READ STUDY GUIDE: Act I, scenes i–iii | Act I, scenes iv–v; Act II, scenes i–ii |
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Act I, Scene ii:
Alexandria. Another Room in CLEOPATRA'S palace.
Alexandria. Another Room in CLEOPATRA'S palace.
| [Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer.] |
| CHARMIAN: |
| Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything 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 ENOBARBUS.] |
| 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 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, 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.—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., andSoothsayer.] |
| [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 dotage.— |
| [Enter another MESSENGER.] |
| What are you? |
| SECOND MESSENGER: |
| Fulvia thy wife is dead. |
| 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.] |
| ANTONY: |
| Forbear me. |
| [Exit 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 |
| The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone; |
| The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on. |
| I must from this enchanting queen break off: |
| Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know, |
| My idleness doth hatch—ho, Enobarbus! |
| [Re-enter ENOBARBUS.] |
| ENOBARBUS: |
| What's your pleasure, sir? |
| ANTONY: |
| I must with haste from hence. |
| 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. |
| ANTONY: |
| I must be gone. |
| 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. |
| ANTONY: |
| She is cunning past man's thought. |
| 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. |
| ANTONY: |
| Would I had never seen her! |
| 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. |
| ANTONY: |
| Fulvia is dead. |
| ENOBARBUS: |
| Sir? |
| ANTONY: |
| Fulvia is dead. |
| ENOBARBUS: |
| Fulvia? |
| ANTONY: |
| Dead. |
| 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 crown'd with consolation; your old |
| smock brings forth a new petticoat:—and, indeed, the tears live |
| in an onion that should water this sorrow. |
| ANTONY: |
| The business she hath broached in the state |
| Cannot endure my absence. |
| ENOBARBUS: |
| And the business you have broached here cannot be without you; |
| especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your |
| abode. |
| 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. |
| ENOBARBUS: |
| I shall do't. |
| [Exeunt.] |
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