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. ANTONY         I must be gone. ENOBARBUS  Under a compelling occasion let women die. It were pity to cast […]

ANTONY         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 low’ring, 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 […]

Enter another Messenger ANTONY         From Sicyon, ho, the news? Speak there. SECOND MESSENGER           The man from Sicyon— ANTONY         Is there such a one? SECOND MESSENGER           He stays upon your will. ANTONY         Let him appear. [Exit Second Messenger] These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Or lose myself in dotage. Enter another Messenger with a letter […]

ANTONY         Speak to me home. Mince not the general tongue— Name Cleopatra as she is called 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 […]

FIRST MESSENGER   Labienus— This is stiff news—hath with his Parthian force Extended Asïa; from Eúphrates His conquering banner shook, from Syria To Lydia, and to Ionia, Whilst— ANTONY                     ‘Antony’, thou wouldst say? FIRST MESSENGER   O, my lord!     (1.2.83-88)   The Messenger gets down to the nitty gritty detail of conquest, and it’s not good news. […]

FIRST MESSENGER   Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. ANTONY         Against my brother Lucius? FIRST MESSENGER   Ay, 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 drove them. ANTONY                                 Well, what worst? […]

Enter Cleopatra ENOBARBUS  Hush, here comes Antony. CHARMIAN                 Not he, the Queen. CLEOPATRA                                       Saw you my lord? 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! ENOBARBUS  Madam? CLEOPATRA               Seek him, and bring him hither. Where’s […]

CHARMIAN     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, fiftyfold a cuckold. Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a […]

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 […]

CHARMIAN     [to Soothsayer] Nay, come, tell Iras hers. ALEXAS           We’ll know all our fortunes. ENOBARBUS  Mine, and most of our fortunes, tonight shall be drunk to bed. IRAS    [showing her hand to Soothsayer] 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, […]