SOOTHSAYER. You have seen and proved 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 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? 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! Enter Cleopatra. ENOBARBUS. Hush, Here comes Antony. CHARMIAN. Not he, the queen. CLEOPATRA. Saw you my lord? ENOBARBUS. No, lady. CLEOPATRA. Was he not here? 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? ALEXAS. Here, at your service. My lord approaches. Enter Antony with a Messenger. CLEOPATRA. We will not look upon him. Go with us. [_Exeunt Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, Iras, Alexas and Soothsayer._] 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.