There's not a minute of our lives fhould ftretch
Without fome pleasure now: What sport to-night?
Cleo. Hear the ambassadors.

Ant. Fye, wrangling queen!

Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whofe every paffion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admir'd!
No meffenger; but thine and all alone,
To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
Laft night you did defire it :-Speak not to us.

、

[Exeunt ANT. and CLEOP. with their train. Dem. Is Cæfar with Antonius priz'd so flight? Phi. Sir, fometimes, when he is not Antony, He comes too fhort of that great property Which ftill fhould go with Antony. Dem. I am full forry,

That he approves the common liar, who

Thus fpeaks of him at Rome: But I will hope
Of better deeds to-morrow.

Reft you happy! [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The fame.. Another Room.

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothfayer. Char. Lord Alexas, fweet Alexas, moft any thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the foothfayer that you praised fo to the queen? O, that I knew this husband, which, you say, muft charge his horns with garlands?!

Alex. Soothfayer.

Sooth. Your will?

Char. Is this the man ?-Is't you, fir, that know things?
Sooth.

E 6,

9 Change his horns is corrupt; the true reading evidently is :-muft charge bis borns with garlands. i. e. make him a rich and honourable cuckold, having his horns hung about with garlands. WARBURTON. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, not improbably, change for barns his garlands. I am in doubt, whether to change is not merely to dress, o to dress with changes of garlands. JOHNSON.

Sooth. In nature's infinite book of secrecy,

A little I can read.

Alex. Shew him your hand.

Enter ENOBARBUS.

Eno. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough, Cleopatra's health to drink.

Char. Good fir, give me good fortune.

Sooth. I make not, but forefee.

Char. Pray then, foresee me one.

Sooth. You fhall be yet far fairer than you are.
Char. He means, in flesh.

Iras. No, you fhall paint when you are old.
Char. Wrinkles forbid !

Alex. Vex not his prefcience; be attentive.
Char. Hufh!

Sooth. You fhall be more beloving, than belov'd.
Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking '.
Alex. Nay, hear him.

Char. Good now, fome 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 Cæfar, and companion me with my mistress!

Sooth. You fhall out-live the lady whom you ferve.
Char. O excellent! I love long life better than figs 2.
Sooth. You have feen and prov'd a fairer former for-

tune

Than that which is to approach.

Char. Then, belike, my children fhall have no names3: Pr'ythee, how many boys and wenches muft I have? Sooth. If every of your wishes had a womb,

And fertile every with, a million.

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

Alex.

To know why the lady is fo averse from beating her liver, it must be remembered, that a heated liver is fuppofed to make a pimpled face. This is a proverbial expreffion.

3 If I have already had the beft of my fortune, then I fuppofe I shall never name children, that is, I am never to be married. However, tell me the truth, tell me, bow many boys and wenches &

Alex. You think, none but your sheets an your wishes.

Char. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.

Alex. We'll know all our fortunes.

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

Iras. There's a palm prefages chastity, if nothing elfe. Char. Even as the o'erflowing Nilus prefageth famine. Iras. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot foothsay.

Char. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognoftication, I cannot fcratch mine ear.-Pr'ythee, tell her but a worky-day fortune.

Sooth. Your fortunes are alike.

Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars.

Sooth. I have faid.

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than fhe? Char. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?

Iras. Not in my husband's nose.

Char. Our worfer thoughts heavens mend! Alexas,come, his fortune, his fortune.-O, let him marry a woman that cannot go, fweet Ifis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a worfe! and let worse follow worse, till the worft of all follow him laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good Ifis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good Ifis, I befeech thee!

Iras. Amen. Dear goddefs, hear that prayer of the people! for, as it is a heart-breaking to fee a handfome man loofe. wiv'd, fo it is a deadly forrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded; Therefore, dear Ifis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!

Char. Amen.

Alex. Lo, now! if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they'd do't.

Eno. Hufh! here comes Antony.

Chart Not he, the queen.

Enter CLEOPATRA.

Cleo. Saw you my lord?

Eno.

Eno. No, lady.

Cleo. Was he not here?

Char. No, madam.

Cleo. He was difpos'd to mirth; but on the fudden A Roman thought hath struck him,-Enobarbus,— Eno. Madam.

Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas?
Alex. Here, at your fervice.-My lord approaches.
Enter ANTONY, with a Meffenger, and Attendants.
Cleo. We will not look upon him: Go with us.
[Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, ALEXAS,
IRAS, CHARMIAN, Soothfayer, and Attendants.
Mef. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Ant. Against my brother Lucius ?.

Mef. Ay:

But foon that war had end, and the time's state

Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainft Cæfar; Whose better iffue in the war, from Italy,

Upon the first encounter, drave them.

Ant. Well, what worst?

Mef. The nature of bad news infects the teller. Ant. When it concerns the fool, or coward.-On: -'Tis thus ; Things, that are past, are done, with me.Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, I hear him as he flatter'd.

Mef. Labienus (this is ftiff news)

Hath, with his Parthian force, extended Afia 4,
From Euphrates his conquering banner fhook,
From Syria, to Lydia, and to Ionia ;

Whilft

Ant. Antony, thou wouldst fay,-
Mef. O my lord!

Ant. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue; Name Cleopatra as fhe's call'd in Rome:

Rail thou in Fulvia's phrafe; and taunt my faults
With fuch full licence, as both truth and malice

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

4 To extend, is a term used for to feize.

When

When our quick minds lie ftills; and our ills told us,
Is as our earing. Fare thee well a while.

Mef. At your noble pleasure.

Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.

[Exit.

1. Att. The man from Sicyon.-Is there fuch an one? 2. Att. He ftays upon your will.

Ant. Let him appear.

Thefe ftrong Egyptian fetters I muft break,

Enter another Messenger.

Or lofe myself in dotage.-What are you?

2. Mej. Fulvia thy wife is dead.

Ant. Where died the ?

2. Mef. In Sicyon:

Her length of fickness, with what else more ferious
Importeth thee to know, this bears.

Ant. me..

[gives a Letter. [Exit Meffenger,,

There's a great fpirit gone! Thus did I defire it:
What our contempts do often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; the prefent pleasure,
By revolution lowering, dees become

The oppofite of itself: fhe's good, being gone;

The

5 I fufpect that quick winds is, or is a corruption of, fome provincial word fignifying either arable lands, or the inftruments of bufbandry ufed in tilling them. Earing fignifies plowing both here and in fc. iv. So, in Genefis, c. 45. "Yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest." BLACKSTONE.

This conjecture is well founded. The ridges left in lands turned up by the plough, that they may fweeten during their fallow ftate, are fill called wind-rows. Quick winds, I fuppofe to be the fame as teeming fallows; for fuch fallows are always fruitful in weeds.

Wind-rows likewife fignify heaps of manure, confifting of dung or lime mixed up with virgin earth, and distributed in long rows under hedges. If thefe wind rows are fuffered to lie ftill, in two fenfes, the farmer must fare the worfe for his want of activity. First, if this compoft be not frequently turned over, it will bring forth weeds fpontaneoufly; fecondly, if it be fuffered to continue where it is made, the fields receive no benefit from it, being fit only in their turn to produce a crop of ufelefs and obnoxious herbage, STEEVENS.

6 The allusion is to the fun's diurnal courfe; which rifing in the east, and by revolution lowering, or fetting in the west, becomes the oppofite of itself. WARBURTON.

F