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Char. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune Whose better issue in the war, from Italy, 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!

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Upon the first encounter, drave them.

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A Roman thought hath struck him. -Enobarbus: These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, 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?
Mess. Ay:

But soon that war had end, and the time's state
Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst
Cæsar:

Enter another Messenger.

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The hand could pluck her back, that shoved her the tears live in an onion that should water this

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:
Enter ENOBARBUS.

Eno. What's your pleasure, sir?
Ant. I must with haste from hence.

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 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?

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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 part) 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.
Eno. I shall do 't.

[Exeunt.

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

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Cleo. I would I had thy inches: thou shouldst know

Cleo. Thou teachest, like a fool, the way to lose There were a heart in Egypt.

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Ant. I am sorry to give breathing to my pur- Breeds scrupulous faction. The hated, grown to

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Cleo. Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall Are newly grown to love: the condemned Pompey,

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Cleo. Why should I think you can be mine, With sorrowful water? - Now I see, I see,

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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 becomes
him

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

No way excuse his soils, when we do bear
So great weight in his lightness. If he filled
His vacancy with his voluptuousness,

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, - 't is to be chid
As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgment.

Enter a Messenger.

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Cæs. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth The discontents repair, and men's reports

know

It is not Cæsar's natural vice to hate

One great competitor. From Alexandria

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

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,

Lep. Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime

Comes deared by being lacked. This common Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,

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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 honor that I speak it now)
Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek
So much as lanked not!

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My Antony is away.

Char.

You think of him too much.

Cleo. O, 't is treason!
Char. Madam, I trust not so.
Cleo. Thou, eunuch: Mardian!
Mar. What's your highness' pleasure?
Cleo. 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?
Mar. Yes, gracious madam.
Cleo. Indeed?

Mar. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing

But what indeed is honest to be done:

Yet have I fierce affections, and think
What Venus did with Mars.

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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!

Do bravely, horse! for wott'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?"

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