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Laf. I saw the man to-day, if man he be.
King. Find him, and bring him hither.
Ber. What of him?

He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,
With all the spots o'the world tax'd and debosh'd;
Whose nature sickens, but to speak a truth:
Am I or that, or this, for what he'll utter,
That will speak any thing?

King. She hath that ring of yours.

Ber. I think, she has: certain it is, I lik'd her,
And boarded her i'the wanton way of youth:
She knew her distance, and did angle for me,
Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
As all impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
Her insuit coming with her modern grace
Subdued me to her rate: she got the ring:
And I had that, which any inferior might
At market-price have bought.

Dia. I must be patient;

You, that turn'd off a first so noble wife,
May justly diet me. I pray you yet

(Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband),
Send for your ring, I will return it home,
And give me mine again.

Ber. I have it not.

King. What ring was your's, I pray you?
Dia. Sir, much like

The same upon your finger.

[of late.
King. Know you this ring? this ring was his
Dia. And this was it I gave him, being a-bed.
King. The story then goes false, you threw it
Out of a casement.

Dia. I have spoke the truth.
Enter Parolles.

[him

Ber. My lord, I do confess the ring was hers. King. You boggle shrewdly, every feather starts Is this the man you speak of? [you.

Dia. Ay, my lord.

King. Tell me, sirrah, but, tell me true, I

charge you,

Not fearing the displeasure of your master,
(Which, on your just proceeding, I'll keep off),
By him, and by this woman here, what know you?

Par. So please your majesty, my master hath been an honourable gentleman! tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.

King. Come, come, to the purpose: did he love this woman?

Par. 'Faith, sir, he did love her; but how?

King. How, I pray you?

loved her,-for, indeed, he was mad for her, and talked of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies, and I know not what; yet I was in that credit with them at that time, that I knew of their going to bed: and of other motions, as promising her marriage, and things that would derive me ill will to speak of, therefore I will not speak what I know. King. Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are married: but thou art too fine in thy evidence: therefore, stand aside.-This ring, you say, was your's?

Dia. Ay, my good lord.

[you?

King. Where did you buy it? or who gave it
Dia. It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.
King. Who lent it you?

Dia. It was not lent me neither.
King. Where did you find it then?
Dia. I found it not.

King. If it were your's by none of all these
How could you give it him?

Dia. I never gave it him.

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Laf. This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at pleasure. [wife. King. This ring was mine, I gave it his first Dia. It might be your's, or her's, for aught I

know.

King. Take her away, I do not like her now;
To prison with her: and away with him.-
Unless thou tell'st me where thou had'st this ring,
Thou diest within this hour.
Dia. I'll never tell you.
King. Take her away.

Dia. I'll put in bail, my liege.

[tomer.

King. I think thee now some common cus-
Dia. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.
King. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this
while?

Dia. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty;
He knows, I am no maid, and he'll swear to't:
I'll swear, I am a maid, and he knows not.
Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life;
I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.
[pointing to Lafeu.

King. She does abuse our ears; to prison with
her.

Dia. Good mother, fetch my bail.-Stay, royal
sir;
[exit Widow.

The jeweller, that owes the ring, is sent for,
And he shall surety me. But for this lord,
Who hath abus'd me, as he knows himself,
Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him:

Par. He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves He knows himself, my bed he hath defil'd:

a woman.

King. How is that?

Par. He loved her sir, and loved her not. King. As thou art a knave, and no knave:What an equivocal companion is this?

Par. I am a poor man, and at your majesty's command.

Laf. He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty

orator.

Dia. Do you know, he promised me marriage? Par. 'Faith, I know more than I'll speak. King. But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st? Par. Yes, so please your majesty; I did go between them, as I said; but more than that, ho

And at that time he got his wife with child:
Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;
So there's my riddle, One, that's dead, is quick:
And now behold the meaning.

Re-enter Widow, and Helena.
King. Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is't real, that I see?

Hel. No, my good lord;
'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
The name, and not the thing.

Ber. Both, both; O, pardon!

Hel. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid, I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,

And, look you, here's your letter; this it says, 'When from my finger you can get this ring, And are by me with child,' &c.-This is done: Will you be mine, now you are doubly won? Ber. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,

I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

Hel. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you! O, my dear mother, do I see you living?

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If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower,

[to Diana. Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower, For I can guess, that, by thy honest aid, Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.Of that, and all the progress, more and less, Resolvedly more leisure shall express: All yet seems well; and if it end so meet, The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.. [flourish.

Advancing.

The king's a beggar, now the play is done: All is well ended, if the suit be won, That you express content; which we will pay, With strife to please you, day exceeding day: Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts; Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

[excunt.

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Proculcius,

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Menas,
Menecrates,

Friends of Pompey."

Varrius,

Taurus, Lieutenant-general to Cæsar.

Canidius, Lieutenant-general to Antony.

Silius, an officer in Ventidius' army.

Euphronius, an Ambassador from Antony to Cæsar.

Alexas, Mardian, Seleucus, and Diomedes, Attendants on

Cleopatra.

A Soothsayer. A Clown.

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

Octavia, sister to Cæsar, and wife to Antony.

Charmian,

Iras,

Attendants on Cleopatra.

Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE dispersed; in several Parts of the Roman Empire.

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Enter Demetrius and Philo.

[turn,

Phi. 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
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. Look, where they come!
Flourish. Enter Antony and Cleopatra, with their
Trains; Eunuchs fanning her.

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.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be
reckon❜d.

Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd. Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

Enter an Attendant.

Att. News, my good lord, from Rome Ant. Grates me:- -The sum. Cleo. Nay, hear them, Antony: Fulvia, perchance, is angry; or, who knows If the scarce-bearded Cæsar 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.

Ant. How, my love!

Cleo. Perchance,-nay, and most like, You must not stay here longer, your dismission Is come from Cæsar; 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 Cæsar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame, When shrill-tongue'd Fulvia scolds.-The mes

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And such a twain can do't, in which, I bind
On pain of punishment, the world to weet,
We stand up peerless.

Cleo. Excellent falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?—
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
Will be himself.

Ant. 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 to-night?
Cleo. Hear the ambassadors.

Ant. 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 admir'd!
No messenger; but thine and all alone,
To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and

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

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

Alex. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
Char. Hush!

Sooth. You shall be more beloving, than beloved.
Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
Alex. Nay, hear him.

Char. 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 Cæsar, and companion me with my mistress. [serve. Sooth. You shall outlive the lady whom you Char. O excellent! I love long life better than figs. [fortune,

Sooth. You have seen and proved a fairer former Than that which is to approach.

names.

Char. Then, belike, my children shall have no [have? Pr'ythee, how many boys and wenches must I Sooth. If every of your wishes had a womb, And fertile every wish, a million.

Char. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch. Alex. You think, none but your sheets are privy to 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.

[else. Iras. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing Char. Even as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth faminc.

Iras. Go, you wild bed-fellow, you cannot soothsay.

Char. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful
prognostication, I cannot scratch 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 said.
[she?
Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than

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 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 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; there fore, dear Isis, 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. Hush! here comes Antony.
Char. Not he, the queen.
Enter Cleopatra.

Cleo. Saw you my lord?
Eno. No, lady.

Cleo. Was he not here?
Char. No, madam.

[sudden

Cleo. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the A Roman thought had struck him.--Enobarbus,Eno. Madam.

Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas? [approaches.

Alex. Here madam, at your service.-My lord Enter Antony, with a Messenger, and Attendants. Cleo. We will not look upon him: go with us. [exeunt Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Alexas, Iras, Charmian, Soothsayer, and Attendants. 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;

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy,
Upon the first encounter, drave them

Ant. Well,

What worst?

Mess. The nature of bad news infects the teller. Ant. When it concerns the fool, or coward..

On: [thus; Things that are past, are done, with me.' -'Tis Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, I hear him, as he flatter'd.

Mess. Labienus

(This is stiff news) hath, with his Parthian force, Extended Asia from Euphrates;

His conquering banner shook, from Syria
To Lydia, and to Iona:
Whilst

Ant. Antony, thou wouldst say,—
Mess. O, my lord!

Ant. Speak to me home, mince not the general

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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 winds liestill; and our ills told us,
Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
Mess. At your noble pleasure.
[exit.
Ant. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.
1 Att. The man from Sicyon. Is there such an
2 Att. He stays upon your will [one?
Ant. Let him appear.-

These strong Egyptian fetters, I must break,
Enter another Messenger.

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Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears. [gives a letter.
Ant. Forbear me.-
[exit Messenger.
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempts do 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 shov'd 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!
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 pieces of work; which not to have been blessed withal, would have discredited your travel. Ant. Fulvia is dead.

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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.

Ant. The business she hath broached 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 officer 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 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, bath 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.

SCENE III.

Lexeunt.

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Alexas. Cleo. Where is he?

Char. I did not see him since.

Cleo. 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 Al.
Char. Madam, methinks, if you did love him
You do not hold the method to enforce [dearly,
The like from him.

Cleo. What should I do, I do not?
Char. In each thing give him way, cross him
in nothing.

[him. Cleo. Thou teachest like a fool the way to lose Char. Tempt him not so too far: I wish, forbear: In time we hate that which we often fear. Enter Antony.

But here comes Antony.

[pose,

Cleo. I am sick, and sullen. Ant. I am sorry to give breathing to my purCleo. Help me away, dear Charmian, I shall It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature [fall; Will not sustain it.

Ant. Now, my dearest queen,—

Cleo. Pray you, stand further from me.and Ant. What's the matter? [good news.

Cleo. I know, by that same eye, there's some 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. Ant. The gods best know, Cleo. O, never was there queen

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