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THYREUS,

GALLUS,

MEXECRATES, friends of Pompey.

VARRIUS,

TAURUS, lieutenant-general to Cæsar.
CANIDIUS, lieutenant-general to Antony.

SILIUS, an officer in Ventidius's army.

EUPHRONIUS, an ambassador from Antony to Cæ ar ALEXAS, MARDIAN, SELEUCUS, and DIOMEDES; attendants on Cleopatra.

A Soothsayer.

A Clown.

CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt.

OCTAVIA, sister to Cæsar, and wife to Antony.
CHARMIAN and IRAS, attendants on Cleopatra.

Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attenda.::s.

SCENE,-dispersed; in several parts of the Roman Empire.

Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn, Fulvia, perchance,

The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper;
And is become the bellows, and the fan,
To cool a gipsy's lust. Look, where they come !
Flourish. Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with their
Trains; Eunuchs fanning her.

Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Ant. There's beggary in the love that can
reckon'd.

728

Roesses
unending ove

The sum.

angry; Or, who knows
If the scarce-bearded Cæsar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you, Do this, or this;
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
Perform't, or else we damn thee.

Ant.

How, my love!
Cleo. Perchance, · - nay, and most like,
You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from Cæsar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where's Fulvia's process? Cæsar's, I would say?—
Both? -
Call in the messengers.
As I am Egypt's queen,
Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
Is Cæsar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame,
When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds. The mes-

sengers.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Care Diem absundita

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch
Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space;
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
Is, to do thus; when such a mutual pair,

[Embracing.

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
Will be himself.sociale in
But stirr'd By Cleopatra.

Ant.

Now, for the love of Love, and her soft hours,
Let's not confound the time with conference harsh:
There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now: What sport to-night'
Cleo. Hear the ambassadors.

Ant.
Fye, wrangling queen !
Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admir'd!
No messenger; but thine and all alone,
To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and

SCENE II. -The same.
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!

Alex. Soothsayer.

Sooth. Your will?

Alex. Nay, hear him.

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Char. 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 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: 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.

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.
Alexas,

Our worser thoughts heavens mend' him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I come, his fortune, his fortune. - O, let 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

Char. Is this the man? — Is't you, sir, that know cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though

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.

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 CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, ALEXAS,
IRAS, CHARMIAN, Soothsayer, and

Attendants.

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;

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; 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 almanacks can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove. 'Tis Ant. 'Would I had never seen her!

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.

thus:

(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.

Mess.

Antony, thou would'st say,

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. Fare thee well a while.

[Exit.

Mess. At your noble pleasure.
Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.
1 Att. The man from Sicyon. — Is there such an
one?

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
Where died she? Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius

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

2 Mess. In Sicyon.

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears. [Gives a letter.
Ant.
Forbear me. —
[Erit 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;
The hand could pluck her back, that shov'd her on.

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,

]