Rome. A Room in LEPIDUS’ House. | |
| |
Enter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS. | |
| Lep. Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed, | |
| And shall become you well, to entreat your captain | 4 |
| To soft and gentle speech. | |
| Eno. I shall entreat him | |
| To answer like himself: if Cæsar move him, | |
| Let Antony look over Cæsar’s head, | 8 |
| And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter, | |
| Were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard, | |
| I would not shave ’t to-day. | |
| Lep. ’Tis not a time | 12 |
| For private stomaching. | |
| Eno. Every time | |
| Serves for the matter that is then born in ’t. | |
| Lep. But small to greater matters must give way. | 16 |
| Eno. Not if the small come first. | |
| Lep. Your speech is passion; | |
| But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes | |
| The noble Antony. | 20 |
| |
Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS. | |
| Eno. And yonder, Cæsar. | |
| |
Enter CÆSAR, MECÆNAS, and AGRIPPA. | |
| Ant. If we compose well here, to Parthia: | 24 |
| Hark ye, Ventidius. | |
| Cæs. I do not know, | |
| Mecænas; ask Agrippa. | |
| Lep. Noble friends, | 28 |
| That which combin’d us was most great, and let not | |
| A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss, | |
| May it be gently heard; when we debate | |
| Our trivial difference loud, we do commit | 32 |
| Murder in healing wounds; then, noble partners,— | |
| The rather for I earnestly beseech,— | |
| Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms, | |
| Nor curstness grow to the matter. | 36 |
| Ant. ’Tis spoken well. | |
| Were we before our armies, and to fight, | |
| I should do thus. | |
| Cæs. Welcome to Rome. | 40 |
| Ant. Thank you. | |
| Cæs. Sit. | |
| Ant Sit, sir. | |
| Cæs. Nay, then. | 44 |
| Ant. I learn, you take things ill which are not so, | |
| Or being, concern you not. | |
| Cæs. I must be laugh’d at | |
| If, or for nothing or a little, I | 48 |
| Should say myself offended, and with you | |
| Chiefly i’ the world; more laugh’d at that I should | |
| Once name you derogately, when to sound your name | |
| It not concern’d me. | 52 |
| Ant. My being in Egypt, Cæsar, | |
| What was ’t to you? | |
| Cæs. No more than my residing here at Rome | |
| Might be to you in Egypt; yet, if you there | 56 |
| Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt | |
| Might be my question. | |
| Ant. How intend you, practis’d? | |
| Cæs. You may be pleas’d to catch at mine intent | 60 |
| By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother | |
| Made wars upon me, and their contestation | |
| Was theme for you, you were the word of war. | |
| Ant. You do mistake your business; my brother never | 64 |
| Did urge me in his act: I did inquire it; | |
| And have my learning from some true reports, | |
| That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather | |
| Discredit my authority with yours, | 68 |
| And make the wars alike against my stomach, | |
| Having alike your cause? Of this my letters | |
| Before did satisfy you. If you’ll patch a quarrel, | |
| As matter whole you n’ have to make it with, | 72 |
| It must not be with this. | |
| Cæs. You praise yourself | |
| By laying defects of judgment to me, but | |
| You patch’d up your excuses. | 76 |
| Ant. Not so, not so; | |
| I know you could not lack, I am certain on ’t, | |
| Very necessity of this thought, that I, | |
| Your partner in the cause ’gainst which he fought, | 80 |
| Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars | |
| Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife, | |
| I would you had her spirit in such another: | |
| The third o’ the world is yours, which with a snaffle | 84 |
| You may pace easy, but not such a wife. | |
| Eno. Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women! | |
| Ant. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Cæsar, | |
| Made out of her impatience,—which not wanted | 88 |
| Shrewdness of policy too,—I grieving grant | |
| Did you too much disquiet; for that you must | |
| But say I could not help it. | |
| Cæs. I wrote to you | 92 |
| When rioting in Alexandria; you | |
| Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts | |
| Did gibe my missive out of audience. | |
| Ant. Sir, | 96 |
| He fell upon me, ere admitted: then | |
| Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want | |
| Of what I was i’ the morning; but next day | |
| I told him of myself, which was as much | 100 |
| As to have ask’d him pardon. Let this fellow | |
| Be nothing of our strife; if we contend, | |
| Out of our question wipe him. | |
| Cæs. You have broken | 104 |
| The article of your oath, which you shall never | |
| Have tongue to charge me with. | |
| Lep. Soft, Cæsar! | |
| Ant. No, | 108 |
| Lepidus, let him speak: | |
| The honour’s sacred which he talks on now, | |
| Supposing that I lack’d it. But on, Cæsar; | |
| The article of my oath. | 112 |
| Cæs. To lend me arms and aid when I requir’d them, | |
| The which you both denied. | |
| Ant. Neglected, rather; | |
| And then, when poison’d hours had bound me up | 116 |
| From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may, | |
| I’ll play the penitent to you; but mine honesty | |
| Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power | |
| Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia, | 120 |
| To have me out of Egypt, made wars here; | |
| For which myself, the ignorant motive, do | |
| So far ask pardon as befits mine honour | |
| To stoop in such a case. | 124 |
| Lep. ’Tis noble spoken. | |
| Mec. If it might please you, to enforce no further | |
| The griefs between ye: to forget them quite | |
| Were to remember that the present need | 128 |
| Speaks to atone you. | |
| Lep. Worthily spoken, Mecænas. | |
| Eno. Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do. | |
| Ant. Thou art a soldier only; speak no more. | 132 |
| Eno. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. | |
| Ant. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more. | |
| Eno. Go to, then; your considerate stone. | |
| Cæs. I do not much dislike the matter, but | 136 |
| The manner of his speech; for it cannot be | |
| We shall remain in friendship, our conditions | |
| So differing in their acts. Yet, if I knew | |
| What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge | 140 |
| O’ the world I would pursue it. | |
| Agr. Give me leave, Cæsar. | |
| Cæs. Speak, Agrippa. | |
| Agr. Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side, | 144 |
| Admir’d Octavia; great Mark Antony | |
| Is now a widower. | |
| Cæs. Say not so, Agrippa: | |
| If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof | 148 |
| Were well deserv’d of rashness. | |
| Ant. I am not married, Cæsar; let me hear | |
| Agrippa further speak. | |
| Agr. To hold you in perpetual amity, | 152 |
| To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts | |
| With an unslipping knot, take Antony | |
| Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims | |
| No worse a husband than the best of men, | 156 |
| Whose virtue and whose general graces speak | |
| That which none else can utter. By this marriage, | |
| All little jealousies which now seem great, | |
| And all great fears which now import their dangers, | 160 |
| Would then be nothing; truths would be but tales | |
| Where now half tales be truths; her love to both | |
| Would each to other and all loves to both | |
| Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke, | 164 |
| For ’tis a studied, not a present thought, | |
| By duty ruminated. | |
| Ant. Will Cæsar speak? | |
| Cæs. Not till he hears how Antony is touch’d | 168 |
| With what is spoke already. | |
| Ant. What power is in Agrippa, | |
| If I would say, ‘Agrippa, be it so,’ | |
| To make this good? | 172 |
| Cæs. The power of Cæsar, and | |
| His power unto Octavia. | |
| Ant. May I never | |
| To this good purpose, that so fairly shows, | 176 |
| Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand; | |
| Further this act of grace, and from this hour | |
| The heart of brothers govern in our loves | |
| And sway our great designs! | 180 |
| Cæs. There is my hand. | |
| A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother | |
| Did ever love so dearly; let her live | |
| To join our kingdoms and our hearts, and never | 184 |
| Fly off our loves again! | |
| Lep. Happily, amen! | |
| Ant. I did not think to draw my sword ’gainst Pompey, | |
| For he hath laid strange courtesies and great | 188 |
| Of late upon me; I must thank him only, | |
| Lost my remembrance suffer ill report; | |
| At heel of that, defy him. | |
| Lep. Time calls upon ’s: | 192 |
| Of us must Pompey presently be sought, | |
| Or else he seeks out us. | |
| Ant. Where lies he? | |
| Cæs. About the Mount Misenum. | 196 |
| Ant. What’s his strength | |
| By land? | |
| Cæs. Great and increasing; but by sea | |
| He is an absolute master. | 200 |
| Ant. So is the fame. | |
| Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it; | |
| Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we | |
| The business we have talk’d of. | 204 |
| Cæs. With most gladness; | |
| And do invite you to my sister’s view, | |
| Whither straight I’ll lead you. | |
| Ant. Let us, Lepidus, | 208 |
| Not lack your company. | |
| Lep. Noble Antony, | |
| Not sickness should detain me. [Flourish. Exeunt CÆSAR, ANTONY, and LEPIDUS. | |
| Mec. Welcome from Egypt, sir. | 212 |
| Eno. Half the heart of Cæsar, worthy Mecænas! My honourable friend, Agrippa! | |
| Agr. Good Enobarbus! | |
| Mec. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by ’t in Egypt. | |
| Eno. Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking. | 216 |
| Mec. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there; is this true? | |
| Eno. This was but as a fly by an eagle; we had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting. | |
| Mec. She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her. | |
| Eno. When she first met Mark Antony she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus. | 220 |
| Agr. There she appeared indeed, or my reporter devised well for her. | |
| Eno. I will tell you. | |
| The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, | |
| Burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold, | 224 |
| Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that | |
| The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver, | |
| Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made | |
| The water which they beat to follow faster, | 228 |
| As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, | |
| It beggar’d all description; she did lie | |
| In her pavilion,—cloth-of-gold of tissue,— | |
| O’er-picturing that Venus where we see | 232 |
| The fancy outwork nature; on each side her | |
| Stood pretty-dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, | |
| With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem | |
| To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, | 236 |
| And what they undid did. | |
| Agr. O! rare for Antony. | |
| Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, | |
| So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes, | 240 |
| And made their bends adornings; at the helm | |
| A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle | |
| Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, | |
| That yarely frame the office. From the barge | 244 |
| A strange invisible perfume hits the sense | |
| Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast | |
| Her people out upon her, and Antony, | |
| Enthron’d i’ the market-place, did sit alone, | 248 |
| Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, | |
| Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too | |
| And made a gap in nature. | |
| Agr. Rare Egyptian! | 252 |
| Eno. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, | |
| Invited her to supper; she replied | |
| It should be better he became her guest, | |
| Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony, | 256 |
| Whom ne’er the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak, | |
| Being barber’d ten times o’er, goes to the feast, | |
| And, for his ordinary pays his heart | |
| For what his eyes eat only. | 260 |
| Agr. Royal wench! | |
| She made great Cæsar lay his sword to bed; | |
| He plough’d her, and she cropp’d. | |
| Eno. I saw her once | 264 |
| Hop forty paces through the public street; | |
| And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted | |
| That she did make defect perfection, | |
| And, breathless, power breathe forth. | 268 |
| Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly. | |
| Eno. Never; he will not: | |
| Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale | |
| Her infinite variety; other women cloy | 272 |
| The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry | |
| Where most she satisfies; for vilest things | |
| Become themselves in her, that the holy priests | |
| Bless her when she is riggish. | 276 |
| Mec. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle | |
| The heart of Antony, Octavia is | |
| A blessed lottery to him. | |
| Agr. Let us go. | 280 |
| Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest | |
| Whilst you abide here. | |
| Eno. Humbly, sir, I thank you. [Exeunt. | |
