TPTT The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra: ACT I
Introduction
ACT I
SCENE I. Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA's palace.
SCENE II. The same. Another room.
SCENE III. The same. Another room.
SCENE IV. Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house.
SCENE V. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace.
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE II. The same. Another room.
Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer
CHARMIAN
      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 charge his horns
5     with garlands!
ALEXAS
      Soothsayer!
Soothsayer
      Your will?
CHARMIAN
      Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?
Soothsayer
      In nature's infinite book of secrecy
10    A little I can read.
ALEXAS
      Show him your hand.
Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
      Cleopatra's health to drink.
CHARMIAN
      Good sir, give me good fortune.
Soothsayer
15    I make not, but foresee.
CHARMIAN
      Pray, then, foresee me one.
Soothsayer
      You shall be yet far fairer than you are.
CHARMIAN
      He means in flesh.
IRAS
      No, you shall paint when you are old.
CHARMIAN
20    Wrinkles forbid!
ALEXAS
      Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
CHARMIAN
      Hush!
Soothsayer
      You shall be more beloving than beloved.
CHARMIAN
      I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
ALEXAS
25    Nay, hear him.
CHARMIAN
      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
30    Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.
Soothsayer
      You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
CHARMIAN
      O excellent! I love long life better than figs.
Soothsayer
      You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
      Than that which is to approach.
CHARMIAN
35    Then belike my children shall have no names:
      prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?
Soothsayer
      If every of your wishes had a womb.
      And fertile every wish, a million.
CHARMIAN
      Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
ALEXAS
40    You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.
CHARMIAN
      Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
ALEXAS
      We'll know all our fortunes.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall
      be--drunk to bed.
IRAS
45    There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
CHARMIAN
      E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.
IRAS
      Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.
CHARMIAN
      Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful
      prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee,
50    tell her but a worky-day fortune.
Soothsayer
      Your fortunes are alike.
IRAS
      But how, but how? give me particulars.
Soothsayer
      I have said.
IRAS
      Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?
CHARMIAN
55    Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than
      I, where would you choose it?
IRAS
      Not in my husband's nose.
CHARMIAN
      Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,--come,
      his fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman
60    that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and let
      her die too, and give him a worse! and let worst
      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
65    matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!
IRAS
      Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people!
      for, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man
      loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a
      foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep
70    decorum, and fortune him accordingly!
CHARMIAN
      Amen.
ALEXAS
      Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a
      cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but
      they'ld do't!
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
75    Hush! here comes Antony.
CHARMIAN
      Not he; the queen.
Enter CLEOPATRA
CLEOPATRA
      Saw you my lord?
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      No, lady.
CLEOPATRA
      Was he not here?
CHARMIAN
80    No, madam.
CLEOPATRA
      He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
      A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Madam?
CLEOPATRA
      Seek him, and bring him hither.
85    Where's Alexas?
ALEXAS
      Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
CLEOPATRA
      We will not look upon him: go with us.
Exeunt
Enter MARK ANTONY with a Messenger and Attendants
Messenger
      Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
MARK ANTONY
      Against my brother Lucius?
Messenger
90    Ay:
      But soon that war had end, and the time's state
      Made friends of them, joining their force 'gainst Caesar;
      Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
      Upon the first encounter, drave them.
MARK ANTONY
95    Well, what worst?
Messenger
      The nature of bad news infects the teller.
MARK ANTONY
      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,
100   I hear him as he flatter'd.
Messenger
      Labienus--
      This is stiff news--hath, with his Parthian force,
      Extended Asia from Euphrates;
      His conquering banner shook from Syria
105   To Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--
MARK ANTONY
      Antony, thou wouldst say,--
Messenger
      O, my lord!
MARK ANTONY
      Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue:
      Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;
110   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 minds lie still; and our ills told us
      Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
Messenger
115   At your noble pleasure.
Exit
MARK ANTONY
      From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
First Attendant
      The man from Sicyon,--is there such an one?
Second Attendant
      He stays upon your will.
MARK ANTONY
      Let him appear.
120   These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
      Or lose myself in dotage.

Enter another Messenger

      What are you?
Second Messenger
      Fulvia thy wife is dead.
MARK ANTONY
      Where died she?
Second Messenger
125   In Sicyon:
      Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
      Importeth thee to know, this bears.
Gives a letter
MARK ANTONY
      Forbear me.

Exit Second Messenger

      There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
130   What our contempt doth 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 shoved her on.
135   I must from this enchanting queen break off:
      Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
      My idleness doth hatch. How now! Enobarbus!
Re-enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      What's your pleasure, sir?
MARK ANTONY
      I must with haste from hence.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
140   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.
MARK ANTONY
      I must be gone.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Under a compelling occasion, let women die; it were
145   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
150   mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon
      her, she hath such a celerity in dying.
MARK ANTONY
      She is cunning past man's thought.
Exit ALEXAS
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but
      the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her
155   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.
MARK ANTONY
      Would I had never seen her.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
160   O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece
      of work; which not to have been blest withal would
      have discredited your travel.
MARK ANTONY
      Fulvia is dead.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Sir?
MARK ANTONY
165   Fulvia is dead.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Fulvia!
MARK ANTONY
      Dead.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When
      it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man
170   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
175   with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new
      petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion
      that should water this sorrow.
MARK ANTONY
      The business she hath broached in the state
      Cannot endure my absence.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
180   And the business you have broached here cannot be
      without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which
      wholly depends on your abode.
MARK ANTONY
      No more light answers. Let our officers
      Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
185   The cause of our expedience to the queen,
      And get her leave 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
190   Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
      Hath given the dare to Caesar, 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
195   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,
200   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.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
      I shall do't.
Exeunt
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