41

Antony and Cleopatra

By William Shakespeare

Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles

Folger Shakespeare Library

https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/antony-and-cleopatra/

Created on Apr 23, 2016, from FDT version 0.9.2.

This work is licensed under

Link to License: Folger Shakespeare Library Terms of Use

Characters in the Play

ANTONY, a triumvir of Rome

CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt

OCTAVIUS CAESAR, a triumvir of Rome

OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar, later wife to Antony

LEPIDUS, a triumvir of Rome

ENOBARBUS, also called DOMITIUS

Accompanying Antony in Egypt and elsewhere:

VENTIDIUS

SILIUS

EROS

CANIDIUS

SCARUS

DERCETUS

DEMETRIUS

PHILO

A SCHOOLMASTER, Antony’s AMBASSADOR to Caesar

Serving in Cleopatra’s court:

CHARMIAN

IRAS

ALEXAS

MARDIAN, a Eunuch

SELEUCUS, Cleopatra’s treasurer

DIOMEDES

Supporting and accompanying Caesar:

MAECENAS

AGRIPPA

TAURUS

THIDIAS

DOLABELLA

GALLUS

PROCULEIUS

SEXTUS POMPEIUS, also called POMPEY

MENAS

MENECRATES

VARRIUS

MESSENGERS

SOLDIERS

SENTRIES

GUARDSMEN

A SOOTHSAYER

SERVANTS

A BOY

A CAPTAIN

AN EGYPTIAN

A COUNTRYMAN

Ladies, Eunuchs, Captains, Officers, Soldiers, Attendants, Servants (Lamprius, Rannius, Lucillius: mute characters named in the opening stage direction to 1.2)

ACT 1

Scene 1

Enter Demetrius and Philo.

PHILO

Nay, but this dotage of our general’s

O’erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,

That o’er the files and musters of the war

Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn

The office and devotion of their view                                                5

Upon a tawny front. His captain’s heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper

And is become the bellows and the fan

To cool a gypsy’s lust.                                                                      10

Flourish. Enter Antony, Cleopatra, her Ladies, the Train,
with Eunuchs fanning her.

Look where they come.

Take but good note, and you shall see in him

The triple pillar of the world transformed

Into a strumpet’s fool. Behold and see.

CLEOPATRA

If it be love indeed, tell me how much.                                            15

ANTONY

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

CLEOPATRA

I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

ANTONY

Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new

Earth.

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER  News, my good lord, from Rome.                              20

ANTONY  Grates me, the sum.

CLEOPATRA  Nay, hear them, Antony.

Fulvia perchance is angry. Or who knows

If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent

His powerful mandate to you: “Do this, or this;                              25

Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that.

Perform ’t, or else we damn thee.”

ANTONY  How, my love?

CLEOPATRA  Perchance? Nay, and most like.

You must not stay here longer; your dismission                              30

Is come from Caesar. Therefore hear it, Antony.

Where’s Fulvia’s process? Caesar’s, I would say—

both?

Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt’s queen,

Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine                               35

Is Caesar’s homager; else so thy cheek pays shame

When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!

ANTONY

Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch

Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space.

Kingdoms are clay. Our dungy earth alike                                       40

Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life

Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair

And such a twain can do ’t, in which I bind,

On pain of punishment, the world to weet

We stand up peerless.                                                                       45

CLEOPATRA  Excellent falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia and not love her?

I’ll seem the fool I am not. Antony

Will be himself.

ANTONY  But stirred by Cleopatra.                                                    50

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 tonight?

CLEOPATRA

Hear the ambassadors.                                                                      55

ANTONY  Fie, wrangling queen,

Whom everything becomes—to chide, to laugh,

To weep; whose every passion fully strives

To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!

No messenger but thine, and all alone                                              60

Tonight we’ll wander through the streets and note

The qualities of people. Come, my queen,

Last night you did desire it. To the Messenger.

Speak not to us.

Antony and Cleopatra exit with the Train.

DEMETRIUS

Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?                                        65

PHILO

Sir, sometimes when he is not Antony

He comes too short of that great property

Which still should go with Antony.

DEMETRIUS  I am full sorry

That he approves the common liar who                                           70

Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope

Of better deeds tomorrow. Rest you happy!

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Enobarbus, Lamprius, a Soothsayer, Rannius,
Lucillius, Charmian, Iras, Mardian the Eunuch, Alexas,
and Servants.

CHARMIAN  Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything

Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where’s the

soothsayer that you praised so to th’ Queen? O, that

I knew this husband which you say must charge

his horns with garlands!                                                                   5

ALEXAS  Soothsayer!

SOOTHSAYER  Your will?

CHARMIAN

Is this the man?—Is ’t you, sir, that know things?

SOOTHSAYER

In nature’s infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read.                                                                             10

ALEXAS, to Charmian  Show him your hand.

ENOBARBUS, to Servants

Bring in the banquet quickly, wine enough

Cleopatra’s health to drink.

CHARMIAN, giving her hand to the Soothsayer  Good sir,

give me good fortune.                                                                    15

SOOTHSAYER  I make not, but foresee.

CHARMIAN  Pray then, foresee me one.

SOOTHSAYER

You shall be yet far fairer than you are.

CHARMIAN  He means in flesh.

IRAS  No, you shall paint when you are old.                                       20

CHARMIAN  Wrinkles forbid!

ALEXAS  Vex not his prescience. Be attentive.

CHARMIAN  Hush.

SOOTHSAYER

You shall be more beloving than beloved.

CHARMIAN  I had rather heat my liver with drinking.                      25

ALEXAS  Nay, hear him.

CHARMIAN  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                           30

with Octavius Caesar, and companion me with my

mistress.

SOOTHSAYER

You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.

CHARMIAN  O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.

SOOTHSAYER

You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune                           35

Than that which is to approach.

CHARMIAN  Then belike my children shall have no

names. Prithee, how many boys and wenches must

I have?

SOOTHSAYER

If every of your wishes had a womb,                                               40

And fertile every wish, a million.

CHARMIAN  Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.

ALEXAS  You think none but your sheets are privy to

your wishes.

CHARMIAN, to Soothsayer  Nay, come. Tell Iras hers.                     45

ALEXAS  We’ll know all our fortunes.

ENOBARBUS  Mine, and most of our fortunes tonight,

shall be—drunk to bed.

IRAS, giving her hand to the Soothsayer  There’s a palm

presages chastity, if nothing else.                                                  50

CHARMIAN  E’en as the o’erflowing Nilus presageth

famine.

IRAS  Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.

CHARMIAN  Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication,

I cannot scratch mine ear.—Prithee                                               55

tell her but a workaday fortune.

SOOTHSAYER  Your fortunes are alike.

IRAS  But how, but how? Give me particulars.

SOOTHSAYER  I have said.

IRAS  Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?                             60

CHARMIAN  Well, if you were but an inch of fortune

better than I, where would you choose it?

IRAS  Not in my husband’s nose.

CHARMIAN  Our worser thoughts heavens mend. Alexas—

come, his fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a                        65

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, fiftyfold a cuckold. Good Isis, hear me

this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more                       70

weight, good Isis, I beseech thee!

IRAS  Amen, dear goddess, hear that prayer of the

people. For, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome

man loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to

behold a foul knave uncuckolded. Therefore, dear                       75

Isis, keep decorum and fortune him accordingly.

CHARMIAN  Amen.

ALEXAS  Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a

cuckold, they would make themselves whores but

they’d do ’t.                                                                                    80

ENOBARBUS  Hush, here comes Antony.

CHARMIAN  Not he. The Queen.

Enter Cleopatra.

CLEOPATRA  Saw you my lord?

ENOBARBUS  No, lady.

CLEOPATRA  Was he not here?                                                         85

CHARMIAN  No, madam.

CLEOPATRA

He was disposed to mirth, but on the sudden

A Roman thought hath struck him.—Enobarbus!

ENOBARBUS  Madam?

CLEOPATRA

Seek him and bring him hither.—Where’s Alexas?                         90

ALEXAS

Here at your service. My lord approaches.

Enter Antony with a Messenger.

CLEOPATRA

We will not look upon him. Go with us.

All but Antony and the Messenger exit.

MESSENGER

Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.

ANTONY  Against my brother Lucius?

MESSENGER  Ay.                                                                              95

But soon that war had end, and the time’s state

Made friends of them, jointing their force ’gainst

Caesar,

Whose better issue in the war from Italy

Upon the first encounter drave them.                                             100

ANTONY  Well, what worst?

MESSENGER

The nature of bad news infects the teller.

ANTONY

When it concerns the fool or coward. On.

Things that are past are done, with me. ’Tis thus:

Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,                              105

I hear him as he flattered.

MESSENGER  Labienus—

This is stiff news—hath with his Parthian force

Extended Asia: from Euphrates

His conquering banner shook, from Syria                                      110

To Lydia and to Ionia,

Whilst—

ANTONY  “Antony,” thou wouldst say?

MESSENGER  O, my lord!

ANTONY

Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue.                         115

Name Cleopatra as she is called in Rome;

Rail thou in Fulvia’s phrase, and taunt my faults

With such full license as both truth and malice

Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds

When our quick winds lie still, and our ills told us                        120

Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.

MESSENGER  At your noble pleasure.                        Messenger exits.

Enter another Messenger.

ANTONY

From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.

SECOND MESSENGER

The man from Sicyon—

ANTONY  Is there such an one?                                                        125

SECOND MESSENGER

He stays upon your will.

ANTONY  Let him appear.

Second Messenger exits.

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Or lose myself in dotage.

Enter another Messenger with a letter.

What are you?                                                                              130

THIRD MESSENGER

Fulvia thy wife is dead.

ANTONY  Where died she?

THIRD MESSENGER  In Sicyon.

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious

Importeth thee to know, this bears.                                                135

He hands Antony the letter.

ANTONY  Forbear me.

Third Messenger exits.

There’s a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.

What our contempts doth often hurl from us,

We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,

By revolution lowering, does become                                            140

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!                          145

Enter Enobarbus.

ENOBARBUS  What’s your pleasure, sir?

ANTONY  I must with haste from hence.

ENOBARBUS  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.                                                  150

ANTONY  I must be gone.

ENOBARBUS  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                       155

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.                                                                                           160

ANTONY  She is cunning past man’s thought.

ENOBARBUS  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                          165

report. This cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she

makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.

ANTONY  Would I had never seen her!

ENOBARBUS  O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful

piece of work, which not to have been blest                               170

withal would have discredited your travel.

ANTONY  Fulvia is dead.

ENOBARBUS  Sir?

ANTONY  Fulvia is dead.

ENOBARBUS  Fulvia?                                                                      175

ANTONY  Dead.

ENOBARBUS  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                     180

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                  185

onion that should water this sorrow.

ANTONY

The business she hath broachèd in the state

Cannot endure my absence.

ENOBARBUS  And the business you have broached here

cannot be without you, especially that of Cleopatra’s,                190

which wholly depends on your abode.

ANTONY

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                                         195

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 Caesar and commands                               200

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,                              205

Higher than both in blood and life—stands up

For the main soldier; whose quality, going on,

The sides o’ th’ world may danger. Much is

breeding

Which, like the courser’s hair, hath yet but life                             210

And not a serpent’s poison. Say our pleasure,

To such whose place is under us, requires

Our quick remove from hence.

ENOBARBUS  I shall do ’t.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Alexas, and Iras.

CLEOPATRA

Where is he?

CHARMIAN  I did not see him since.

CLEOPATRA, to Alexas

See where he is, who’s with him, what he does.

I did not send you. If you find him sad,

Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report                                                  5

That I am sudden sick. Quick, and return.

Alexas exits.

CHARMIAN

Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,

You do not hold the method to enforce

The like from him.

CLEOPATRA  What should I do I do not?                                          10

CHARMIAN

In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.

CLEOPATRA

Thou teachest like a fool: the way to lose him.

CHARMIAN

Tempt him not so too far. I wish, forbear.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Enter Antony.

But here comes Antony.                                                                   15

CLEOPATRA  I am sick and sullen.

ANTONY

I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose—

CLEOPATRA

Help me away, dear Charmian! I shall fall.

It cannot be thus long; the sides of nature

Will not sustain it.                                                                            20

ANTONY  Now, my dearest queen—

CLEOPATRA

Pray you stand farther from me.

ANTONY  What’s the matter?

CLEOPATRA

I know by that same eye there’s some good news.

What, says the married woman you may go?                                   25

Would she had never given you leave to come.

Let her not say ’tis I that keep you here.

I have no power upon you. Hers you are.

ANTONY

The gods best know—

CLEOPATRA  O, never was there queen                                            30

So mightily betrayed! Yet at the first

I saw the treasons planted.

ANTONY  Cleopatra—

CLEOPATRA

Why should I think you can be mine, and true—

Though you in swearing shake the thronèd gods—                         35

Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,

To be entangled with those mouth-made vows

Which break themselves in swearing!

ANTONY  Most sweet

queen—                                                                                          40

CLEOPATRA

Nay, pray you seek no color for your going,

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                              45

But was a race of heaven. They are so still,

Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,

Art turned the greatest liar.

ANTONY  How now, lady?

CLEOPATRA

I would I had thy inches. Thou shouldst know                                 50

There were a heart in Egypt.

ANTONY  Hear me, queen:

The strong necessity of time commands

Our services awhile, but my full heart

Remains in use with you. Our Italy                                                  55

Shines o’er with civil swords; Sextus Pompeius

Makes his approaches to the port of Rome;

Equality of two domestic powers

Breed scrupulous faction; the hated grown to

strength                                                                                          60

Are newly grown to love; the condemned Pompey,

Rich in his father’s honor, 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                              65

By any desperate change. My more particular,

And that which most with you should safe my going,

Is Fulvia’s death.

CLEOPATRA

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?                                      70

ANTONY  She’s dead, my queen.                        He shows her papers.

Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read

The garboils she awaked; at the last, best,

See when and where she died.

CLEOPATRA  O, most false love!                                                      75

Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill

With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,

In Fulvia’s death, how mine received shall be.

ANTONY

Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know

The purposes I bear, which are or cease                                           80

As you shall give th’ advice. By the fire

That quickens Nilus’ slime, I go from hence

Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war

As thou affects.

CLEOPATRA  Cut my lace, Charmian, come!                                   85

But let it be; I am quickly ill and well;

So Antony loves.

ANTONY  My precious queen, forbear,

And give true evidence to his love, which stands

An honorable trial.                                                                            90

CLEOPATRA  So Fulvia told me.

I prithee turn aside and weep for her,

Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears

Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene

Of excellent dissembling, and let it look                                          95

Like perfect honor.

ANTONY  You’ll heat my blood. No more!

CLEOPATRA

You can do better yet, but this is meetly.

ANTONY

Now by my sword—

CLEOPATRA  And target. Still he mends.                                        100

But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,

How this Herculean Roman does become

The carriage of his chafe.

ANTONY  I’ll leave you, lady.

CLEOPATRA  Courteous lord, one word.                                         105

Sir, you and I must part, but that’s not it;

Sir, you and I have loved, but there’s not it;

That you know well. Something it is I would—

O, my oblivion is a very Antony,

And I am all forgotten.                                                                   110

ANTONY  But that your Royalty

Holds idleness your subject, I should take you

For idleness itself.

CLEOPATRA  ’Tis sweating labor

To bear such idleness so near the heart                                          115

As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me,

Since my becomings kill me when they do not

Eye well to you. Your honor calls you hence;

Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,

And all the gods go with you. Upon your sword                            120

Sit laurel victory, and smooth success

Be strewed before your feet.

ANTONY  Let us go. Come.

Our separation so abides and flies

That thou, residing here, goes yet with me,                                   125

And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.

Away!

They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Octavius Caesar, reading a letter,
Lepidus, and their Train.

CAESAR

You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,

It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate

Our great competitor. From Alexandria

This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes

The lamps of night in revel, is not more manlike                               5

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 th’ abstract of all faults                                             10

That all men follow.

LEPIDUS  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                                     15

Rather than purchased, what he cannot change

Than what he chooses.

CAESAR

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                                                20

And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,

To reel the streets at noon and stand the buffet

With knaves that smells of sweat. Say this becomes

him—

As his composure must be rare indeed                                             25

Whom these things cannot blemish—yet must

Antony

No way excuse his foils when we do bear

So great weight in his lightness. If he filled

His vacancy with his voluptuousness,                                              30

Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones

Call on him for ’t. But to confound such time

That drums him from his sport and speaks as loud

As his own state and ours, ’tis to be chid

As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,                          35

Pawn their experience to their present pleasure

And so rebel to judgment.

Enter a Messenger.

LEPIDUS  Here’s more news.

MESSENGER

Thy biddings have been done, and every hour,

Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report                                       40

How ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,

And it appears he is beloved of those

That only have feared Caesar. To the ports

The discontents repair, and men’s reports

Give him much wronged.                                                                 45

CAESAR  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 feared by being lacked. This common body,                       50

Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide

To rot itself with motion.

Enter a Second Messenger.

SECOND MESSENGER  Caesar, I bring thee word

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,                                           55

Makes the sea serve them, which they ear and

wound

With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads

They make in Italy—the borders maritime

Lack blood to think on ’t—and flush youth revolt.                          60

No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon

Taken as seen, for Pompey’s name strikes more

Than could his war resisted.

CAESAR  Antony,

Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once                              65

Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew’st

Hirsius 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                                   70

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,                             75

The barks of trees thou browsèd. On the Alps

It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh

Which some did die to look on. And all this—

It wounds thine honor that I speak it now—

Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek                                       80

So much as lanked not.

LEPIDUS  ’Tis pity of him.

CAESAR  Let his shames quickly

Drive him to Rome. ’Tis time we twain

Did show ourselves i’ th’ field, and to that end                               85

Assemble we immediate council. Pompey

Thrives in our idleness.

LEPIDUS  Tomorrow, Caesar,

I shall be furnished to inform you rightly

Both what by sea and land I can be able                                          90

To front this present time.

CAESAR  Till which encounter,

It is my business too. Farewell.

LEPIDUS

Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime

Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,                                           95

To let me be partaker.

CAESAR

Doubt not, sir. I knew it for my bond.

They exit.

Scene 5

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Mardian.

CLEOPATRA  Charmian!

CHARMIAN  Madam?

CLEOPATRA  Ha, ha! Give me to drink mandragora.

CHARMIAN  Why, madam?

CLEOPATRA

That I might sleep out this great gap of time                                      5

My Antony is away.

CHARMIAN  You think of him too much.

CLEOPATRA

O, ’tis treason!

CHARMIAN  Madam, I trust not so.

CLEOPATRA

Thou, eunuch Mardian!                                                                    10

MARDIAN  What’s your Highness’ pleasure?

CLEOPATRA

Not now to hear thee sing. I take no pleasure

In aught an eunuch has. ’Tis well for thee

That, being unseminared, thy freer thoughts

May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?                           15

MARDIAN  Yes, gracious madam.

CLEOPATRA  Indeed?

MARDIAN

Not in deed, madam, for I can do nothing

But what indeed is honest to be done.

Yet have I fierce affections, and think                                             20

What Venus did with Mars.

CLEOPATRA  O, Charmian,

Where think’st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?

Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse?

O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!                                 25

Do bravely, horse, for wot’st thou whom thou

mov’st?

The demi-Atlas of this Earth, the arm

And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now,

Or murmuring “Where’s my serpent of old Nile?”                          30

For so he calls me. Now I feed myself

With most delicious poison. Think on me

That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black,

And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,

When thou wast here above the ground, I was                                 35

A morsel for a monarch. And great Pompey

Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;

There would he anchor his aspect, and die

With looking on his life.

Enter Alexas from Antony.

ALEXAS  Sovereign of Egypt, hail!                                                    40

CLEOPATRA

How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!

Yet coming from him, that great med’cine hath

With his tinct gilded thee.

How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?

ALEXAS  Last thing he did, dear queen,                                             45

He kissed—the last of many doubled kisses—

This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.

CLEOPATRA

Mine ear must pluck it thence.

ALEXAS  “Good friend,” quoth

he,                                                                                                   50

“Say the firm Roman to great Egypt sends

This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,

To mend the petty present, I will piece

Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the East,

Say thou, shall call her mistress.” So he nodded                              55

And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,

Who neighed so high that what I would have spoke

Was beastly dumbed by him.

CLEOPATRA  What, was he sad, or merry?

ALEXAS

Like to the time o’ th’ year between th’ extremes                            60

Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.

CLEOPATRA

O, well-divided disposition!—Note him,

Note him, good Charmian, ’tis the man! But note

him:

He was not sad, for he would shine on those                                   65

That make their looks by his; he was not merry,

Which seemed to tell them his remembrance lay

In Egypt with his joy; but between both.

O, heavenly mingle!—Be’st thou sad or merry,

The violence of either thee becomes,                                               70

So does it no man’s else.—Met’st thou my posts?

ALEXAS

Ay, madam, twenty several messengers.

Why do you send so thick?

CLEOPATRA  Who’s born that day

When I forget to send to Antony                                                      75

Shall die a beggar.—Ink and paper, Charmian.—

Welcome, my good Alexas.—Did I, Charmian,

Ever love Caesar so?

CHARMIAN  O, that brave Caesar!

CLEOPATRA

Be choked with such another emphasis!                                          80

Say “the brave Antony.”

CHARMIAN  The valiant Caesar!

CLEOPATRA

By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth

If thou with Caesar paragon again

My man of men.                                                                               85

CHARMIAN  By your most gracious pardon,

I sing but after you.

CLEOPATRA  My salad days,

When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,

To say as I said then. But come, away,                                            90

Get me ink and paper.

He shall have every day a several greeting,

Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.

They exit.