Complete Plays, The

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Complete Plays, The Page 127

by William Shakespeare


  Menecrates

  Know, worthy Pompey,

  That what they do delay, they not deny.

  Pompey

  Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays

  The thing we sue for.

  Menecrates

  We, ignorant of ourselves,

  Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers

  Deny us for our good; so find we profit

  By losing of our prayers.

  Pompey

  I shall do well:

  The people love me, and the sea is mine;

  My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope

  Says it will come to the full. Mark Antony

  In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make

  No wars without doors: Caesar gets money where

  He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,

  Of both is flatter’d; but he neither loves,

  Nor either cares for him.

  Menas

  Caesar and Lepidus

  Are in the field: a mighty strength they carry.

  Pompey

  Where have you this? ’tis false.

  Menas

  From Silvius, sir.

  Pompey

  He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,

  Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,

  Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!

  Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!

  Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,

  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!

  Enter Varrius

  How now, Varrius!

  Varrius

  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.

  Pompey

  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

  The higher our opinion, that our stirring

  Can from the lap of Egypt’s widow pluck

  The ne’er-lust-wearied Antony.

  Menas

  I cannot hope

  Caesar and Antony shall well greet together:

  His wife that’s dead did trespasses to Caesar;

  His brother warr’d upon him; although, I think,

  Not moved by Antony.

  Pompey

  I know not, Menas,

  How lesser enmities may give way to greater.

  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

  The petty difference, we yet not know.

  Be’t as our gods will have’t! It only stands

  Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.

  Come, Menas.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. ROME. THE HOUSE OF LEPIDUS.

  Enter Domitius Enobarbus and Lepidus

  Lepidus

  Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,

  And shall become you well, to entreat your captain

  To soft and gentle speech.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  I shall entreat him

  To answer like himself: if Caesar move him,

  Let Antony look over Caesar’s head

  And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,

  Were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard,

  I would not shave’t to-day.

  Lepidus

  ’Tis not a time

  For private stomaching.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  Every time

  Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.

  Lepidus

  But small to greater matters must give way.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  Not if the small come first.

  Lepidus

  Your speech is passion:

  But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes

  The noble Antony.

  Enter Mark Antony and Ventidius

  Domitius Enobarbus

  And yonder, Caesar.

  Enter Octavius Caesar, Mecaenas, and Agrippa

  Mark Antony

  If we compose well here, to Parthia:

  Hark, Ventidius.

  Octavius Caesar

  I do not know,

  Mecaenas; ask Agrippa.

  Lepidus

  Noble friends,

  That which combined 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

  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.

  Mark Antony

  ’Tis spoken well.

  Were we before our armies, and to fight.

  I should do thus.

  Flourish

  Octavius Caesar

  Welcome to Rome.

  Mark Antony

  Thank you.

  Octavius Caesar

  Sit.

  Mark Antony

  Sit, sir.

  Octavius Caesar

  Nay, then.

  Mark Antony

  I learn, you take things ill which are not so,

  Or being, concern you not.

  Octavius Caesar

  I must be laugh’d at,

  If, or for nothing or a little, I

  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.

  Mark Antony

  My being in Egypt, Caesar,

  What was’t to you?

  Octavius Caesar

  No more than my residing here at Rome

  Might be to you in Egypt: yet, if you there

  Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt

  Might be my question.

  Mark Antony

  How intend you, practised?

  Octavius Caesar

  You may be pleased to catch at mine intent

  By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother

  Made wars upon me; and their contestation

  Was theme for you, you were the word of war.

  Mark Antony

  You do mistake your business; my brother never

  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;

  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 have not to make it with,

  It must not be with this.

  Octavius Caesar

  You praise yourself

  By laying defects of judgment to me; but

  You patch’d up your excuses.

  Mark Antony

  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,

  Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars

  Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,

  I would you ha
d her spirit in such another:

  The third o’ the world is yours; which with a snaffle

  You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women!

  Mark Antony

  So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar

  Made out of her impatience, which not wanted

  Shrewdness of policy too, I grieving grant

  Did you too much disquiet: for that you must

  But say, I could not help it.

  Octavius Caesar

  I wrote to you

  When rioting in Alexandria; you

  Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts

  Did gibe my missive out of audience.

  Mark Antony

  Sir,

  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

  As to have ask’d him pardon. Let this fellow

  Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,

  Out of our question wipe him.

  Octavius Caesar

  You have broken

  The article of your oath; which you shall never

  Have tongue to charge me with.

  Lepidus

  Soft, Caesar!

  Mark Antony

  No,

  Lepidus, let him speak:

  The honour is sacred which he talks on now,

  Supposing that I lack’d it. But, on, Caesar;

  The article of my oath.

  Octavius Caesar

  To lend me arms and aid when I required them;

  The which you both denied.

  Mark Antony

  Neglected, rather;

  And then when poison’d hours had bound me up

  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,

  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.

  Lepidus

  ’Tis noble spoken.

  Mecaenas

  If it might please you, to enforce no further

  The griefs between ye: to forget them quite

  Were to remember that the present need

  Speaks to atone you.

  Lepidus

  Worthily spoken, Mecaenas.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  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.

  Mark Antony

  Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

  Mark Antony

  You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  Go to, then; your considerate stone.

  Octavius Caesar

  I do not much dislike the matter, but

  The manner of his speech; for’t 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

  O’ the world I would pursue it.

  Agrippa

  Give me leave, Caesar,—

  Octavius Caesar

  Speak, Agrippa.

  Agrippa

  Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side,

  Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony

  Is now a widower.

  Octavius Caesar

  Say not so, Agrippa:

  If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof

  Were well deserved of rashness.

  Mark Antony

  I am not married, Caesar: let me hear

  Agrippa further speak.

  Agrippa

  To hold you in perpetual amity,

  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;

  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,

  Would then be nothing: truths would be 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;

  For ’tis a studied, not a present thought,

  By duty ruminated.

  Mark Antony

  Will Caesar speak?

  Octavius Caesar

  Not till he hears how Antony is touch’d

  With what is spoke already.

  Mark Antony

  What power is in Agrippa,

  If I would say, ‘Agrippa, be it so,’

  To make this good?

  Octavius Caesar

  The power of Caesar, and

  His power unto Octavia.

  Mark Antony

  May I never

  To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,

  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!

  Octavius Caesar

  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

  Fly off our loves again!

  Lepidus

  Happily, amen!

  Mark Antony

  I did not think to draw my sword ’gainst Pompey;

  For he hath laid strange courtesies and great

  Of late upon me: I must thank him only,

  Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;

  At heel of that, defy him.

  Lepidus

  Time calls upon’s:

  Of us must Pompey presently be sought,

  Or else he seeks out us.

  Mark Antony

  Where lies he?

  Octavius Caesar

  About the mount Misenum.

  Mark Antony

  What is his strength by land?

  Octavius Caesar

  Great and increasing: but by sea

  He is an absolute master.

  Mark Antony

  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.

  Octavius Caesar

  With most gladness:

  And do invite you to my sister’s view,

  Whither straight I’ll lead you.

  Mark Antony

  Let us, Lepidus,

  Not lack your company.

  Lepidus

  Noble Antony,

  Not sickness should detain me.

  Flourish. Exeunt Octavius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Lepidus

  Mecaenas

  Welcome from Egypt, sir.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa!

  Agrippa

  Good Enobarbus!

  Mecaenas

  We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by ’t in Egypt.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.
r />   Mecaenas

  Eight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there; is this true?

  Domitius Enobarbus

  This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

  Mecaenas

  She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.

  Agrippa

  There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised well for her.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  I will tell you.

  The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,

  Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

  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,

  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

  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,

  And what they undid did.

  Agrippa

  O, rare for Antony!

  Domitius Enobarbus

  Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

  So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes,

  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

  A strange invisible perfume hits the sense

  Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast

  Her people out upon her; and Antony,

  Enthroned i’ the market-place, did sit alone,

  Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,

  Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

  And made a gap in nature.

  Agrippa

  Rare Egyptian!

  Domitius Enobarbus

  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,

  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.

  Agrippa

  Royal wench!

  She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:

  He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.

  Domitius Enobarbus

  I saw her once

  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.

 

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