Another Room in Cleopatra's Palace.
 Enter, at one door, ENOBARBUS and a SOOTHSAYER, with three ROMANS;
 at another door, 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!

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.

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.

Enobarbus	Mine, and most of our fortunes, tonight 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 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 heart-breaking 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.

                             Enter CLEOPATRA.

Charmian								Not he; the queen.

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
	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.

                      Enter ANTONY with a MESSENGER.

Cleopatra	We will not look upon him. Go with us.
						   [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,
	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 flattered.

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 called 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 winds lie still, and our ills told us
	Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.

Messenger	At your noble pleasure.
													[Going.

                         Enter another MESSENGER.

Antony	From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.

Messenger	The man from Sicyon? - is there such an one?

2nd Messenger	He stays upon your will.

Antony								Let him appear.
													[Exit 1st MESSENGER.
	These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
	Or lose myself in dotage.

                 Enter another MESSENGER, with a letter.

									What are you?

3rd Messenger	Fulvia thy wife is dead.

Antony								Where died she?

3rd Messenger	In Sicyon.
	Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
	Importeth thee to know, this bears.
													[Gives a letter.

Antony										Forbear me.
													[Exeunt MESSENGERS.
	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 shoved her on.
	I must from this enchanting queen break off.
	Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
	My idleness doth hatch. Ho now, 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 crowned 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 broachd 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 linked 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.

