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME.
SCENE XIII. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.
SCENE XIV. THE SAME. ANOTHER ROOM.
SCENE XV. THE SAME. A MONUMENT.
ACT V
SCENE I. ALEXANDRIA. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S CAMP.
SCENE II. ALEXANDRIA. A ROOM IN THE MONUMENT.
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
MARK ANTONY, OCTAVIUS CAESAR and LEPIDUS, triumvirs.
SEXTUS POMPEIUS (POMPEY)
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, VENTIDIUS, EROS, SCARUS, DERCETAS, DEMETRIUS, PHILO, friends to Antony.
MECAENAS, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, PROCULEIUS, THYREUS, GALLUS, MENAS, friends to Caesar.
MENECRATES, VARRIUS, friends to Pompey.
TAURUS, lieutenant-general to Caesar.
CANIDIUS, lieutenant-general to Antony.
SILIUS, an officer in Ventidius's army.
EUPHRONIUS, an ambassador from Antony to Caesar.
ALEXAS, SELEUCUS, DIOMEDES, attendants on Cleopatra.
MARDIAN, a Eunuch.
A SOOTHSAYER.
A CLOWN.
CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt.
OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony.
CHARMIAN and IRAS, attendants on Cleopatra.
Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.
Scene: In several parts of the Roman empire.
ACT I
SCENE I. ALEXANDRIA. A ROOM IN CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.
Enter Demetrius and Philo
Philo
Nay, but this dotage of our general’s
O’erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o’er the files and musters of the war
Have glow’d like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
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, the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her
Look, where they come:
Take but good note, and you shall see in him.
The triple pillar of the world transform’d
Into a strumpet’s fool: behold and see.
Cleopatra
If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Mark Antony
There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d.
Cleopatra
I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
Mark Antony
Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Enter an Attendant
Attendant
News, my good lord, from Rome.
Mark Antony
Grates me: the sum.
Cleopatra
Nay, hear them, Antony:
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.’
Mark Antony
How, my love!
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,
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!
Mark Antony
Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
Embracing
And such a twain can do’t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
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.
Mark Antony
But stirr’d by Cleopatra.
Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,
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.
Mark Antony
Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger, but thine; and all alone
To-night we’ll wander through the streets and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it: speak not to us.
Exeunt Mark Antony and Cleopatra with their 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
That he approves the common liar, who
Thus speaks of him at Rome: but I will hope
Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!
Exeunt
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?
&nb
sp; 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
Complete Plays, The Page 125