The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra: Act 1, Scene 2 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 1, Scene 2 of The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Enter Enobarbus, Lamprius, a Soothsayer, Rannius, Lucillius, Charmian, Iras, Mardian the Eunuch, Alexas, and Servants. CHARMIAN Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where’s the soothsayer that you praised so to th’ Queen? O, that I knew this husband which you say must charge his horns with garlands! 5 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. 10 ALEXAS, to Charmian Show him your hand. ENOBARBUS, to Servants Bring in the banquet quickly, wine enough Cleopatra’s health to drink. CHARMIAN, giving her hand to the Soothsayer Good sir, give me good fortune. 15 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. 20 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. 25 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 30 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 proved a fairer former fortune 35 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, 40 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, to Soothsayer Nay, come. Tell Iras hers. 45 ALEXAS We’ll know all our fortunes. ENOBARBUS Mine, and most of our fortunes tonight, shall be—drunk to bed. IRAS, giving her hand to the Soothsayer There’s a palm presages chastity, if nothing else. 50 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 55 tell her but a workaday 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? 60 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 65 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 70 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 75 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. 80 ENOBARBUS Hush, here comes Antony. CHARMIAN Not he. The Queen.	Charmian and Iras, Cleopatra’s maids, chat with a soothsayer (a.k.a., a fortuneteller). He tells them their fortunes are alike in that their pasts are better than their futures and that they’ll both outlive the woman they serve. They tease the soothsayer and dismiss his prophecies.
Enter Cleopatra. CLEOPATRA Saw you my lord? ENOBARBUS No, lady. CLEOPATRA Was he not here? 85 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 Alexas? 90 ALEXAS Here at your service. My lord approaches.	The giggle-fest is broken up when Cleopatra comes in looking for Antony, who was all revelry until he suddenly went into a bad mood thinking about Rome.
Enter Antony with a Messenger. CLEOPATRA We will not look upon him. Go with us.	Cleopatra is a feisty one: she exits when Antony enters so as not to see him, even though she had just sent his man Enobarbus to go find him. Oh, the games!
MESSENGER Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. ANTONY Against my brother Lucius? MESSENGER Ay. 95 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. 100 ANTONY Well, what worst? MESSENGER The nature of bad news infects the teller. ANTONY When it concerns the fool or coward. On. Things that are past are done, with me. ’Tis thus: Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, 105 I hear him as he flattered. MESSENGER Labienus— This is stiff news—hath with his Parthian force Extended Asia: from Euphrates His conquering banner shook, from Syria 110 To Lydia and to Ionia, Whilst—	A messenger is telling Antony some bad news: his wife Fulvia went to war with his brother Lucius, but then joined forces with Lucius against Octavius Caesar, who promptly beat them both. Further, Labienus, an old enemy of the Roman triumvirate, has begun to conquer the territories of Asia and the east that Antony is supposed to be ruling.
ANTONY “Antony,” thou wouldst say? MESSENGER O, my lord! ANTONY Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue. 115 Name Cleopatra as she is called in Rome; Rail thou in Fulvia’s phrase, and taunt my faults With such full license as both truth and malice Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds When our quick winds lie still, and our ills told us 120 Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile. MESSENGER At your noble pleasure. Messenger exits.	The servant hesitates to hint that maybe this wouldn’t have happened if somebody had been paying attention, and Antony admits he needs to hear about his faults.
Enter another Messenger. ANTONY From Sicyon how the news? Speak there. SECOND MESSENGER The man from Sicyon— ANTONY Is there such an one? 125 SECOND MESSENGER He stays upon your will. ANTONY Let him appear. Second Messenger exits. These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Or lose myself in dotage. Enter another Messenger with a letter. What are you? 130 THIRD MESSENGER Fulvia thy wife is dead. ANTONY Where died she? THIRD MESSENGER In Sicyon. Her length of sickness, with what else more serious Importeth thee to know, this bears. 135 He hands Antony the letter. ANTONY Forbear me. Third Messenger exits. 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 lowering, does become 140 The opposite of itself. She’s good, being gone. The hand could pluck her back that shoved 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! 145	Antony recognizes that he's been a bit distracted by Cleo, and he finally resolves to leave Egypt when he gets the news that his wife is dead. He’s often wished for her to be dead, but now that she is, he wishes that it hadn’t happened.
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. 150 ANTONY I must be gone. ENOBARBUS 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 155 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 a celerity in dying. 160 ANTONY She is cunning past man’s thought. ENOBARBUS 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 almanacs can 165 report. This cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove. ANTONY Would I had never seen her! ENOBARBUS O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work, which not to have been blest 170 withal would have discredited your travel. ANTONY Fulvia is dead. ENOBARBUS Sir? ANTONY Fulvia is dead. ENOBARBUS Fulvia? 175 ANTONY Dead. ENOBARBUS Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the Earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are 180 worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented. This grief is crowned with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new petticoat, and indeed the tears live in an 185 onion that should water this sorrow.	When Antony tells Enobarbus that he has to leave Egypt, Enobarbus says that will kill Cleopatra. He also suggests to Antony that the death of his wife, Fulvia, is actually a blessing. It makes things far less complicated.
ANTONY The business she hath broachèd in the state Cannot endure my absence. ENOBARBUS And the business you have broached here cannot be without you, especially that of Cleopatra’s, 190 which wholly depends on your abode.	Still, Antony is resolved to finish the business Fulvia started in Rome.
ANTONY No more light answers. Let our officers Have notice what we purpose. I shall break The cause of our expedience to the Queen And get her leave to part. For not alone 195 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 Caesar and commands 200 The empire of the sea. Our slippery people, Whose love is never linked 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, 205 Higher than both in blood and life—stands up For the main soldier; whose quality, going on, The sides o’ th’ world may danger. Much is breeding Which, like the courser’s hair, hath yet but life 210 And not a serpent’s poison. Say our pleasure, To such whose place is under us, requires Our quick remove from hence. ENOBARBUS I shall do ’t. They exit.	Antony explains to Eonabarbus that Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey—who fought Julius Caesar and lost—has begun to gain power at sea and is now challenging Octavius Caesar. Things are getting pretty dicey at home, and Antony has to go help. He sends Enobarbus to give Cleopatra the bad news: Antony's headed back to Rome. (Something tells us this isn't going to go well...)