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.