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.-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 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?

We

Eno. What's your pleasure, sir? Ant. I must with haste from hence. Eno. Why, then, we kill all our women. 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

Remains in use with you. Our Italy
Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius
Makes his approaches to the port of Rome:
Equality of two domestic powers

Breeds scrupulous faction. The hated, grown to strength,

Are newly grown to love: the condemned Pompey,
Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace
Into the hearts of such as have not thrived
Upon the present state; whose numbers threaten :
And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
By any desperate change. My more particular,
And that which most with you should safe my
going,

Cleo.
O most false love!
Where be the secret vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water?-Now I see, I see,
In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be.
Ant. Quarrel no more, but be prepared to
know

The purposes I bear: which are or cease
As you shall give the advice. By the fire
That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence
Thy soldier, servant; making peace or war
As thou affect'st.

Cleo. Cut my lace, Charmian, come :-
But let it be.—I am quickly ill and well:
So Antony loves!

Ant.

Let us go: come.
Our separation so abides and flies,

That thou, residing here, goest yet with me,
And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.
Away!
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-Rome. An Apartment in CESAR'S House.

Enter OCTAVIUS, CESAR, LEPIDUS, and Attendants.
Cæs. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know
It is not Cæsar's natural vice to hate
One great competitor. From Alexandria
This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel: is not more manlike
Than Cleopatra, nor the Queen of Ptolemy
More womanly than he hardly gave audience,
Or vouchsafed to think he had partners. You
shall find there

A man who is the abstract of all faults
That all men follow.

Lep.

I must not think there are Evils enough to darken all his goodness: His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven, More fiery by night's blackness: hereditary, Rather than purchased: what he cannot change, Than what he chooses.

Cæs. You are too indulgent. Let's grant it is not

Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;
To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;
To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
With knaves that smell of sweat: say this be-
comes him

(As his composure must be rare indeed
Whom these things cannot blemish), yet must

Mess. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,

Most noble Cæsar, shalt thou have report
How 't is abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,
And it appears he is beloved of those
That only have feared Cæsar: to the ports
The discontents repair, and men's reports
Give him much wronged.

Cæs.
I should have known no less :
It hath been taught us from the primal state
That he which is was wished, until he were ;
And the ebbed man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth
love,

Comes deared by being lacked. This common body,
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.

Leave thy lascivious wassels. When thou once
Wast beaten from Modena (where thou slew'st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls), at thy heel
Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink
The stale of horses and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then
did deign

The roughest berry on the rudest hedge:
Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed'st: on the Alps,
It is reported, thou didst eat strange flesh
Which some did die to look on. And all this
(It wounds thine honour that I speak it now)
Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek
So much as lanked not!
Lep.
It is pity of him.
Cæs. Let his shames quickly

Cleo. Charmian !
Char. Madam.
Cleo. Ha, ha!--

Give me to drink mandragora.
Char. Why, madam?

Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of

time

My Antony is away.

In aught an eunuch has. 'Tis well for thee That, being unseminared, thy freer thoughts May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affec