Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 2
The same. Another room.
Charmian : Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas,
[p]almost most
absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer
[p]that you praised so to the
queen? O, that I knew
[p]this husband, which, you say, must charge his
horns
[p]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
[p]A little I can read.
Alexas : Show him your hand.
Domitius Enobarus : Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
[p]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
[p]to three kings
in a forenoon, and widow them all:
[p]let me have a child at fifty, to
whom Herod of Jewry
[p]may do homage: find me to marry me with
Octavius
[p]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
[p]Than that which is
to approach.
Charmian : Then belike my children shall have no names:
[p]prithee, how many boys
and wenches must I have?
Soothsayer : If every of your wishes had a womb.
[p]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 Enobarus : Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall
[p]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
[p]prognostication, I cannot
scratch mine ear. Prithee,
[p]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
[p]I, where would
you choose it?
Iras : Not in my husband's nose.
Charmian : Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,--come,
[p]his fortune, his
fortune! O, let him marry a woman
[p]that cannot go, sweet Isis, I
beseech thee! and let
[p]her die too, and give him a worse! and let
worst
[p]follow worse, till the worst of all follow him
[p]laughing to
his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good
[p]Isis, hear me this prayer,
though thou deny me a
[p]matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech
thee!
Iras : Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people!
[p]for, as it is a
heartbreaking to see a handsome man
[p]loose-wived, so it is a deadly
sorrow to behold a
[p]foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis,
keep
[p]decorum, and fortune him accordingly!
Charmian : Amen.
Alexas : Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a
[p]cuckold, they would
make themselves whores, but
[p]they'ld do't!
Domitius Enobarus : Hush! here comes Antony.
Charmian : Not he; the queen.
Cleopatra : Saw you my lord?
Domitius Enobarus : No, lady.
Cleopatra : Was he not here?
Charmian : No, madam.
Cleopatra : He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
[p]A Roman thought hath
struck him. Enobarbus!
Domitius Enobarus : Madam?
Cleopatra : Seek him, and bring him hither.
[p]Where's Alexas?
Alexas : Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
Cleopatra : We will not look upon him: go with us.
Messenger : Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Messenger : Ay:
[p]But soon that war had end, and the time's state
[p]Made friends
of them, joining their force 'gainst Caesar;
[p]Whose better issue in
the war, from Italy,
[p]Upon the first encounter, drave them.
Messenger : The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Messenger : Labienus--
[p]This is stiff news--hath, with his Parthian
force,
[p]Extended Asia from Euphrates;
[p]His conquering banner shook
from Syria
[p]To Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--
Messenger : O, my lord!
Messenger : At your noble pleasure.
First Attendant : The man from Sicyon,--is there such an one?
Second Attendant : He stays upon your will.
Second Messenger : Fulvia thy wife is dead.
Second Messenger : In Sicyon:
[p]Her length of sickness, with what else more
serious
[p]Importeth thee to know, this bears.
Domitius Enobarus : What's your pleasure, sir?
Domitius Enobarus : Why, then, we kill all our women:
[p]we see how mortal an unkindness
is to them;
[p]if they suffer our departure, death's the word.
Domitius Enobarus : Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were
[p]pity to cast
them away for nothing; though, between
[p]them and a great cause, they
should be esteemed
[p]nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise
of
[p]this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty
[p]times upon
far poorer moment: I do think there is
[p]mettle in death, which
commits some loving act upon
[p]her, she hath such a celerity in
dying.
Domitius Enobarus : Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but
[p]the finest
part of pure love: we cannot call her
[p]winds and waters sighs and
tears; they are greater
[p]storms and tempests than almanacs can
report: this
[p]cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes
a
[p]shower of rain as well as Jove.
Domitius Enobarus : O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece
[p]of work; which
not to have been blest withal would
[p]have discredited your travel.
Domitius Enobarus : Sir?
Domitius Enobarus : Fulvia!
Domitius Enobarus : Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When
[p]it pleaseth
their deities to take the wife of a man
[p]from him, it shows to man
the tailors of the earth;
[p]comforting therein, that when old robes
are worn
[p]out, there are members to make new. If there were
[p]no
more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,
[p]and the case to
be lamented: this grief is crowned
[p]with consolation; your old smock
brings forth a new
[p]petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an
onion
[p]that should water this sorrow.
Domitius Enobarus : And the business you have broached here cannot be
[p]without you;
especially that of Cleopatra's, which
[p]wholly depends on your
abode.
Domitius Enobarus : I shall do't.
Previous: Act 1 - Scene 1
Next: Act 1 - Scene 3
