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 ! Alex. Soothsayer.

Sooth. Your will?

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

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. Alex. Nay, hear him.

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: 9 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 prog

1

nostication, 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, bear 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! 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 quee n.

Eno.

No, lady.

Cleo.

Char. No, madam.

Was he not here?

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?

approaches.

Alex. Here, madam, at your service. My lord

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 At-
tendants.

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.

What Worst?

Well,

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.

1

(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'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. 4 Fare thee well a while.

Mess. At your noble pleasure.

[Exit.

Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.

1 Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is there such an

Or lose myself in dotage. What are you?

2 Mess. Fulvia thy wife is dead.

Ant.

2 Mess. In Sicyon:

2 Seized.

Where died she?

3 In some editions minds.

+ Tilling, plowing; prepares us to produce good seed.

$ Waits.