Persons represented.

CULEIUS, THYREUS, GALLUS, friends to CHARMIAN,} attendants on Cleopatra.

ACT I.

Let's not confound the time with conference
harsh:
[stretch
There's not a minute of our lives should
Without some pleasure now: What sport to
Cleo. Hear the ambassadors,
[night?
Ant.
Fie, wrangling queen!
Whomevery thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every pission fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger; but thine and all alone, [note
To-night we'll wander through the streets, and
The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it: Speak not to us.
[Ex. ANT, and CLEO, with their Train.
Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonins prized so
slight?
[tony,
Phi. Sir, sometimes, when he is not An-
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Aatony.
Dem.

I'm 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.

Char. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you praised so to the queen? 0, that I knew this husband, which, you say, must change his horns with garlands!

Alex. Soothsayer.
Sooth. Your will?

[know things? Char. Is this the man?-Is't you, sir, that Sooth. In nature's infinite book of secrecy, A little I can read.

Alex.

Show him your hand.
Enter ENOBARBUS.
Eno. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine
enough, Cleopatra's health to drink.

Char. Good sir, give me good fortune.
Sooth. I make not, but foresee.

Char. Pray, then, foresee me ona.

Char. O excellent! I love long life better than figs. [former fortune Sooth. You have seen and proved a fairer Than that which is to approach.

Char. Then, belike, my children shall have no namest: Pr' ythee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

Sooth. If every of your wishes had a womb, And fertile every wish, a million.

Char. Ont, fool! I forgive thee for a witch. Alex. You think, none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.

Char. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
Alex. We'll know all our fortunes.
Env. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-
night shall be-drunk to bed.

Iras. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.

Char. Even as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.

Iras. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.

Char. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear.-Pr'ythee, tell her but a worky-day for

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

Char. Well, if you were hut an inch of for. tane better than I, where would you choose it? Iras. Not in my husband's nose.

Char. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,-come, his fortune, his fortune.-0, 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, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear ine this prayer, thongh you deny me a matter of more weight; good Iris, I beseech thee!

Iras. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! for, as it is a heart breaking to

South. You shall be yet far fairer than you see a handsome man loose-wived, so it is a

are.

deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave oncuckolded; Therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!

Char. Amen.

Shall be bastards.

An Egyptian goddess.

Alex. Here, madam, at your service.-My, The hand could pluck her back, that shoved lord approaches.

Enter ANTONY, with a Messenger and
Attendants.-

Cleo. We will not look upon him: Go with us.
[Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, ALEX-
AS, IRAS, CHARMIAN, Soothsayer, and
Attendants.

Mess. Fulvia, thy wife, first came into the
Ant. Against my brother Lucius? {field.
Mess. Ay:
[state
But soon that war had end, and the time's
Made friends of them, jointing their force
'gainst Cæsar;

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
Upon the first encounter, drave them.

Ant.
What worst?

Well, [teller. Mess. The nature of bad news infects the Ant. When it concerns the fool or coward. On: [Tis thus; Things, that are past, are done, with me.Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, 1 hear him as he flatter'd. Labienus

Mess.

(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

Ant. Autony, thou wouldst say,-
Mess.

her on.

I must from this enchanting queen break off
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills 1 kn w
My idleness doth hatch.-How now! Ene

barbas!

Enter ENOBARBUS.
Eno. What's your pleasure, sir?

Ant. I must with haste froin beuce.

Eno. 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. Ant. I must be gone.

Eno. 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 inoment: I do think, there is mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she bath such a celerity in dying.

Ant. She is cunning past man's thought. Eno. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pare love: We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacks can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.

Ant. 'Would I had never seen ber! Eno. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wouge-derful piece of work; which not to have been blessed withal, would have discredited your travel.

O, my lord! Ant. Speak to me home, mince not the neral tongue;

Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome:
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my
faults
[malice
With such full license, as both truth and
Have power to utter, O, then we bring forth
weeds,
[told us,
When our quick windst lie still; and our ills
Is as our earing t. Fare thee well a while.
Mess. At your noble pleasure. [Exit.
Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak
[such an one?
1 Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is there
2 Alt. He stays upon your will.
Ant.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Enter another Messenger.

there.

Aut. Fulvia is dead.
Eno. Sir?

Ant. Fulvia is dead.
Eno. Fulvia?

Ant. Dead.

Eno. 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 there in, 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 Let him appear,-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. [state, Ant. The business she hath broached in the Cannot endure my absence.

Or lose myself in dotage.-What are you?
2 Mess. Fulvia, thy wife, is dead.
Ant.

Where died she?
2 Mess. In Sicyon :
[serious
Her length of sickness, with what else more
Importeth thee to know, this bears.

[Gives a letter

Ant.
Forbear me.-
[Exit Messenger.
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempts do 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;

Eno. And the business you have broached here cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your

abode.

[officers Let our Ant. No more light answers. Have notice what we purpose. I shall break The cause of our expedience | to the queen, And get her love to part. For not alone The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches Do strongly speak to as; but the letters too + In some editions minds, Tilling, plowing; prepares us to produce good seed. § Waits. ¶ Leave.

• Seized.

Į Expedition.

But here comes Antony.
Cleo.
I am sick, and sullen.
Ant. I am sorry to give breathing to my
[fall;
Cleo. Help me away, dear Charmian, I shali
It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature
Will not sustain it.
Now, my dearest queen,
Cleo. Pray you, stand further from ine.
What's the matter?
Cleo. I know, by that same eye, there's
some good news.

What says the married woman?--You may go;
Would, she had never given you leave to come!
Let her not say, 'tis I that keep you here,
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
Ant. The gods best know,-
Cleo.
O, never was there queen
So mightily betray'd! Yet, at the first,
I saw the treasons planted.
Ant.

Cleopatra,--
Cleo. Why should I think, you can be mine,
[gods
Though you in swearing shake the throned

+ Look as if I did not send you.

Smack or flavour. Gate. Render my going not dangerous. The commotion she occasioned.

Mad of the river Nile.

Ant. You'll heat my blood; no more. So great weight in his lightness. If be fill'd Cleo. You can do better yet; but this is His vacancy with his voluptuousness, Ant. Now, by my sword,- [meetly. Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones, Cleo. And target,-Still he mends; Call on him for't: but to confound such time, But this is not the best: Look, pr'ythee, Char-That drums him from his sport, and speaks a How this Herculean Roman does become [mian, As his own state, and ours,--'tis to be chad lead The carriage of his chafe*. As we rate boys; who, being mature in know. ledge, [sure, Pawn their experience to their present plea And so rebel to judgment.

Ant.

I'll leave you, lady.
Cleo. Courteous lord, one word.
Sir, you and I must part,-but that's not it:
Sir, yon and I have loved,-but there's not it;
That you know well: Something it is I would,-
O, my obliviont is a very Antony,
And I am all forgotten!

Ant.
But that your royalty
Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
For idleness itself.

Cleo.

'Tis sweating labour,

To bear such idleness so near the heart
As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive ine;
Since my becomings kill me, when they do not
Eye well to you: Your honour calls you hence;
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,
And all the gods go with you! upon your sword
Sit laurell'd victory! and smooth success
Be strew'd before your feet!
Ant.

Let us go. Come;
Our separation so abides, and flies,
That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me,
And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.
Away.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV. Rome. An Apartment in

Cæsar's House.

Enter OCTAVIUS CESAR, LEPIDUS, and
Attendants.

Cas. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth
It is not Cæsar's natural vice to hate [know,
One great competitor: From Alexandria
This is the news; He fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel: is not more man-
Than Cleopatra; nor the queen Ptolemy [like
More womanly than he hardly gave audience,
[find there
Vouchsafe to think he had partners: you shall
A man, who is the abstract of all faults
That all men follow.

or

Than what he chooses.

Lep.
I must not think there are
Evils enough to darken all his goodness:
His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven,
More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary,
Rather than purchased; what he cannot
[change,
Cas. You are too indulgent: Let us grant, it
Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy; [is not;
To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;
To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
With knaves that smell of sweat: say, this be-
comes him,

(As his composure must be rare indeed,
Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet must
Antony

No way excuse his soils, when we do bear

• Heat. + Oblivious memory. Levity. ¶ Visit him.

$$ Plough.
i. e., vassals.

Lep.

Enter a Messenger.

Here's more news. Mess. Thy biddings have been done; and

every hour,

Most noble Cæsar, shalt thou have report
How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;
And it appears, he is beloved of those
That only have fear'd Cæsar: to the ports
The discontents + repair, and men's reports
Give him much wrong'd.

Bas.

I should have known no less:It hath been taught ns from the primal state, That he, which is, was wish'd, until he were; And the ebb'd man, ne'er loved, till ne'er worth

love,

[bdy,

Comes dear'd, by being lack'd. This common
Like a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,

To rot itself with motion.

Miss.
Cæsar, I bring thee word,
Menecrates and Menas, famons pirates, [wound
Make the sea serve them; which they ears and
With keels of every kind: Many hot inroads
They make in Italy; the borders maritime
Lack blood to think on't, and flush ¶¶ youth

Cas.

revolt:

No vessel can peep forth, but 'tis as soon
Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes
[more,
Than could his war resisted.
Antony, [oLce
Leave thy lascivions wassals***. When thos
Wast beaten from Modena, where thon slew'st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel (against,
Dirt famine follow; whom thou fought'st
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer: Thou didst drink
The stale ttt of horses, and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then
did deign

The ronghest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pastore sheets,
The barks of trees thon browserst; on the Alps
It is reported, thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: And all this
(It wounds thine honour, that I speak it now,)
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank'd not.

Lep.
It is pity of him.
Cas. Let his shames quickly
Drive him to Rome: 'lis time we twain (end,
Did show ourselves i the field; and, to that
Assemble we immediate council: Pompey
Thrives in our idleness.

Turn palc. ¶¶ Ruddy. *** Feastings, in the old copy it is vaissailes,