William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra

ACT I. 2. SCENE II. Alexandria. Another Room in CLEOPATRA'S palace. (continued)

SECOND MESSENGER.
In Sicyon:
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears. [Gives a letter.]

ANTONY.
Forbear me.

[Exit MESSENGER.]

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
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--ho, Enobarbus!

[Re-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.

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 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.

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
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 withal would have discredited your travel.