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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,1 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!

Char. Amen.

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

Eno. Hush! Here comes Antony.

Char.

Not he; the queen.

Enter CLEOPATRA.

Cleo. Saw you my lord?

1 Isis.] Osiris and Isis were the chief deities of Egypt. They are supposed to have originally meant the sun and moon.

2 Keep decorum.] Be consistent. So in Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters (A Melancholy Man), 'His outside is framed to his inside: in that he keeps a decorum.' The phrase occurs again in the present play (p. 136).

Eno. No, lady.

Cleo. Was he not here?

Char. No, madam.

Cleo. He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden A Roman thought hath struck him.-Enobarbus,— Eno. Madam?

Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither.-Where's
Alexas?

Alex. Here, at your service.-My lord approaches.
Cleo. We will not look upon him: go with us. [Exeunt.

Enter ANTONY, with a Messenger and Attendants.

Mess. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.'
Ant. Against my brother Lucius?

Mess.

Ay:

But soon that war had end, and the time's state

Made friends of them, jointing their force2 'gainst Cæsar; Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,

Upon the first encounter, drave them.

Ant.

Well, what worst ?

Mess. The nature of bad news infects the teller.3
Ant. 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 flattered.

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(This is stiff news) hath, with his Parthian force, Extended Asia from Euphrates;

1 Fulvia thy wife, &c.]

Extracts from Plutarch, 16.

2

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Jointing their force.] So in Othello, i. 3, The Ottomites-have there injointed them with an after fleet.'

3

Infects the teller.] Makes the teller as hateful as the news.

* As.] As if.

Extended.] Made an extent or seizure of- Make an extent upon his house and lands.' As you Like it, iii. 1. ·

His conquering banner shook from Syria
To Lydia and to Ionia; whilst―

Ant. Antony, thou wouldst say,—
Mess.

O, my lord!

Ant. Speak to me home,1 mince not the general tongue; Name Cleopatra as she 's called in Rome;

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 winds lie still; 2 and our ills told us
Is as our earing!3 Fare thee well a while.

Mess. At your noble pleasure.

Ant. From Sicyon ho, the news! Speak there!

[Exit.

1 Att. The man from Sicyon,-is there such an one? 2 Att. He stays upon your will.

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Her length of sickness, with what else more serious

Importeth thee to know, this bears.

Ant.

[Gives a letter.

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Home.] Directly; straightforwardly.

2 When our quick winds, &c.] When the quick winds that carry

the report of our conduct, &c.

·8 As our caring.] Like ploughing us up.

Is dead.] Extracts from Plutarch, 17.

Forbear me.] Leave me. See p. 144, note 1.

There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempt doth often hurl from us,1
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become

3

The opposite of itself: 2 she's good, being gone;
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
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 ENOBARBUS.

Eno. What's your pleasure, sir?

Ant. I must with haste from hence.

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

1 What our contempt, &c.] What we in a slighting spirit cast away from us.

2 The opposite of itself.] The lowest part of the revolving circle, having been at first the highest.

s She's good, being gone.] I think her good, now that she is dead.

4

If they suffer.] If they incur the affliction of.

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.

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.

:

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

Let our officers

Ant. No more light answers.
Have notice what we purpose. I shall break 2

The cause of our expedience3 to the queen,

1 Makes a shower of rain, &c.] An allusion to the story of Danae. 2 Break.] Broach.

3

Expedience.] Expedition. Expedient manage must be made.' K. Richard II., i. 4.

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