Enter Enobarbus and Lepidus.LEPIDUS Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed, And shall become you well, to entreat your captain To soft and gentle speech.ENOBARBUS I shall entreat him5 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 Antonio’s beard, I would not shave ’t today.LEPIDUS 10 ’Tis not a time for private stomaching.ENOBARBUS Every time serves for the matter that is then born in ’t.LEPIDUS But small to greater matters must give way.ENOBARBUS Not if the small come first.LEPIDUS 15 Your speech is passion; but pray you stir No embers up. Here comes the noble Antony.
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Enter, ⌜at one door,⌝ Antony and Ventidius.ENOBARBUS And yonder Caesar.Enter, ⌜at another door,⌝ Caesar,
Maecenas, and Agrippa.ANTONY, ⌜to Ventidius⌝ If we compose well here, to Parthia. Hark, Ventidius.⌜They talk aside.⌝CAESAR, ⌜to Maecenas⌝ 20 I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.LEPIDUS, ⌜to Caesar and Antony⌝ 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 debate25 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 th’ matter.ANTONY 30 ’Tis spoken well. Were we before our armies, and to fight, I should do thus.Flourish.CAESAR Welcome to Rome.ANTONY Thank you.CAESAR 35Sit.ANTONY Sit, sir.CAESAR Nay, then.⌜They sit.⌝ANTONY I learn you take things ill which are not so, Or, being, concern you not.CAESAR 40 I must be laughed at If or for nothing or a little, I Should say myself offended, and with you Chiefly i’ th’ world; more laughed at, that I should
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Once name you derogately when to sound your45 name It not concerned me.ANTONY My being in Egypt, Caesar, what was ’t to you?CAESAR No more than my residing here at Rome Might be to you in Egypt. Yet if you there50 Did practice on my state, your being in Egypt Might be my question.ANTONY How intend you, practiced?CAESAR You may be pleased to catch at mine intent By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother55 Made wars upon me, and their contestation Was theme for you; you were the word of war.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 reports60 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,65 As matter whole you have to make it with, It must not be with this.CAESAR You praise yourself By laying defects of judgment to me; but You patched up your excuses.ANTONY 70 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
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75 Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife, I would you had her spirit in such another. The third o’ th’ world is yours, which with a snaffle You may pace easy, but not such a wife.ENOBARBUS Would we had all such wives, that the men80 might go to wars with the women!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 must85 But say I could not help it.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.ANTONY 90 Sir, He fell upon me ere admitted, then; Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want Of what I was i’ th’ morning. But next day I told him of myself, which was as much95 As to have asked him pardon. Let this fellow Be nothing of our strife; if we contend, Out of our question wipe him.CAESAR You have broken The article of your oath, which you shall never100 Have tongue to charge me with.LEPIDUS Soft, Caesar!ANTONY No, Lepidus, let him speak. The honor is sacred which he talks on now, Supposing that I lacked it.—But on, Caesar:105 The article of my oath?CAESAR To lend me arms and aid when I required them, The which you both denied.
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ANTONY Neglected, rather; And then when poisoned hours had bound me up110 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,115 For which myself, the ignorant motive, do So far ask pardon as befits mine honor To stoop in such a case.LEPIDUS ’Tis noble spoken.MAECENAS If it might please you to enforce no further120 The griefs between you, to forget them quite Were to remember that the present need Speaks to atone you.LEPIDUS Worthily spoken, Maecenas.ENOBARBUS Or, if you borrow one another’s love for125 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.ANTONY Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.ENOBARBUS That truth should be silent I had almost130 forgot.ANTONY You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.ENOBARBUS Go to, then. Your considerate stone.CAESAR I do not much dislike the matter, but The manner of his speech; for ’t cannot be135 We shall remain in friendship, our conditions So diff’ring in their acts. Yet if I knew What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge O’ th’ world I would pursue it.
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AGRIPPA 140Give me leave, Caesar.CAESAR Speak, Agrippa.AGRIPPA Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side, Admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony Is now a widower.CAESAR 145 Say not ⌜so,⌝ Agrippa. If Cleopatra heard you, your ⌜reproof⌝ Were well deserved of rashness.ANTONY I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear Agrippa further speak.AGRIPPA 150 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;155 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,160 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.ANTONY 165 Will Caesar speak?CAESAR Not till he hears how Antony is touched With what is spoke already.ANTONY What power is in Agrippa, If I would say “Agrippa, be it so,”170 To make this good?
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CAESAR The power of Caesar, and His power unto Octavia.ANTONY May I never To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,175 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.CAESAR There’s my hand.⌜They clasp hands.⌝180 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!ANTONY 185 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 190 Time calls upon ’s. Of us must Pompey presently be sought, Or else he seeks out us.ANTONY Where lies he?CAESAR About the Mount Misena.ANTONY 195What is his strength by land?CAESAR Great and increasing; But by sea he is an absolute master.ANTONY So is the fame. Would we had spoke together. Haste we for it.200 Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we The business we have talked of.CAESAR With most gladness,
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And do invite you to my sister’s view, Whither straight I’ll lead you.ANTONY 205 Let us, Lepidus, not lack your company.LEPIDUS Noble Antony, not sickness should detain me.Flourish. All but Enobarbus, Agrippa, and
Maecenas exit.MAECENAS, ⌜to Enobarbus⌝ Welcome from Egypt, sir.ENOBARBUS Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas!—My honorable friend Agrippa!AGRIPPA 210Good Enobarbus!MAECENAS We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by ’t in Egypt.ENOBARBUS Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance and made the night light with drinking.MAECENAS 215Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there. Is this true?ENOBARBUS This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.MAECENAS 220She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.ENOBARBUS When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart upon the river of Cydnus.AGRIPPA There she appeared indeed, or my reporter225 devised well for her.ENOBARBUS I will tell you. The barge she sat in like a burnished throne Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed that230 The winds were lovesick with them. The oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster,
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As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,235 It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold, of tissue— O’erpicturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature. On each side her Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,240 With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem To ⌜glow⌝ the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid did.AGRIPPA O, rare for Antony!ENOBARBUS Her ⌜gentlewomen,⌝ like the Nereides,245 So many mermaids, tended her i’ th’ 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 barge250 A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her; and Antony, Enthroned i’ th’ market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to th’ air, which but for vacancy255 Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too And made a gap in nature.AGRIPPA Rare Egyptian!ENOBARBUS Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, Invited her to supper. She replied260 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 barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast, And for his ordinary pays his heart265 For what his eyes eat only.AGRIPPA Royal wench!
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She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed; He ploughed her, and she cropped.ENOBARBUS I saw her once270 Hop forty paces through the public street, And having lost her breath, she spoke and panted, That she did make defect perfection, And breathless pour breath forth.MAECENAS Now Antony must leave her utterly.ENOBARBUS 275Never. He will not. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. For vilest things280 Become themselves in her, that the holy priests Bless her when she is riggish.MAECENAS If beauty, wisdom, modesty can settle The heart of Antony, Octavia is A blessèd lottery to him.AGRIPPA 285 Let us go. Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest Whilst you abide here.ENOBARBUS Humbly, sir, I thank you.They exit.
Antony and Cleopatra
