Mess. Fulvia, thy wife, first came into the field.
Ant. Against my brother Lucius?

Mess. Ay:

But soon that war had end, and the time's state

Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst

Cæsar;

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy

Upon the first encounter drave them.

Ant.

Well, what worst? Mess. The nature of bad news infects the teller. Ant. 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.

(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. Antony, thou would'st say,

Mess. O, my lord!

Ant. 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 winds lie still; and our ills told us,

1 EXTENDED Asia from Euphrates ;] To extend was anciently to seize; and it is still used in this sense in law proceedings.

2 When our quick WINDS lie still;] So printed in all the old copies, and Warburton altered "winds" to minds with more plausibility than necessity. Perhaps "winds" ought to be spelt wints, which in Kent and Sussex is an agricultural term, (in other parts of the country called a bout) meaning, "two furrows ploughed by the horses going to one end of the field and back again." See Cooper's "Glossary of Provincialisms in use in the County of Sussex," 8vo. 1836; also Holloway's "General Provincial Dictionary," 8vo. 1838. quick winds," therefore, is to be understood as our productive soil. "Earing" in the next line is ploughing; a sense in which we have had it used in " Richard II." Vol. iv. p. 169, and in which it occurs again later in this drama. See p. 21.

"Our

Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
Mess. At your noble pleasure.

[Exit.

Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.

1 Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is

2 Att. He stays upon your will.

there such an one?

Let him appear.—

Ant.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Enter another Messenger.

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

Ant.

2 Mess. In Sicyon:

Where died she?

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious

Importeth thee to know, this bears.

Ant.

There's a great spirit gone.

[Giving a Letter. Forbear me.

[Exit Messenger.

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;
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.-How now! Enobarbus!

Enter ENOBARBUS.

Eno. What's your pleasure, sir?

Ant. I must with haste from hence.

We see

Eno. Why, then, we kill all our women. how mortal an unkindness is to them: if they suffer our departure, death's the word.

3 I must from this ENCHANTING queen-] It is a great error in the second folio to omit " enchanting ;" and it was not corrected in the folios 1664 or 1685, which were printed from each other. The line was therefore left imperfect until the time of Rowe.

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 moment. I do think, there is mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath 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 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.

Ant. Would I had never seen her!

Eno. O, sir! you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work, which not to have been blessed withal would have discredited your travel.

Ant. 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 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.

Ant. The business she hath broached in the state, Cannot endure my absence.

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

Ant. 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 love 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 Cæsar, 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.

Eno.

I shall do it. [Exeunt.

The cause of our EXPEDIENCE-] i. e. of our expedition. See "Henry IV.” part i. Vol. iv. p. 226, where the following lines occur :

"What yesternight our council did decree

In forwarding this dear expedience."

The parallel passage in our text is there referred to, and it is shown that Shakespeare used the words "expedience" and "expedition" indifferently.

And not a serpent's poison.] There was an old superstition that horse-hair laid in water turned to serpents. Coleridge, in his "Literary Remains,” vol. ii. p. 145, informs us that a notion of the kind still prevails in Cumberland and Westmoreland. "This," he says, "is so far true to appearance, that a horsehair laid, as Holinshed says, in a pail of water, will become the supporter of, seemingly, one worm, though probably of an immense number of small, slimy water-lice. The hair will twirl round the finger, and sensibly compress it. It is a common experiment with school-boys in Cumberland and Westmoreland."

SCENE III.

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS.

Cleo. Where is he?

Char.

I did not see him since.

Cleo. See where he is, who's with him, what he does: I did not send you.—If you find him sad,

Say, I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick quick, and return.

[Exit ALEX. Char. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly, You do not hold the method to enforce

The like from him.

Cleo.

What should I do, I do not? Char. In each thing give him way, cross him in

nothing.

Cleo. Thou teachest, like a fool, the way to lose him. Char. Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear: In time we hate that which we often fear.

Enter ANTONY.

I am sick, and sullen.

But here comes Antony.

Cleo.

Ant. I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose,— Cleo. Help me away, dear Charmian, I shall fall:

It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature

Will not sustain it.

Ant.

Now, my dearest queen,

What's the matter?

Cleo. Pray you, stand farther from me.
Ant.

Cleo. I know, by that same eye, there's some good

news.

What says the married woman?—You may go: