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, Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space. [Embracing. (*) First folio, who. you, sir, that and Alexas." And Steevens thought it possible that "Lamprius, Rannius, Lucillius," &c. might have been speakers in the scene as it was originally written by the poet, who afterwards, when omitting the speeches, forgot to erase the names. f - change his horns with garlands !] So the old text; to "change his horns," may mean to rar or garnish them. The modern reading, however, of charge, suggested by Southern and Warburton, is certainly very plausible. 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. E'en 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 heaven 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! ANT. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue; Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome; When our quick winds lie still; and our ills told us, d Is as our earing! Fare thee well a while. MESS. At your noble pleasure. [Exit. ANT. From Sicyon ho, the news! Speak there! 1 ATT. The man from Sicyon,-is there such an one? (*) Old text, how. to, "When our quick minds," &c. perhaps without necessity. "Quick winds" may mean, quickening winds: and Johnson's explanation of the passage,-"that man, not agitated by censure. like soil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good," is possibly the true one. dearing!] Ploughing. 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 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. (*) Old text inserts, an. 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. 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 leave* 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 link'd 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 b Which, like the courser's hair, &c.] An allusion to the vulgar superstition that a horse hair left in water or dung became a living serpent. I did not send you :-if you find him sad, [Exit ALEX. CHAR. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly, You do not hold the method to enforce CLEO. Thou teachest like a fool,-the way to lose him. CHAR. Tempt him not so too far: I wish, forbear; d What says the married woman ?—You may go: O, never was there queen Cleopatra, ANT. and true, Though you in swearing shake the throned gods, Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness, To be entangled with those mouth-made vows, ANT. going, But bid farewell, and go: when you su'd staying, e To such whose place is under us, requires, &c.] The lection of the second folio. In the first, we have, "To such whose places under us require," &c. d I wish, forbear;] I commend forbearance. |