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.
Cleo. Nay, hear them, 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.”
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 ? 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-tongu'd Fulvia scolds.—The messengers !

Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt, and the wide arch
Of the rang’d 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.
Cleo.

Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her ?-

? Of the rang's empire fall!] The folio, 1623, prints the word raing’d, and so it stands in the three other folios ; though Johnson would lead us to suppose that “the later editions" altered the word to rais’d.

the world to WEET,] i. e. to uit or to know.

3

I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
Will be himself.

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 to-night?

Cleo. Hear the ambassadors.
Ant.

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 admir'd.
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 CLEOP. with their Train. Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonius priz’d 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 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 II.

The Same. Another Room.

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer. Char. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing

WHOSE every passion fully strives] The folio, 1623, has who for “whose,” the change having been made in the folio, 1632, and not left until Rowe's time, as Malone asserts, apparently without having examined any of the three later folios. Steevens, who was so warm an advocate for the accuracy of the second folio, never detected Malone's mistake.

Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you praised so to the queen? O! that

0 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 belov'd.
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.

5

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

Pr’ythee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

Sooth. If every of your wishes had a womb,
And fertile every wisho, a million.

Char. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
Alex. You think, none but your sheets are privy to

names.

a

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?

Iras. Not in my husband's nose. Char. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas, -come, his fortune?, his fortune.-0! let him marry a

6 And FERTILE every wish,] The old copies read “foretell every wish :” the happy, but easy, correction was made by Warburton.

ALEXAS,-come, his fortune,] The printer of the folio, 1623, mistaking

7

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, 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 dispos’d 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, ALEXAS, IRAS,

CHARMIAN, Soothsayer, and Attendants. “ Alexas” for a prefix, printed what followed as if spoken by him. The blunder was preserved in the later folios.

& Saw you my lord ?] “ Sare you my lord” in the folio, 1623 ; but corrected by the editor of the second folio.