The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare (book suggestions .TXT) 📗
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KING. This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.
DIANA. It might be yours or hers, 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 hadst this ring, Thou diest within this hour.
DIANA. I’ll never tell you.
KING. Take her away.
DIANA. I’ll put in bail, my liege.
KING. I think thee now some common customer.
DIANA. By Jove, if ever I knew man, ‘twas you.
KING. Wherefore hast thou accus’d him all this while?
DIANA. 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.
DIANA. 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.
He knows himself my bed he hath defil’d; 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 with HELENA KING. Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is’t real that I see?
HELENA. No, my good lord;
‘Tis but the shadow of a wife you see, The name and not the thing.
BERTRAM. Both, both; o, pardon!
HELENA. 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,’ etc. This is done.
Will you be mine now you are doubly won?
BERTRAM. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly, I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.
HELENA. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you!
O my dear mother, do I see you living?
LAFEU. Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon. [To PAROLLES]
Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher. So, I thank thee. Wait on me home, I’ll make sport with thee; let thy curtsies alone, they are scurvy ones.
KING. Let us from point to point this story know, To make the even truth in pleasure flow.
[To DIANA] If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower, 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]
EPILOGUE.
KING. The King’s a beggar, now the play is done.
All is well ended if this 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.
Exeunt omnes THE END
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1607
THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
by William Shakespeare
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
MARK ANTONY, Triumvirs
OCTAVIUS CAESAR, “
M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, “
SEXTUS POMPEIUS, “
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, friend to Antony
VENTIDIUS, ” ” “
EROS, ” ” “
SCARUS, ” ” “
DERCETAS, ” ” “
DEMETRIUS, ” ” “
PHILO, ” ” “
MAECENAS, friend to Caesar
AGRIPPA, ” ” “
DOLABELLA, ” ” “
PROCULEIUS, ” ” “
THYREUS, ” ” “
GALLUS, ” ” “
MENAS, friend to Pompey
MENECRATES, ” ” “
VARRIUS, ” ” “
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, attendant on Cleopatra
MARDIAN, ” ” “
SELEUCUS, ” ” “
DIOMEDES, ” ” “
A SOOTHSAYER
A CLOWN
CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt
OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony CHARMIAN, lady attending on Cleopatra
IRAS, ” ” ” “
Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants <<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
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SCENE:
The Roman Empire
ACT I. SCENE I.
Alexandria. 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.
ANTONY. There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d.
CLEOPATRA. I’ll set a bourn how far to be belov’d.
ANTONY. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Enter a MESSENGER
MESSENGER. News, my good lord, from Rome.
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 pow’rful mandate to you: ‘Do this or this; Take in that kingdom and enfranchise that; Perform’t, or else we damn thee.’
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-tongu’d Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
ANTONY. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch Of the rang’d 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 [emhracing], when such a mutual pair 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.
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.
ANTONY. Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom everything 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 Tonight 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 ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with the train DEMETRIUS. Is Caesar with Antonius priz’d 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 tomorrow. Rest you happy! Exeunt
SCENE II.
Alexandria. CLEOPATRA’S palace
Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a SOOTHSAYER
CHARMIAN. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where’s the soothsayer that you prais’d so to th’ 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 ENOBARBUS
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 prov’d 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.
ENOBARBUS. Mine, and most of our fortunes, tonight, 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 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 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
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