The Tragedy Of Antony And Cleopatra

1 Enter Enobarbus and Lepidus.
2 LEPIDUS.
3 Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,
4 And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
5 To soft and gentle speech.
6 ENOBARBUS.
7 I shall entreat him
8 To answer like himself. If Caesar move him,
9 Let Antony look over Caesar’s head
10 And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
11 Were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard,
12 I would not shave’t today.
13 LEPIDUS.
14 ’Tis not a time
15 For private stomaching.
16 ENOBARBUS.
17 Every time
18 Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.
19 LEPIDUS.
20 But small to greater matters must give way.
21 ENOBARBUS.
22 Not if the small come first.
23 LEPIDUS.
24 Your speech is passion;
25 But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes
26 The noble Antony.
27 Enter Antony and Ventidius.
28 ENOBARBUS.
29 And yonder Caesar.
30 Enter Caesar, Maecenas and Agrippa.
31 ANTONY.
32 If we compose well here, to Parthia.
33 Hark, Ventidius.
34 CAESAR.
35 I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.
36 LEPIDUS.
37 Noble friends,
38 That which combined us was most great, and let not
39 A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss,
40 May it be gently heard. When we debate
41 Our trivial difference loud, we do commit
42 Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,
43 The rather for I earnestly beseech,
44 Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
45 Nor curstness grow to th’ matter.
46 ANTONY.
47 ’Tis spoken well.
48 Were we before our armies, and to fight,
49 I should do thus.
50 CAESAR.
51 Welcome to Rome.
52 ANTONY.
53 Thank you.
54 CAESAR.
55 Sit.
56 ANTONY.
57 Sit, sir.
58 CAESAR.
59 Nay, then.
60 ANTONY.
61 I learn you take things ill which are not so,
62 Or being, concern you not.
63 CAESAR.
64 I must be laughed at
65 If, or for nothing or a little, I
66 Should say myself offended, and with you
67 Chiefly i’ th’ world; more laughed at that I should
68 Once name you derogately when to sound your name
69 It not concerned me.
70 ANTONY.
71 My being in Egypt, Caesar,
72 What was’t to you?
73 CAESAR.
74 No more than my residing here at Rome
75 Might be to you in Egypt. Yet if you there
76 Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt
77 Might be my question.
78 ANTONY.
79 How intend you, practised?
80 CAESAR.
81 You may be pleased to catch at mine intent
82 By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother
83 Made wars upon me, and their contestation
84 Was theme for you; you were the word of war.
85 ANTONY.
86 You do mistake your business. My brother never
87 Did urge me in his act. I did inquire it,
88 And have my learning from some true reports
89 That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather
90 Discredit my authority with yours,
91 And make the wars alike against my stomach,
92 Having alike your cause? Of this my letters
93 Before did satisfy you. If you’ll patch a quarrel,
94 As matter whole you have not to make it with,
95 It must not be with this.
96 CAESAR.
97 You praise yourself
98 By laying defects of judgment to me; but
99 You patched up your excuses.
100 ANTONY.
101 Not so, not so.
102 I know you could not lack—I am certain on’t—
103 Very necessity of this thought, that I,
104 Your partner in the cause ’gainst which he fought,
105 Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars
106 Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
107 I would you had her spirit in such another.
108 The third o’ th’ world is yours, which with a snaffle
109 You may pace easy, but not such a wife.
110 ENOBARBUS.
111 Would we had all such wives, that the men
112 Might go to wars with the women.
113 ANTONY.
114 So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar,
115 Made out of her impatience—which not wanted
116 Shrewdness of policy too—I grieving grant
117 Did you too much disquiet. For that you must
118 But say I could not help it.
119 CAESAR.
120 I wrote to you
121 When rioting in Alexandria; you
122 Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
123 Did gibe my missive out of audience.
124 ANTONY.
125 Sir,
126 He fell upon me ere admitted, then.
127 Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
128 Of what I was i’ th’ morning. But next day
129 I told him of myself, which was as much
130 As to have asked him pardon. Let this fellow
131 Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
132 Out of our question wipe him.
133 CAESAR.
134 You have broken
135 The article of your oath, which you shall never
136 Have tongue to charge me with.
137 LEPIDUS.
138 Soft, Caesar!
139 ANTONY.
140 No, Lepidus, let him speak.
141 The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
142 Supposing that I lacked it. But on, Caesar:
143 The article of my oath?
144 CAESAR.
145 To lend me arms and aid when I required them,
146 The which you both denied.
147 ANTONY.
148 Neglected, rather;
149 And then when poisoned hours had bound me up
150 From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may
151 I’ll play the penitent to you. But mine honesty
152 Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
153 Work without it. Truth is that Fulvia,
154 To have me out of Egypt, made wars here,
155 For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
156 So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
157 To stoop in such a case.
158 LEPIDUS.
159 ’Tis noble spoken.
160 MAECENAS.
161 If it might please you to enforce no further
162 The griefs between ye; to forget them quite
163 Were to remember that the present need
164 Speaks to atone you.
165 LEPIDUS.
166 Worthily spoken, Maecenas.
167 ENOBARBUS.
168 Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you
169 hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to
170 wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.
171 ANTONY.
172 Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.
173 ENOBARBUS.
174 That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.
175 ANTONY.
176 You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.
177 ENOBARBUS.
178 Go to, then. Your considerate stone!
179 CAESAR.
180 I do not much dislike the matter, but
181 The manner of his speech; for’t cannot be
182 We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
183 So differing in their acts. Yet if I knew
184 What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge
185 O’ th’ world I would pursue it.
186 AGRIPPA.
187 Give me leave, Caesar.
188 CAESAR.
189 Speak, Agrippa.
190 AGRIPPA.
191 Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side,
192 Admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony
193 Is now a widower.
194 CAESAR.
195 Say not so, Agrippa.
196 If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
197 Were well deserved of rashness.
198 ANTONY.
199 I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear
200 Agrippa further speak.
201 AGRIPPA.
202 To hold you in perpetual amity,
203 To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
204 With an unslipping knot, take Antony
205 Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
206 No worse a husband than the best of men;
207 Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
208 That which none else can utter. By this marriage
209 All little jealousies, which now seem great,
210 And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
211 Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,
212 Where now half-tales be truths. Her love to both
213 Would each to other, and all loves to both,
214 Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke,
215 For ’tis a studied, not a present thought,
216 By duty ruminated.
217 ANTONY.
218 Will Caesar speak?
219 CAESAR.
220 Not till he hears how Antony is touched
221 With what is spoke already.
222 ANTONY.
223 What power is in Agrippa,
224 If I would say “Agrippa, be it so,”
225 To make this good?
226 CAESAR.
227 The power of Caesar, and
228 His power unto Octavia.
229 ANTONY.
230 May I never
231 To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,
232 Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand.
233 Further this act of grace; and from this hour
234 The heart of brothers govern in our loves
235 And sway our great designs!
236 CAESAR.
237 There’s my hand.
238 A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
239 Did ever love so dearly. Let her live
240 To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never
241 Fly off our loves again!
242 LEPIDUS.
243 Happily, amen!
244 ANTONY.
245 I did not think to draw my sword ’gainst Pompey,
246 For he hath laid strange courtesies and great
247 Of late upon me. I must thank him only,
248 Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;
249 At heel of that, defy him.
250 LEPIDUS.
251 Time calls upon ’s.
252 Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
253 Or else he seeks out us.
254 ANTONY.
255 Where lies he?
256 CAESAR.
257 About the Mount Misena.
258 ANTONY.
259 What is his strength by land?
260 CAESAR.
261 Great and increasing; but by sea
262 He is an absolute master.
263 ANTONY.
264 So is the fame.
265 Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it.
266 Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we
267 The business we have talked of.
268 CAESAR.
269 With most gladness,
270 And do invite you to my sister’s view,
271 Whither straight I’ll lead you.
272 ANTONY.
273 Let us, Lepidus, not lack your company.
274 LEPIDUS.
275 Noble Antony, not sickness should detain me.
276 [_Flourish. Exeunt all except Enobarbus, Agrippa and Maecenas._]
277 MAECENAS.
278 Welcome from Egypt, sir.
279 ENOBARBUS.
280 Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable friend,
281 Agrippa!
282 AGRIPPA.
283 Good Enobarbus!
284 MAECENAS.
285 We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed
286 well by ’t in Egypt.
287 ENOBARBUS.
288 Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance and made the night light
289 with drinking.
290 MAECENAS.
291 Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons
292 there. Is this true?
293 ENOBARBUS.
294 This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more monstrous matter of
295 feast, which worthily deserved noting.
296 MAECENAS.
297 She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.
298 ENOBARBUS.
299 When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart upon the river
300 of Cydnus.
301 AGRIPPA.
302 There she appeared indeed, or my reporter devised well for her.
303 ENOBARBUS.
304 I will tell you.
305 The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
306 Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
307 Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
308 The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
309 Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
310 The water which they beat to follow faster,
311 As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
312 It beggared all description: she did lie
313 In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
314 O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
315 The fancy outwork nature. On each side her
316 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
317 With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem
318 To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
319 And what they undid did.
320 AGRIPPA.
321 O, rare for Antony!
322 ENOBARBUS.
323 Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
324 So many mermaids, tended her i’ th’ eyes,
325 And made their bends adornings. At the helm
326 A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle
327 Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
328 That yarely frame the office. From the barge
329 A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
330 Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
331 Her people out upon her, and Antony,
332 Enthroned i’ th’ market-place, did sit alone,
333 Whistling to th’ air, which, but for vacancy,
334 Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
335 And made a gap in nature.
336 AGRIPPA.
337 Rare Egyptian!
338 ENOBARBUS.
339 Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
340 Invited her to supper. She replied
341 It should be better he became her guest,
342 Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,
343 Whom ne’er the word of “No” woman heard speak,
344 Being barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast,
345 And, for his ordinary, pays his heart
346 For what his eyes eat only.
347 AGRIPPA.
348 Royal wench!
349 She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed.
350 He ploughed her, and she cropped.
351 ENOBARBUS.
352 I saw her once
353 Hop forty paces through the public street
354 And, having lost her breath, she spoke and panted,
355 That she did make defect perfection,
356 And, breathless, pour breath forth.
357 MAECENAS.
358 Now Antony must leave her utterly.
359 ENOBARBUS.
360 Never. He will not.
361 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
362 Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
363 The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
364 Where most she satisfies. For vilest things
365 Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
366 Bless her when she is riggish.
367 MAECENAS.
368 If beauty, wisdom, modesty can settle
369 The heart of Antony, Octavia is
370 A blessed lottery to him.
371 AGRIPPA.
372 Let us go.
373 Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
374 Whilst you abide here.
375 ENOBARBUS.
376 Humbly, sir, I thank you.
377 [_Exeunt._]