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 tonight?

CLEO. Hear the ambassadors.

ANT. Fie, wrangling queen! Whom everything 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 note

The qualities of people.(1) Come, my queen; Last night you did desire it.-Speak not to us.

[Exeunt ANT. and CLEOP., with their Train. 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 am full sorry

ANT. 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 ?

C

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
[gers!
When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds.-The messen-
ANT. Let Rome in Tiber 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,

SCENE II.-The same.

Palace.

[Exeunt.

Another Room in the

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer.

CHAR. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything 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 things?

(*) First folio, who.

and Alexas." And Steevens thought it possible that "Lamprius, Rannius, Lucillius," &c. might have been speakers in the scene as it was originally written by the poet, who afterwards, when omitting the speeches, forgot to erase the names.

f change his horns with garlands!] So the old text: to "change his horns," may mean to var or garnish them. The modern reading, however, of charge, suggested by Southern and Warburton, is certainly very plausible.

a I love long life better than figs.] This was a proverbial saying. bmy children shall have no names :] That is, be illegitimate.

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 prov'd 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.

c And fertile every wish,-] A correction of Theobald or War burton. The old copy has, "And foretel," &c

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. E'en 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 heaven 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 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!

ANT. Speak to me home, mince not the general

tongue;

faults

Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome;
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my
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,

d

Is as our earing! Fare thee well a while. MESS. At your noble pleasure.

[Exit.

ANT. From Sicyon ho, the news! Speak

there!

1 ATT. The man from Sicyon,-is there such an one?

(*) Old text, how.

to, "When our quick minds," &c. perhaps without necessity. "Quick winds" may mean, quickening winds; and Johnson's explanation of the passage,-"that man, not agitated by censure. like soil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good," is possibly the true one. dearing!] Ploughing.

Let him appear.These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Or lose myself in dotage.

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: 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.

(*) Old text inserts, an.

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.

a

I shall break

ENO. And the business you have broached here
cannot be without you; especially that of Cleo-
patra's, which wholly depends on your abode.
ANT. No more light answers. Let our officers
Have notice what we purpose.
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
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.

b Which, like the courser's hair, &c.] An allusion to the vulgar superstition that a horse hair left in water or dung became a living serpent.

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 ALKX. 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; d

What says the married woman?—You may go:
Would she had never given you leave to come!
Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here,—
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
ANT. The gods best know,-
CLEO.

O, never was there queen
So mightily betray'd! yet at the first
I saw the treasons planted.

ANT.

Cleopatra,―

CLEO. Why should I think you can be mine

and true,

Though you in swearing shake the throned gods, Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,

To be entangled with those mouth-made vows, Which break themselves in swearing!

ANT.

Most sweet queen,— CLEO. Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your

going,

But bid farewell, and go: when you su'd staying,