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Messina. A Room in POMPEY’S House. | |
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Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS. | |
| Pom. If the great gods be just, they shall assist | |
| The deeds of justest men. | |
| Mene. Know, worthy Pompey, | 5 |
| That what they do delay, they not deny. | |
| Pom. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays | |
| The thing we sue for. | |
| Mene. We, ignorant of ourselves, | |
| Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers | 10 |
| Deny us for our good; so find we profit | |
| By losing of our prayers. | |
| Pom. I shall do well: | |
| The people love me, and the sea is mine; | |
| My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope | 15 |
| Says it will come to the full. Mark Antony | |
| In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make | |
| No wars without doors; Cæsar gets money where | |
| He loses hearts; Lepidus flatters both, | |
| Of both is flatter’d; but he neither loves, | 20 |
| Nor either cares for him. | |
| Men. Cæsar and Lepidus | |
| Are in the field; a mighty strength they carry. | |
| Pom. Where have you this? ’tis false. | |
| Men. From Silvius, sir. | 25 |
| Pom. He dreams; I know they are in Rome together, | |
| Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love, | |
| Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan’d lip! | |
| Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both! | |
| Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, | 30 |
| Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks | |
| Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite, | |
| That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour | |
| Even till a Lethe’d dulness! | |
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Enter VARRIUS. | 35 |
| How now, Varrius! | |
| Var. This is most certain that I shall deliver: | |
| Mark Antony is every hour in Rome | |
| Expected; since he went from Egypt ’tis | |
| A space for further travel. | 40 |
| Pom. I could have given less matter | |
| A better ear. Menas, I did not think | |
| This amorous surfeiter would have donn’d his helm | |
| For such a petty war; his soldiership | |
| Is twice the other twain. But let us rear | 45 |
| The higher our opinion, that our stirring | |
| Can from the lap of Egypt’s widow pluck | |
| The ne’er-lust-wearied Antony. | |
| Men. I cannot hope | |
| Cæsar and Antony shall well greet together; | 50 |
| His wife that’s dead did trespasses to Cæsar, | |
| His brother warr’d upon him, although I think | |
| Not mov’d by Antony. | |
| Pom. I know not, Menas, | |
| How lesser enmities may give way to greater. | 55 |
| Were ’t not that we stand up against them all | |
| ’Twere pregnant they should square between themselves, | |
| For they have entertained cause enough | |
| To draw their swords; but how the fear of us | |
| May cement their divisions and bind up | 60 |
| The petty difference, we yet not know. | |
| Be it as our gods will have ’t! It only stands | |
| Our lives upon, to use our strongest hands. | |
| Come, Menas. [Exeunt. | |
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