Antony and Cleopatra

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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 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 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'd do't!

ENOBARBUS.
Hush! Here comes Antony.

CHARMIAN.
Not he; the queen.

[Enter CLEOPATRA.]

CLEOPATRA.
Saw you my lord?

ENOBARBUS.
No, lady.

CLEOPATRA.
Was he not here?

CHARMIAN.
No, madam.

CLEOPATRA.
He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him.--Enobarbus,--

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 CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHAR., IRAS, ALEX., and
Soothsayer.]

[Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER and Attendants.]

MESSENGER.
Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.

ANTONY.
Against my brother Lucius.

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, drave them.

ANTONY.
Well, what worst?

MESSENGER.
The nature of bad news infects the teller.

ANTONY.
When it concerns the fool or coward.--On:--
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