ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace.

Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO.

Philo. NAY, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
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, reneges1 all temper;
And is become the bellows, and the fan,

To cool a gypsy'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

2

The triple pillar of the world transformed

Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

1 i. e. renounces. The metre would be improved by reading reneyes, or reneies, a word used by Chaucer and other of our elder writers: but we have in King Lear, renege, affirm, &c.

2 Triple is here used for third, or one of three; one of the triumvirs.

Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

Enter an Attendant.

Att. News, my good lord, from Rome.

Ant.

Grates me :-The sum.1

Cleo. Nay, hear them,2 Antony.

Fulvia, perchance, is 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.

3

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?

4

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-tongued Fulvia scolds.-The messengers.
Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space;
Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike

5

Feeds beast as man; the nobleness of life

Is, to do thus; when such a mutual pair, [Embracing. And such a twain can do't, in which, I bind,

On pain of punishment, the world to weet,

We stand up peerless.

Cleo.

Excellent falsehood!

1 "Be brief; sum thy business in a few words."

2 i. e. news was considered plural.

3 Take in, it has before been observed, signifies subdue, conquer.

4 Process here means summons.

5 The ranged empire is the well-arranged, well-ordered empire. 6 To weet is to know.

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?—
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony

Will be himself.

Ant.

But stirred by Cleopatra.

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.

3

Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes; to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger; but thine and all alone,

To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it.-Speak not to us.

[Exeunt ANT. and CLEO., with their Train.
Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonius prized 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'm full sorry,

That he approves the common liar," who
Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope

Of better deeds to-morrow.

Rest you happy!

[Exeunt.

1 "But stirred by Cleopatra," i. e. "Add, if moved to it by Cleopatra." This is a compliment to her.

2 That is, "for the sake of the queen of love."

3 The folio reads, who, every, &c.; corrected by Rowe.

4 "Sometime also when he would goe up and down the city disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into poor mens windows and their shops, and scold and brawl with them within the house; Cleopatra would be also in a chambermaid's array, and amble up and down the streets with him.”—Life of Antonius in North's Plutarch.

5 "That he proves the common liar, Fame, in his case, to be a true reporter."

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 charge his horns with garlands!

Alex. Soothsayer

Sooth. Your will?

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

Sooth. In nature's infinite book of secrecy,

A little I can read.

Alex.

Show him your hand.

Enter ENOBARBUS.

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

1 The old copy reads, "change his horns," &c. A similar error of change for charge is also found in Coriolanus.

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,

3

And fertile every wish, a million.

Char. Out, fool; I forgive thee for a witch.1

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 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?

1 Herod of Jewry was a favorite character in the mysteries of the old stage, and there he was always represented a fierce, haughty, blustering tyrant.

2 That is, prove bastards.

3 The old copy reads foretell. Warburton made the emendation.

4 This has allusion to the common proverbial saying, "You'll never be burnt for a witch."