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prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear.

Prithee, tell her but a worky-day fortune.

Sooth. Your fortunes are alike.

Iras. But how? but how? give me particulars.

Sooth. I have said.

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better

than she?

Char. Well, if you were but an inch of for-

tune better than I, where would you choose it?

Iras. Not in my husband's nose.

Char. Our worser thoughts heaven 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,

fifty-fold 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 heart-breaking 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!

Char. Amen.

Alex. Lo, now! if it lay in their hands to

make me a cuckold, they would make themselves

whores, but they'd do 't!

Eno. Hush! here comes Antony.

 57 worky-day: ordinary

68 that cannot go: that cannot have children

72 cuckold: husband with an unfaithful wife; cf. n. on I. ii. 4–6

