Antony and Cleopatra II.ii

Antony and Cleopatra
Act II. Scene II.

Rome. A Room in LEPIDUS’ House.

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 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.

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

Your speech is passion;
But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
The noble Antony
Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS.

ENOBARBUS

And yonder, Caesar.

Enter CAESAR, MECÆNAS, and AGRIPPA.

ANTONY

If we compose well here, to Parthia:
Hark ye, Ventidius.

CAESAR

I do not know,
Mecænas; ask Agrippa.

LEPIDUS

Noble friends,
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
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.

ANTONY

’Tis spoken well.
Were we before our armies, and to fight,
I should do thus.

CAESAR

Welcome to Rome.

ANTONY

Thank you.

CAESAR

Sit.

ANTONY

Sit, sir.

CAESAR

Nay, then.

ANTONY

I learn, you take things ill which are not so,
Or being, concern you not.

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.

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 there
Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt
Might be my question.

ANTONY

How intend you, practis’d?

CAESAR

You may be pleas’d to catch at mine intent
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.

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 n’ have to make it with,
It must not be with this.

CAESAR

You praise yourself
By laying defects of judgment to me, but
You patch’d up your excuses.

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 had 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.

ENOBARBUS

Would we had all such wives, that the men 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 must
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

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.

CAESAR

You have broken
The article of your oath, which you shall never
Have tongue to charge me with.

LEPIDUS

Soft, Caesar!

ANTONY

No,
Lepidus, let him speak:
The honour’s sacred which he talks on now,
Supposing that I lack’d it. But on, Caesar;
The article of my oath.

CAESAR

To lend me arms and aid when I requir’d them,
The which you both denied.

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.

MECÆNAS

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, Mecænas.

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.

ANTONY

Thou art a soldier only; speak no more.

ENOBARBUS

That truth should be silent I had almost 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 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
O’ the world I would pursue it.

AGRIPPA

Give me leave, Caesar.

CAESAR

Speak, Agrippa.

AGRIPPA

Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side,
Admir’d Octavia; great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.

CAESAR

Say not so, Agrippa:
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deserv’d of rashness.

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 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,
For ’tis a studied, not a present thought,
By duty ruminated.

ANTONY

Will Caesar speak?

CAESAR

Not till he hears how Antony is touch’d
With what is spoke already.

ANTONY

What power is in Agrippa,
If I would say, ‘Agrippa, be it so,’
To make this good?

CAESAR

The power of Caesar, and
His power unto Octavia.

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!

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!

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,
Lost 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.

ANTONY

Where lies he?

CAESAR

About the Mount Misenum.

ANTONY

What’s 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;
Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we
The business we have talk’d of.

CAESAR

With most gladness;
And do invite you to my sister’s view,
Whither straight I’ll lead you.

ANTONY

Let us, Lepidus, Not lack your company.

LEPIDUS

Noble Antony,
Not sickness should detain me.

Flourish. Exeunt CAESAR, ANTONY, and LEPIDUS.

MECÆNAS

Welcome from Egypt, sir.

ENOBARBUS

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

AGRIPPA

Good Enobarbus!

MECÆNAS

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.

MECÆNAS

Eight 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.

MECÆNAS

She’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 reporter devised well for her.

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.

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,
Enthron’d 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!

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.

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.

MECÆNAS

Now Antony must leave her utterly.

ENOBARBUS

Never; 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 things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.

MECÆNAS

If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
The heart of Antony, Octavia is
A blessed lottery to him.

AGRIPPA

Let us go.
Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
Whilst you abide here.

ENOBARBUS

Humbly, sir, I thank you. [Exeunt.]

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