Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonius priz'd so slight? Phi. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony, He comes too short of that great property Which still should go with Antony.

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? O, that I knew this husband, which, you say, must change his horns with garlands !1

Alex. Soothsayer.

Sooth. Your will?

Char. Is this the man?-Is't you, sir, that know things? 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 one.

Sooth. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.

Char. He means, in flesh.

Iras. No, you shall paint when you are old.

Char. Wrinkles forbid !

Alex. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.

Char, Hush!

Sooth. You shall be more beloving, than beloved.
Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.2
Alex. Nay, hear him.

Char. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me

[9] Fame. MAL.

[1] To change his horns with [i.e. for] garlands,' signifies to be a trium phant cuckold; a cuckold who will consider his state an honourable one. STE. [2] To know why the lady is so averse from heating her liver, it must be remembered, that a heated liver is supposed to make a pimpled face. JOHNS

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 :3 find me to marry me with Octavius Cæsar, and companion me with my mistress. Sooth. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve. Char. O excellent! I love long life better than figs. Sooth. You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune Than that which is to approach.

Char. Then, belike, my children shall have no names:4 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. Out, 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.

Eno. 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 fortune.

Sooth. Your fortunes are alike.

Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars.

Sooth. I have said.

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she? Char. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune 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.-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, fifty-fold 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

[3]. Herod paid homage to the Romans, to procure the grant of the kingdom of Judea. STEEV.

[4] A fairer fortune, I believe, means a more reputable one. Her answer then implies, that belike all her children will be bastards, who have no right to the name of their father's family. STEEV.

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 !

Char. Amen.

Alex. Lo, now! if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they'd do't.

Eno. Hush! here comes Antony.

Char. Not he, the queen.

Cleo. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden A Roman thought hath struck him.-Enobarbus,— Eno. Madam.

Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas? Alex. Here, madam, at your service.-My lord approaches.

Enter ANTONY, with a Messenger and Attendants. Cleo. We will not look upon him: Go with us. [Exeunt CLEO. ENOB. ALEX. IRAS, CHAR. Soothsayer, and Attendants, Mes. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. Ant. Against my brother Lucius ?

Mes. 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?

Mes. 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.

Mes. Labienus

(This is stiff news,) hath, with his Parthian force, Extended Asia5 from Euphrates;

His conquering banner shook, from Syria

[5]. To extend, is a term used for to seize

JOHNS.

To Lydia, and to Ionia; whilst-
Ant. Antony, thou wouldst say,-

Mes. O, my lord!

Ant. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue; Name Cleopatra as she's 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,
Is as our earing.7 Fare thee well a while.
Mes. At your noble pleasure.

[Exit.

Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there. 1 Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is there such an one? 2 Att. He stays upon your will.

Ant. Let him appear.

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Enter another Messenger.

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

Ant. Where died she?

2 Mes. In Sicyon :

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
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:8 she's good, being gone ;
The hand could pluck her back, that shov'd her on. 9
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?

[6] The sense is, that man, not agitated by censure, like soil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good. JOHNSThe ridges left in lands turned up by the plow, that they may sweeten during their fallow state,are still called wind-rows, as are also the rows of new-mown grass laid in heaps to dry. Quick winds, I suppose to be the same as teeming fallows, always fruitful in weeds. STEEV.

[71 Earing here and in other places signifies plowing. So, in Genesis xlv : "Yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest." BLACKSTONE.

[8] The pleasure of to-day, by revolution of events and change of circumstances, often loses all its value to us,and becomes to-morrow a pain. STEE. [9] The verb could has a pecaliar signification in this place; it does not denote power but inclination. The sense is, the hand that drove her off would now willingly pluck her back again." HEATH.

Ant. I must with haste from hence.

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 moment :9 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 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 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.

[9] For less reason; upon meaner motives.

JOHNS.

[The meaning is this: As the gods have been pleased to take away your wife Fulvia, so they have provided you with a new one in Cleopatra'; in like manner as the tailors of the earth,when your old garments are worn out, accommodate you with new ones.' ANON.