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 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

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 heavens mend!Alexas,-come, his fortune, his fortune.-O, let him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis,

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?

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.

Enter ANTONY, with a Messenger and Attendants. Cleo. We will not look upon him: : go with us. [Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, &c. Mess. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. Ant. Against my brother Lucius?

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

The opposite of itself. 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:
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 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 almanacks 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 shews 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 broachéd 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.

Ant. No more light answers: let our officers
Have notice what we purpose.
I shall break
The cause of our expedience to the queen,
And get her love 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 linked 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.

But bid farewell and go. When you sued staying,
Then was the time for words! No going then :
Eternity was in our lips and eyes;

Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor
But was a race of heaven. They are so still,
Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
Art turned the greatest liar.

Cleo. I would I had thy inches: thou shouldst know

There were a heart in Egypt.

The strong necessity of time commands Our services awhile; but my full heart