Act 1, Scene 2

Alexandria. Another Room in CLEOPATRA'S palace.

[Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer.]
Charmian
71 Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost
72 most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you praised so
73 to the queen? O that I knew this husband, which you say must
74 charge his horns with garlands!
Alexas
75 Soothsayer,—
Soothsayer
76 Your will?
Charmian
77 Is this the man?—Is't you, sir, that know things?
Soothsayer
78 In nature's infinite book of secrecy
79 A little I can read.
Alexas
80 Show him your hand.
[Enter ENOBARBUS.]
Enobarbus
81 Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
82 Cleopatra's health to drink.
Charmian
83 Good, sir, give me good fortune.
Soothsayer
84 I make not, but foresee.
Charmian
85 Pray, then, foresee me one.
Soothsayer
86 You shall be yet far fairer than you are.
Charmian
87 He means in flesh.
Iras
88 No, you shall paint when you are old.
Charmian
89 Wrinkles forbid!
Alexas
90 Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
Charmian
91 Hush!
Soothsayer
92 You shall be more beloving than beloved.
Charmian
93 I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
Alexas
94 Nay, hear him.
Charmian
95 Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to three
96 kings in a forenoon, and widow them all: let me have a child at
97 fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage: find me to marry me
98 with Octavius Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.
Soothsayer
99 You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
Charmian
100 O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.
Soothsayer
101 You have seen and prov'd a fairer former fortune
102 Than that which is to approach.
Charmian
103 Then belike my children shall have no names:—pr'ythee, how many
104 boys and wenches must I have?
Soothsayer
105 If every of your wishes had a womb,
106 And fertile every wish, a million.
Charmian
107 Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
Alexas
108 You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.
Charmian
109 Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
Alexas
110 We'll know all our fortunes.
Enobarbus
111 Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be—
112 drunk to bed.
Iras
113 There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
Charmian
114 E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.
Iras
115 Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.
Charmian
116 Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot
117 scratch mine ear.—Pr'ythee, tell her but worky-day fortune.
Soothsayer
118 Your fortunes are alike.
Iras
119 But how, but how? give me particulars.
Soothsayer
120 I have said.
Iras
121 Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?
Charmian
122 Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where
123 would you choose it?
Iras
124 Not in my husband's nose.
Charmian
125 Our worser thoughts heavens mend!—Alexas,—come, his fortune!
126 his fortune!—O, let him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet
127 Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a worse!
128 and let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow him
129 laughing to his grave, fiftyfold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me
130 this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good
131 Isis, I beseech thee!
Iras
132 Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! for, as it is
133 a heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wived, so it is a
134 deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear
135 Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!
Charmian
136 Amen.
Alexas
137 Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would
138 make themselves whores but they'd do't!
Enobarbus
139 Hush! Here comes Antony.
Charmian
140 Not he; the queen.
[Enter CLEOPATRA.]
Cleopatra
141 Saw you my lord?
Enobarbus
142 No, lady.
Cleopatra
143 Was he not here?
Charmian
144 No, madam.
Cleopatra
145 He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden
146 A Roman thought hath struck him.—Enobarbus,—
Enobarbus
147 Madam?
Cleopatra
148 Seek him, and bring him hither.—Where's Alexas?
Alexas
149 Here, at your service.—My lord approaches.
Cleopatra
150 We will not look upon him: go with us.
[Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHAR., IRAS, ALEX., and Soothsayer.]
[Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER and Attendants.]
Messenger
151 Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Mark Antony
152 Against my brother Lucius.
Messenger
153 Ay:
154 But soon that war had end, and the time's state
155 Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Caesar;
156 Whose better issue in the war, from Italy
157 Upon the first encounter, drave them.
Mark Antony
158 Well, what worst?
Messenger
159 The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Mark Antony
160 When it concerns the fool or coward.—On:—
161 Things that are past are done with me.—'Tis thus;
162 Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
163 I hear him as he flatter'd.
Messenger
164 Labienus,—
165 This is stiff news,—hath, with his Parthian force,
166 Extended Asia from Euphrates;
167 His conquering banner shook from Syria
168 To Lydia and to Ionia;
169 Whilst,—
Mark Antony
170 Antony, thou wouldst say,—
Messenger
171 O, my lord!
Mark Antony
172 Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue:
173 Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;
174 Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase; and taunt my faults
175 With such full licence as both truth and malice
176 Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds
177 When our quick minds lie still; and our ills told us
178 Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
Messenger
179 At your noble pleasure.
[Exit.]
Mark Antony
180 From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
First Attendant
181 The man from Sicyon—is there such an one?
Second Attendant
182 He stays upon your will.
Mark Antony
183 Let him appear.—
184 These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
185 Or lose myself in dotage.—
[Enter another MESSENGER.]
Mark Antony
186 What are you?
Messenger
187 Fulvia thy wife is dead.
Mark Antony
188 Where died she?
Messenger
189 In Sicyon:
190 Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
191 Importeth thee to know, this bears.
[Gives a letter.]
Mark Antony
192 Forbear me.
[Exit MESSENGER.]
Mark Antony
193 There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
194 What our contempts doth often hurl from us,
195 We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
196 By revolution lowering, does become
197 The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
198 The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on.
199 I must from this enchanting queen break off:
200 Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
201 My idleness doth hatch—ho, Enobarbus!
[Re-enter ENOBARBUS.]
Enobarbus
202 What's your pleasure, sir?
Mark Antony
203 I must with haste from hence.
Enobarbus
204 Why, then we kill all our women: we see how mortal an unkindness
205 is to them; if they suffer our departure, death's the word.
Mark Antony
206 I must be gone.
Enobarbus
207 Under a compelling occasion, let women die: it were pity to cast
208 them away for nothing; though, between them and a great cause
209 they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the
210 least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty
211 times upon far poorer moment: I do think there is mettle in
212 death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a
213 celerity in dying.
Mark Antony
214 She is cunning past man's thought.
Enobarbus
215 Alack, sir, no: her passions are made of nothing but the finest
216 part of pure love: we cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and
217 tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can
218 report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a
219 shower of rain as well as Jove.
Mark Antony
220 Would I had never seen her!
Enobarbus
221 O sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work; which
222 not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.
Mark Antony
223 Fulvia is dead.
Enobarbus
224 Sir?
Mark Antony
225 Fulvia is dead.
Enobarbus
226 Fulvia?
Mark Antony
227 Dead.
Enobarbus
228 Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth
229 their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to
230 man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein that when old
231 robes are worn out there are members to make new. If there were
232 no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case
233 to be lamented: this grief is crown'd with consolation; your old
234 smock brings forth a new petticoat:—and, indeed, the tears live
235 in an onion that should water this sorrow.
Mark Antony
236 The business she hath broached in the state
237 Cannot endure my absence.
Enobarbus
238 And the business you have broached here cannot be without you;
239 especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your
240 abode.
Mark Antony
241 No more light answers. Let our officers
242 Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
243 The cause of our expedience to the queen,
244 And get her leave to part. For not alone
245 The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
246 Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
247 Of many our contriving friends in Rome
248 Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius
249 Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands
250 The empire of the sea; our slippery people,—
251 Whose love is never link'd to the deserver
252 Till his deserts are past,—begin to throw
253 Pompey the Great, and all his dignities,
254 Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
255 Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
256 For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
257 The sides o' the world may danger: much is breeding
258 Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life
259 And not a serpent's poison. Say, our pleasure
260 To such whose place is under us, requires
261 Our quick remove from hence.
Enobarbus
262 I shall do't.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 78rhetorical device
“In nature's infinite book of secrecy A little I can read”
The soothsayer claims only partial access to 'nature's infinite book' — the hidden record of all that exists and will happen. The modesty is conventional for fortune-tellers, but the image establishes the scene's tone: the future can be glimpsed but never fully read.
TLN 93cultural context
“heat my liver with drinking”
In Elizabethan medicine the liver was considered the seat of passion and desire. A 'heated' liver meant inflamed emotion, but Charmian prefers the literal meaning: she would rather be inflamed by wine than pine from unrequited love, as the soothsayer has just forecast she will.
TLN 97historical topical
“Herod of Jewry may do homage”
Herod the Great (ruled 37-4 BCE) was the Rome-backed king of Judaea and a client of Antony's. To have a child so magnificent that even Herod must bow down to it is Charmian's way of asking for extraordinary destiny — naming the most powerful local king she can think of as the measure of greatness.
TLN 114historical topical
“the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine”
Charmian turns Iras's reading of an 'oily palm' (a wet, slippery hand) against her: a flooding Nile was supposed to predict a good harvest, but in fact an excessive flood could destroy the standing crop, bringing famine. The joke applies the same reversal to Iras's sign of 'chastity': an oily palm predicts nothing good.
historical The Ptolemies and Egypt
TLN 126classical allusion
“sweet Isis, I beseech thee”
Charmian invokes Isis, the supreme Egyptian goddess, as casually as a Roman might invoke Juno. Isis was the great mother-goddess and protector of women in Egypt, so calling on her for a comically bad fortune for Alexas is entirely in character for one of Cleopatra's Egyptian attendants.
classical Cleopatra as the goddess Isis
TLN 146cultural context
“A Roman thought hath struck him”
Cleopatra means that a serious, duty-bound Roman impulse has suddenly seized Antony. 'A Roman thought' means ambition, obligation to the empire, and the Stoic sense of public duty — everything Egypt is not. The phrase crystallises the play's central conflict between Roman discipline and Egyptian pleasure.
TLN 172archaic vocab
“Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue”
'Speak to me home' means speak bluntly, to the point, without softening. 'Mince not the general tongue' means do not water down or chop up what is commonly said about me in Rome. Antony is commanding the messenger to deliver the worst news plainly, as if Antony were an ordinary person who can bear hard truths.
TLN 177archaic vocab
“our ills told us Is as our earing”
'Earing' means ploughing — from the Old English verb 'to ear the ground.' Antony is saying that being told your faults is like ploughing a field: it looks destructive in the moment but is necessary to make anything grow. When minds go idle the result is weeds; criticism is the plough that breaks that up.
TLN 184cultural context
“These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Or lose myself in dotage”
Antony pictures his attachment to Cleopatra as iron chains ('fetters') binding him. 'Dotage' is infatuated, foolish devotion that has undermined his judgment. The imagery of enslavement will run throughout the play; here it is the only moment Antony himself states the Roman view of his situation.
TLN 196syntax grammar
“By revolution lowering, does become The opposite of itself”
'By revolution lowering' means 'by turning around, sinking down' — like a wheel that has rotated to its lowest point. Antony is saying that present pleasure, by the simple turning of time, eventually turns into its own opposite: what you desire becomes what you regret. The thought is triggered by the news of Fulvia's death.
classical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 218classical allusion
“she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove”
Jove (Jupiter) was the Roman king of the gods and the deity who controlled thunder and rain — he was, literally, the rain-maker. Enobarbus argues that Cleopatra's storms of grief and tears are so enormous that even if they were pure performance, she would match the supreme deity in his own element. The comparison simultaneously mocks and magnifies her.
TLN 248historical topical
“Sextus Pompeius Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands The empire of the sea”
Sextus Pompeius (young Pompey) is the son of Pompey the Great, Rome's master-general who was defeated and killed by Julius Caesar. With a powerful fleet he has effectively challenged Octavius Caesar's authority and controls the sea-lanes. This is the third piece of bad news prompting Antony's decision to leave Egypt.
historical The Second Triumvirate
TLN 253historical topical
“Pompey the Great, and all his dignities, Upon his son”
Pompey the Great was Julius Caesar's former ally turned rival — once Rome's supreme general, he was defeated at Pharsalus (48 BCE) and murdered in Egypt. Here he is only a memory being transferred by a fickle Roman crowd onto his living son Sextus. The two Pompeys — father and son — must not be confused: the dead one is invoked; the young one (Sextus Pompeius) is the real threat.
historical Pompey the Great
TLN 258cultural context
“like the courser's hair, hath yet but life And not a serpent's poison”
Antony draws on a popular Elizabethan belief that a horse's tail-hair, dropped in standing water, would spontaneously generate into a serpent. The growing threat (Pompey's movement) has the life of a worm not yet fully a snake — dangerous in potential but not yet fully dangerous in fact. The image warns that the situation can still worsen.