ARKCODEX
Act II, Scene 2
1Rome. The house of Lepidus.
2Enter Enobarbas and Lepidus.
3LepidusGood Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,
And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
To soft and gentle speech.
4EnobarbasI 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.
5Lepidus’Tis not a time
For private stomaching.
6EnobarbasEvery time
Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.
7LepidusBut small to greater matters must give way.
8EnobarbasNot if the small come first.
9LepidusYour speech is passion:
But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
The noble Antony.
10Enter Antony and Ventidius.
11EnobarbasAnd yonder, Caesar.
12Enter Caesar, Mecaenas, and Agrippa.
13AntonyIf we compose well here, to Parthia:
Hark, Ventidius.
14CaesarI do not know,
Mecaenas; ask Agrippa.
15LepidusNoble 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.
16Antony’Tis spoken well.
Were we before our armies, and to fight,
I should do thus. Flourish.
17CaesarWelcome to Rome.
18AntonyThank you.
19CaesarSit.
20AntonySit, sir.
21CaesarNay, then.
22AntonyI learn, you take things ill which are not so,
Or being, concern you not.
23CaesarI 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.
24AntonyMy being in Egypt, Caesar,
What was’t to you?
25CaesarNo 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.
26AntonyHow intend you, practised?
27CaesarYou may be pleased 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.
28AntonyYou 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.
29CaesarYou praise yourself
By laying defects of judgment to me; but
You patch’d up your excuses.
30AntonyNot 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.
31EnobarbasWould we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women!
32AntonySo 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.
33CaesarI wrote to you
When rioting in Alexandria; you
Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
Did gibe my missive out of audience.
34AntonySir,
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.
35CaesarYou have broken
The article of your oath; which you shall never
Have tongue to charge me with.
36LepidusSoft, Caesar!
37AntonyNo,
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.
38CaesarTo lend me arms and aid when I required them;
The which you both denied.
39AntonyNeglected, 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.
40Lepidus’Tis noble spoken.
41MecaenasIf 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.
42LepidusWorthily spoken, Mecaenas.
43EnobarbasOr, 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.
44AntonyThou art a soldier only: speak no more.
45EnobarbasThat truth should be silent I had almost forgot.
46AntonyYou wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.
47EnobarbasGo to, then; your considerate stone.
48CaesarI 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.
49AgrippaGive me leave, Caesar—
50CaesarSpeak, Agrippa.
51AgrippaThou hast a sister by the mother’s side,
Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.
52CaesarSay not so, Agrippa:
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deserved of rashness.
53AntonyI am not married, Caesar: let me hear Agrippa further speak.
54AgrippaTo 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.
55AntonyWill Caesar speak?
56CaesarNot till he hears how Antony is touch’d
With what is spoke already.
57AntonyWhat power is in Agrippa,
If I would say, “Agrippa, be it so,”
To make this good?
58CaesarThe power of Caesar, and
His power unto Octavia.
59AntonyMay 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!
60CaesarThere 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!
61LepidusHappily, amen!
62AntonyI 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.
63LepidusTime calls upon’s:
Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
Or else he seeks out us.
64AntonyWhere lies he?
65CaesarAbout the mount Misenum.
66AntonyWhat is his strength by land?
67CaesarGreat and increasing: but by sea
He is an absolute master.
68AntonySo 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.
69CaesarWith most gladness;
And do invite you to my sister’s view,
Whither straight I’ll lead you.
70AntonyLet us, Lepidus,
Not lack your company.
71LepidusNoble Antony,
Not sickness should detain me. Flourish. Exeunt Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus.
72MecaenasWelcome from Egypt, sir.
73EnobarbasHalf the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa!
74AgrippaGood Enobarbus!
75MecaenasWe have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by’t in Egypt.
76EnobarbasAy, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.
77MecaenasEight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there; is this true?
78EnobarbasThis was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.
79MecaenasShe’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.
80EnobarbasWhen she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.
81AgrippaThere she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised well for her.
82EnobarbasI 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.
83AgrippaO, rare for Antony!
84EnobarbasHer 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.
85AgrippaRare Egyptian!
86EnobarbasUpon 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.
87AgrippaRoyal wench!
She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:
He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.
88EnobarbasI 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.
89MecaenasNow Antony must leave her utterly.
90EnobarbasNever; 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.
91MecaenasIf beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
The heart of Antony, Octavia is
A blessed lottery to him.
92AgrippaLet us go.
Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
Whilst you abide here.
93EnobarbasHumbly, sir, I thank you. Exeunt.