Antony and Cleopatra

Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where’s the soothsayer that you praised so to th’ Queen? O, that I knew this husband which you say must charge his horns with garlands!

Giving her hand to the Soothsayer. Good sir, give me good fortune.

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 Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.

Then belike my children shall have no names. Prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.

Mine, and most of our fortunes tonight, shall be—drunk to bed.

Giving her hand to the Soothsayer. There’s a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.

E’en as the o’erflowing Nilus presageth famine.

Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear.—Prithee tell her but a workaday fortune.

Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?

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, fiftyfold a cuckold. Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight, good Isis, I beseech thee!

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 decorum and fortune him accordingly.

Amen.

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

Hush, here comes Antony.

Not he. The Queen.

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.

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.

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.

O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work, which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.

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.

And the business you have broached here cannot be without you, especially that of Cleopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.

Every time serves for the matter that is then born in ’t.

Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women!

Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas!—My honorable friend Agrippa!

Good Enobarbus!

We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by ’t in Egypt.

Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance and made the night light with drinking.

Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there. Is this true?

This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.

When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart upon the river of Cydnus.

There she appeared indeed, or my reporter devised well for her.

I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue. But yet hie you to Egypt again.

Aside. Thy father, Pompey, would ne’er have

At sea, I think.

We have, sir.

You have done well by water.

And you by land.

I will praise any man that will praise me, though it cannot be denied what I have done by land.

Nor what I have done by water.

Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you have been a great thief by sea.

And you by land.

There I deny my land service. But give me your hand, Menas.

All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are.

But there is never a fair woman has a true face.

No slander. They steal hearts.

We came hither to fight with you.

For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

If he do, sure he cannot weep ’t back again.

You’ve said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony here. Pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?

Caesar’s sister is called Octavia.

True, sir. She was the wife of Caius Marcellus.

But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.

Pray you, sir?

’Tis true.

Then is Caesar and he forever knit together.

If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not prophesy so.

I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage than the love of the parties.

I think so, too. But you shall find the band that seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity. Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.

Who would not have his wife so?

Not he that himself is not so, which is Mark Antony. He will to his Egyptian dish again. Then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar, and, as I said before, that which is the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is. He married but his occasion here.

And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a health for you.

I shall take it, sir. We have used our throats in Egypt.

Come, let’s away.

Here they’ll be, man. Some o’ their plants are ill-rooted already. The least wind i’ th’ world will blow them down.

Lepidus is high-colored.

They have made him drink alms-drink.

As they pinch one another by the disposition, he cries out “No more,” reconciles them to his entreaty and himself to th’ drink.

But it raises the greater war between him and his discretion.

Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan I could not heave.

To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in ’t, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks.

Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun; so is your crocodile.

I am not so well as I should be, but I’ll ne’er out.

Aside. Not till you have slept. I fear me

Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies’ pyramises are very goodly things. Without contradiction I have heard that.

It is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath breadth. It is just so high as it is, and moves with it own organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.

With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very epicure.

Thou hast served me with much faith. What’s else to say?-