Shakespeare's Tragedies E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Kitabu
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Collection containing The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, the best Shakespeare's tragedies.

Leseprobe

SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDIES COLLECTION

William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra - The Tragedy of Coriolanus - The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - Julius Caesar - King Lear - Macbeth - Othello - Romeo and Juliet - Timon of Athens - Titus Andronicus - Troilus and Cressida

Originally published in English

ISBN 978-88-674-4164-8

Collana: AD ALTIORA EVERGREEN RADICI

© 2014 KITABU S.r.l.s.

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Progetto e realizzazione grafica: Rino Ruscio

THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, triumvirs.

Sextus Pompeius (Pompey)

Domitius Enobarbus, Ventidius, Eros, Scarus, Dercetas, Demetrius, Philo, friends to Antony.

Mecaenas, Agrippa, Dolabella, Proculeius, Thyreus, Gallus, Menas, friends to Caesar.

Menecrates, Varrius, friends to Pompey.

Taurus, lieutenant-general to Caesar.

Canidius, lieutenant-general to Antony.

Silius, an officer in Ventidius's army.

Euphronius, an ambassador from Antony to Caesar.

Alexas, Seleucus, Diomedes, attendants on Cleopatra.

Mardian, a Eunuch.

A Soothsayer.

A Clown.

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

Octavia, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony.

Charmian and Iras, attendants on Cleopatra.

Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

Scene: In several parts of the Roman empire.

ACT I

Scene I.

Alexandria. A room in Cleopatra’s palace.

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 glow’d like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,

The office and devotion of their view

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 gipsy’s lust.

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 transform’d

Into a strumpet’s fool: behold and see.

Cleopatra

If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

Mark Antony

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d.

Cleopatra

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

Mark Antony

Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

Enter an Attendant

Attendant

News, my good lord, from Rome.

Mark 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;

Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;

Perform ’t, or else we damn thee.’

Mark Antony

How, my love!

Cleopatra

Perchance! nay, and most like:

You must not stay here longer, your dismission

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

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

When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!

Mark 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

Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life

Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair

Embracing

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

On pain of punishment, the world to weet

We stand up peerless.

Cleopatra

Excellent falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?

I’ll seem the fool I am not; Antony

Will be himself.

Mark Antony

But stirr’d by Cleopatra.

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.

Mark Antony

Fie, wrangling queen!

Whom every thing 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

To-night we’ll wander through the streets and note

The qualities of people. Come, my queen;

Last night you did desire it: speak not to us.

Exeunt Mark Antony and Cleopatra with their train

Demetrius

Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?

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

Thus speaks of him at Rome: but I will hope

Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!

Exeunt

Scene II.

The same. Another room.

Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer

Charmian

Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where’s the soothsayer that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew this husband, which, you say, must charge his horns with garlands!

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.

Alexas

Show him your hand.

Enter Domitius Enobarbus

Domitius Enobarbus

Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough

Cleopatra’s health to drink.

Charmian

Good sir, give me good fortune.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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

Nay, come, tell Iras hers.

Alexas

We’ll know all our fortunes.

Domitius Enobarbus

Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be — drunk to bed.

Iras

There’s a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.

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, tell her but a worky-day 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?

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 woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! and let her die too, and give him a worse! and let worst 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 heartbreaking 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!

Charmian

Amen.

Alexas

Lo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they’ld do’t!

Domitius Enobarbus

Hush! here comes Antony.

Charmian

Not he; the queen.

Enter Cleopatra

Cleopatra

Saw you my lord?

Domitius Enobarbus

No, lady.

Cleopatra

Was he not here?

Charmian

No, madam.

Cleopatra

He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden

A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!

Domitius Enobarbus

Madam?

Cleopatra

Seek him, and bring him hither.

Where’s Alexas?

Alexas

Here, at your service. My lord approaches.

Cleopatra

We will not look upon him: go with us.

Exeunt

Enter Mark Antony with a Messenger and Attendants

Messenger

Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.

Mark Antony

Against my brother Lucius?

Messenger

Ay:

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

Made friends of them, joining their force ’gainst Caesar;

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,

Upon the first encounter, drave them.

Mark Antony

Well, what worst?

Messenger

The nature of bad news infects the teller.

Mark 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,

I hear him as he flatter’d.

Messenger

Labienus —

This is stiff news — hath, with his Parthian force,

Extended Asia from Euphrates;

His conquering banner shook from Syria

To Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst —

Mark Antony

Antony, thou wouldst say —

Messenger

O, my lord!

Mark Antony

Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue:

Name Cleopatra as she is call’d in Rome;

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

With such full licence as both truth and malice

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

When our quick minds lie still; and our ills told us

Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.

Messenger

At your noble pleasure.

Exit

Mark Antony

From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!

First Attendant

The man from Sicyon — is there such an one?

Second Attendant

He stays upon your will.

Mark Antony

Let him appear.

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Or lose myself in dotage.

Enter another Messenger

What are you?

Second Messenger

Fulvia thy wife is dead.

Mark Antony

Where died she?

Second Messenger

In Sicyon:

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious

Importeth thee to know, this bears.

Gives a letter

Mark Antony

Forbear me.

Exit Second Messenger

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

What our contempt doth often hurl from us,

We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,

By revolution lowering, does become

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!

Re-enter Domitius Enobarbus

Domitius Enobarbus

What’s your pleasure, sir?

Mark Antony

I must with haste from hence.

Domitius 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.

Mark Antony

I must be gone.

Domitius 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 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.

Mark Antony

She is cunning past man’s thought.

Exit Alexas

Domitius 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 report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.

Mark Antony

Would I had never seen her.

Domitius Enobarbus

O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work; which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.

Mark Antony

Fulvia is dead.

Domitius Enobarbus

Sir?

Mark Antony

Fulvia is dead.

Domitius Enobarbus

Fulvia!

Mark Antony

Dead.

Domitius 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 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.

Mark Antony

The business she hath broached in the state

Cannot endure my absence.

Domitius Enobarbus

And the business you have broached here cannot be without you; especially that of Cleopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.

Mark 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

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

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 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.

Domitius Enobarbus

I shall do’t.

Exeunt

Scene III.

The same. Another room.

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Alexas

Cleopatra

Where is he?

Charmian

I did not see him since.

Cleopatra

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

That I am sudden sick: quick, and return.

Exit Alexas

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?

Charmian

In each thing give him way, cross him 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.

But here comes Antony.

Enter Mark Antony

Cleopatra

I am sick and sullen.

Mark 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.

Mark Antony

Now, my dearest queen —

Cleopatra

Pray you, stand further from me.

Mark 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:

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.

Mark Antony

The gods best know —

Cleopatra

O, never was there queen

So mightily betray’d! yet at the first

I saw the treasons planted.

Mark Antony

Cleopatra —

Cleopatra

Why should I think you can be mine 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,

Which break themselves in swearing!

Mark Antony

Most sweet queen —

Cleopatra

Nay, pray you, seek no colour 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,

But was a race of heaven: they are so still,

Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,

Art turn’d the greatest liar.

Mark Antony

How now, lady!

Cleopatra

I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst know

There were a heart in Egypt.

Mark Antony

Hear me, queen:

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

Breed scrupulous faction: the hated, grown to strength,

Are newly grown to love: the condemn’d 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,

Is Fulvia’s death.

Cleopatra

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness: can Fulvia die?

Mark Antony

She’s dead, my queen:

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!

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.

Mark Antony

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.

Cleopatra

Cut my lace, Charmian, come;

But let it be: I am quickly ill, and well,

So Antony loves.

Mark Antony

My precious queen, forbear;

And give true evidence to his love, which stands

An honourable trial.

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

Life perfect honour.

Mark Antony

You’ll heat my blood: no more.

Cleopatra

You can do better yet; but this is meetly.

Mark Antony

Now, by my sword —

Cleopatra

And target. Still he mends;

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

How this Herculean Roman does become

The carriage of his chafe.

Mark Antony

I’ll leave you, lady.

Cleopatra

Courteous lord, one word.

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.

Mark Antony

But that your royalty

Holds idleness your subject, I should take you

For idleness itself.

Cleopatra

’Tis sweating labour

To bear such idleness so near the heart

As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;

Since my becomings kill me, when they do not

Eye well to you: your honour calls you hence;

Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly.

And all the gods go with you! upon your sword

Sit laurel victory! and smooth success

Be strew’d before your feet!

Mark Antony

Let us go. Come;

Our separation so abides, and flies,

That thou, residing here, go’st yet with me,

And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee. Away!

Exeunt

Scene IV.

Rome. Octavius Caesar’s house.

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

Octavius 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 man-like

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.

Lepidus

I must not think there are

Evils enow 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.

Octavius Caesar

You are too indulgent. Let us 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 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 fill’d

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 — ’tis 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

Lepidus

Here’s more news.

Messenger

Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,

Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report

How ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea;

And it appears he is beloved of those

That only have fear’d Caesar: to the ports

The discontents repair, and men’s reports

Give him much wrong’d.

Octavius Caesar

I should have known no less.

It hath been taught us from the primal state,

That he which is was wish’d until he were;

And the ebb’d man, ne’er loved till ne’er worth love,

Comes dear’d by being lack’d. This common body,

Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,

To rot itself with motion.

Messenger

Caesar, I bring thee word,

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,

Make 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:

No vessel can peep forth, but ’tis as soon

Taken as seen; for Pompey’s name strikes more

Than could his war resisted.

Octavius Caesar

Antony,

Leave thy lascivious wassails. 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 lank’d not.

Lepidus

’Tis pity of him.

Octavius Caesar

Let his shames quickly

Drive him to Rome: ’tis time we twain

Did show ourselves i’ the field; and to that end

Assemble we immediate council: Pompey

Thrives in our idleness.

Lepidus

To-morrow, Caesar,

I shall be furnish’d to inform you rightly

Both what by sea and land I can be able

To front this present time.

Octavius 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,

To let me be partaker.

Octavius Caesar

Doubt not, sir;

I knew it for my bond.

Exeunt

Scene V.

Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace.

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

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!

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 unseminar’d, thy freer thoughts

May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?

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

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!

Do bravely, horse! for wot’st thou whom thou movest?

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?’

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

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 Octavius Caesar

Alexas

Sovereign of Egypt, hail!

Cleopatra

How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!

Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath

With his tinct gilded thee.

ACT II

Scene I.

Messina. Pompey’s house.

Enter Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas, in warlike manner

Pompey

If the great gods be just, they shall assist

The deeds of justest men.

Menecrates

Know, worthy Pompey,

That what they do delay, they not deny.

Pompey

Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays

The thing we sue for.

Menecrates

We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers

Deny us for our good; so find we profit

By losing of our prayers.

Pompey

I shall do well:

The people love me, and the sea is mine;

My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope

Says it will come to the full. Mark Antony

In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make

No wars without doors: Caesar gets money where

He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,

Of both is flatter’d; but he neither loves,

Nor either cares for him.

Menas

Caesar and Lepidus

Are in the field: a mighty strength they carry.

Pompey

Where have you this? ’tis false.

Menas

From Silvius, sir.

Pompey

He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,

Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,

Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!

Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!

Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,

Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks

Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite;

That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour

Even till a Lethe’d dulness!

Enter Varrius

How now, Varrius!

Varrius

This is most certain that I shall deliver:

Mark Antony is every hour in Rome

Expected: since he went from Egypt ’tis

A space for further travel.

Pompey

I could have given less matter

A better ear. Menas, I did not think

This amorous surfeiter would have donn’d his helm

For such a petty war: his soldiership

Is twice the other twain: but let us rear

The higher our opinion, that our stirring

Can from the lap of Egypt’s widow pluck

The ne’er-lust-wearied Antony.

Menas

I cannot hope

Caesar and Antony shall well greet together: