Dramatis Personae
MARK ANTONY, OCTAVIUS CAESAR, LEPIDUS } triumvirs.
SEXTUS POMPEIUS, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, VENTIDIUS, EROS, SCARUS, DERCETAS, DEMETRIUS, PHILO, friends to Antony.
MECAENAS, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, PROCULEIUS, THYREUS, GALLUS, MENAS } friends to Caesar.
MENECRATES, VARRIUS } friends to Pompey.
TAURUS lieutenant-general to Caesar.
CANIDIUS lieutenant-general to Antony.
SILIUS an officer in Ventidius’s army.
EUPHRONIUS an ambassador from Antony to Caesar.
ALEXAS, SELEUCUS, DIOMEDES } attendants on Cleopatra.
A Soothsayer.
A Clown.
CLEOPATRA queen of Egypt.
OCTAVIA sister to Caesar and wife to Antony.
CHARMIAN, IRAS } attendants on Cleopatra.
Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.
Scene: In several parts of the Roman empire.
Act 1
Scene 1
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 glow’d 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, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy’s lust.
Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her Ladies, the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her
Look, where they come:
Take but good note, and you shall see in him.
The triple pillar of the world transform’d
Into a strumpet’s fool: behold and see.
CLEOPATRA If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
MARK ANTONY There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d.
CLEOPATRA I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
MARK ANTONY Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Enter an Attendant
Attendant News, my good lord, from Rome.
MARK ANTONY Grates me: the sum.
CLEOPATRA Nay, hear them, Antony:
Fulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows
If the scarce-bearded Caesar 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.’
MARK ANTONY How, my love!
CLEOPATRA Perchance! nay, and most like:
You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where’s Fulvia’s process? Caesar’s I would say? both?
Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt’s queen,
Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
Is Caesar’s homager: else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
MARK ANTONY Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged 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
Embracing
And such a twain can do’t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.
CLEOPATRA Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I’ll seem the fool I am not; Antony
Will be himself.
MARK ANTONY But stirr’d 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 tonight?
CLEOPATRA Hear the ambassadors.
MARK ANTONY 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 MARK ANTONY and CLEOPATRA with their train
DEMETRIUS Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?
PHILO Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.
DEMETRIUS I am 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
Scene 2
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
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
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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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,
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 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
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
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
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 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 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.
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 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 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,
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
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;
Rail thou in Fulvia’s phrase; and taunt my faults
With such full licence as both truth and malice