The Spread of the Eagle (1963): Season 1, Episode 7 - The Serpent: Antony and Cleopatra Acts 1 and 2 - full transcript
Nay, but this dotage of our general's
o'erflows the measure:
those his goodly eyes,
that o'er the files and musters of the war
have glow'd like plated Mars,
now bend, now turn,
the office and devotion of their view
upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
which in the scuffles
of great fights hath burst
the buckles on his breast,
reneges all temper,
and is become the bellows and the fan
to cool a gipsy's lust.
Take but good note,
and you shall see in him,
the triple pillar of the world,
transform'd into a strumpet's
fool: behold and see.
If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
There's beggary in the love
that can be reckon'd.
I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
Then must thou needs find
out new heaven, new earth.
News, my good lord, from Rome.
Grates me: the sum.
Nay, hear them, Antony:
Fulvia perchance is angry;
or, who knows if the scarce-bearded Caesar
have not sent his powerful mandate
to you, 'Do this, or this;
take in that kingdom,
and enfranchise that;
perform 't, or else we damn thee.'
How, my love!
You must not stay here longer,
your dismission is come from Caesar;
therefore hear it.
Antony?
As I am Egypt's queen,
thou blushest, Antony;
and that blood of thine
is Caesar's homager:
else so thy cheek pays shame
when shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds.
The messengers!
Let Rome in Tiber melt,
and the wide arch of
the ranged empire fall!
Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
and such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
on pain of punishment, the world to weet
we stand up peerless.
Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I am not;
Antony will be himself.
But stirr'd by Cleopatra.
Now, for the love of
Love and her soft hours,
let's not confound the time
with conference harsh:
there's not a minute
of our lives should stretch
without some pleasure now.
What sport tonight?
Hear the ambassadors.
Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes,
to chide, to laugh,
whose every passion fully strives
to make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger, but thine; and all alone
to-night we'll wander
through the streets
and note the qualities of people.
Come, my queen;
last night you did desire it.
speak not to us.
Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?
Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
he comes too short of that great property
which still should go with Antony.
I am full sorry that he
approves the common liar,
who thus speaks of him at Rome:
but I will hope of better deeds to-morrow.
Rest you happy!
Oh lord Alexas, sweet Alexas,
almost any thing Alexas,
most absolute Alexas,
where's the soothsayer
that you praised so to the queen?
Soothsayer!
- Your will?
- Is this the man?
Is't you, sir, that know things?
In nature's infinite book of secrecy
a little I can read.
Show him your hand.
Bring in the banquet quickly; wine
enough Cleopatra's health to drink.
Good sir, give me good fortune.
I make not, but foresee.
Good, come now, some excellent fortune!
Let me be married to three kings
in a forenoon, and widow them all:
let me have a child at fifty, to whom
Herod of Jewry may do homage:
find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar,
and companion me with my mistress.
You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
O excellent!
I love long life better than figs.
Prithee, how many boys
and wenches must I have?
If every of your wishes had a womb
and fertile every wish, a million.
Out, fool!
I forgive thee for a witch.
You think none but your sheets
are privy to your wishes.
Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
We'll know all our fortunes.
Mine, and most of our fortunes,
to-night, shall be--drunk to bed.
There's a palm presages chastity,
if nothing else.
E'en as the o'erflowing
Nilus presageth famine.
Your fortunes are alike.
But how, but how? Give me particulars.
I have said.
Am I not an inch of
fortune better than she?
Well, if you were but an inch of fortune
better than I, where would you choose it?
Not in my husband's nose.
Our worser thoughts heavens mend!
Alexas,--come,
his fortune, his fortune!
O, let him marry a woman that cannot
go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee!
And let her die too,
and give him a worse!
And let worst follow worse,
till the worst of all
follow him laughing to his grave,
fifty-fold a cuckold!
Good Isis, hear me this prayer.
Amen. Dear goddess,
hear that prayer of the people!
Hush! here comes Antony.
Not he; the queen.
- Saw you my lord?
- No, lady.
- Was he not here?
- No, madam.
He was disposed to
mirth; but on the sudden
a Roman thought hath struck him.
Enobarbus!
- Madam?
- Seek him, and bring him hither.
- Where's Alexas?
- Here, at your service.
My lord approaches.
We will not look upon him: go with us.
Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Against my brother Lucius?
Ay: but soon that war had end,
and the time's state made friends of them,
joining their forces
'gainst Caesar.
Well, what worst?
The nature of bad news infects the teller.
When it concerns the fool or coward.
On:
who tells me true, though in his tale
lie death, I hear him as he flatter'd.
Labienus-- this is stiff news--
hath, with his Parthian force,
extended Asia from Euphrates;
his conquering banner shook from Syria
to Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--
- Antony, thou wouldst say,--
- O, my lord!
Speak to me home,
mince not the general tongue:
name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;
rail thou in Fulvia's phrase;
and taunt my faults
with such full licence as both truth
and malice have power to utter.
Fare thee well awhile.
At your noble pleasure.
The man from Sicyon stays upon your will.
Let him appear.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
or lose myself in dotage.
What are you?
Fulvia thy wife is dead.
Where died she?
In Sicyon: her length of sickness
with what else more serious
importeth thee to know, this bears.
Forbear me.
There's a great spirit gone!
Thus did I desire it:
she's good, being gone;
I must from this enchanting
queen break off:
ten thousand harms, more than the
ills I know, my idleness doth hatch.
How now!
- Enobarbus!
- What's your pleasure, sir?
I must with haste from hence.
Why, then, we kill all our women:
we see how mortal an
unkindness is to them;
if they suffer our departure,
death's the word.
I must be gone.
Cleopatra, catching but the least
noise of this, dies instantly;
I have seen her die twenty
times upon far poorer moment.
She is cunning past man's thought.
Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of
nothing but the finest part of pure love.
Would I had never seen her.
O, sir, you had then left unseen
a wonderful piece of work;
which not to have been blest withal
would have discredited your travel.
Fulvia is dead.
- Sir?
- Fulvia is dead.
- Fulvia!
- Dead.
Why, sir, give the gods
a thankful sacrifice.
If there were no more women but
Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,
and the case to be lamented: this
grief is crowned with consolation.
and indeed the tears live in an
onion that should water this sorrow.
The business she hath broached in the state
cannot endure my absence.
And the business you have broached
here cannot be without you;
especially that of Cleopatra's,
which wholly depends on your abode.
No more light answers.
Let our officers
have notice what we purpose.
I shall break the cause of
our expedience to the queen,
and get her leave to part.
For not alone the death of
Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
do strongly speak to us;
but the letters too
of many our contriving friends
in Rome petition us at home:
Sextus Pompeius hath given the dare to
Caesar, and commands the empire of the sea:
our slippery people, whose love
is never link'd to the deserver
till his deserts are past,
begin to throw Pompey the Great
and all his dignities upon his son;
say, our pleasure, to such
whose place is under us,
requires our quick
remove from hence.
I shall do't.
- Where is he?
- I did not see him since.
See where he is, who's with him,
what he does:
I did not send you: if you find
him sad, say I am dancing;
if in mirth, report that I am
sudden sick: quick, and return.
Madam, methinks,
if you did love him dearly,
you do not hold the method
to enforce the like from him.
What should I do, I do not?
In all things give him way,
cross him nothing.
Thou teachest like a fool
the way to lose him.
Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear:
in time we hate that which we often fear.
But here comes Antony.
I am sick and sullen.
I am sorry to give breathing
to my purpose,--
Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall:
it cannot be thus long, the sides
of nature will not sustain it.
Now, my dearest queen,--
- Pray you, stand further from me.
- What's the matter?
I know, by that same eye,
there's some good news.
What says the married woman?
You may go:
would she had never
given you leave to come!
Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here:
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
The gods best know,--
O, never was there queen
so mightily betray'd!
yet at the first I saw
the treasons planted.
Cleopatra,--
Why should I think you
can be mine and true,
though you in swearing
shake the throned gods,
who have been false to Fulvia?
Riotous madness,
to be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
which break themselves in swearing!
Most sweet queen,--
Nay, pray you, seek no colour for
your going, but bid farewell, and go:
when you sued staying,
then was the time for words:
no going then; eternity
was in our lips and eyes,
bliss in our brows' bent;
none our parts so poor,
but was a race of heaven:
they are so still,
or thou, the greatest soldier of the
world, art turn'd the greatest liar.
How now, lady!
I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst
know there were a heart in Egypt.
Hear me, queen:
the strong necessity of time
commands our services awhile;
but my full heart
remains in use with you.
Our Italy shines o'er
with civil swords:
Sextus Pompeius makes his
approaches to the port of Rome:
and quietness, grown sick of rest,
would purge by any desperate change,
my more particular, and that which
most with you should safe my going,
is Fulvia's death.
Though age from folly
could not give me freedom,
it does from childishness: can Fulvia die?
She's dead, my queen.
O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou
shouldst fill with sorrowful water?
Now I see, I see, in Fulvia's
death, how mine received shall be.
Quarrel no more, but be prepared
to know the purposes I bear;
by the fire that quickens Nilus' slime,
I go from hence thy soldier, servant;
making peace or war as thou affect'st.
Cut my lace, Charmian, come;
but let it be: I am quickly ill,
and well, so Antony loves.
My precious queen, forbear;
and give true evidence to his love,
which stands an honourable trial.
So Fulvia told me.
I prithee, turn aside and weep for her,
then bid adieu to me,
and say the tears belong to Egypt:
good, now play one scene
of excellent dissembling;
and let it look
like perfect honour.
You'll heat my blood: no more.
You can do better yet; but this is meetly.
- Now, by my sword,--
- And target.
Still he mends; look, prithee, Charmian,
how this Herculean Roman does
become the carriage of his chafe.
I'll leave you, lady.
Courteous lord, one word.
Sir, you and I must part,
but that's not it:
sir, you and I have loved,
but there's not it; that you know well:
something it is I would,
o, my oblivion is a very Antony,
and I am all forgotten.
But that your royalty holds
idleness your subject,
I should take you
for idleness itself.
'Tis sweating labour to bear such idleness
so near the heart as Cleopatra this.
But, sir, forgive me;
since my becomings kill me,
when they do not
eye well to you:
your honour calls you hence;
therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly.
And all the gods go with you!
Upon your sword
sit laurel victory!
And smooth success
be strew'd before your feet!
Let us go.
Come;
our separation so abides, and flies,
that thou, residing here,
go'st yet with me,
and I, hence fleeting,
here remain with thee.
Away!
You may see, Lepidus,
and henceforth know,
it is not Caesar's natural vice
to hate our great competitor:
from Alexandria the
news is this: he fishes,
drinks, and wastes the
lamps of night in revel;
is not more man-like than Cleopatra;
nor the queen of Ptolemy
more womanly than he;
hardly gave audience, or vouchsafed
to think he had partners:
you shall find there a man who is the
abstract of all faults that all men follow.
I must not think there are evils
enow to darken all his goodness:
his faults in him seem
as the spots of heaven,
more fiery by night's blackness;
hereditary, rather than purchased;
what he cannot change,
than what he chooses.
You are too indulgent.
Let us grant, it is not amiss
to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;
to give a kingdom for a mirth;
to sit and keep the turn
of tippling with a slave;
to reel the streets at noon,
and stand the buffet
with knaves that smell of sweat:
say this becomes him,--
as his composure must be rare indeed
whom these things cannot blemish,
yet must Antony no
way excuse his soils,
when we do bear so great
weight in his lightness.
Here's more news.
Thy biddings have been done;
and every hour,
most noble Caesar, shalt thou
have report how 'tis abroad.
Pompey is strong at sea;
and it appears he is beloved of those
that only have fear'd Caesar:
to the ports the discontents repair,
and men's reports give him much wrong'd.
I should have known no less.
It hath been taught us
from the primal state,
that he which is was wish'd until he were;
and the ebb'd man, ne'er
loved till ne'er worth love,
comes dear'd by being lack'd.
This common body, like to a
vagabond flag upon the stream,
goes to and back, lackeying the varying
tide, to rot itself with motion.
Caesar, I bring thee word,
Menecrates and Menas, famous
pirates, make the sea serve them,
which they ear and wound
with keels of every kind.
Antony, leave thy lascivious wassails.
When thou once wast beaten from
Modena, at thy heel did famine follow;
whom thou fought'st against,
though daintily brought up,
with patience more
than savages could suffer:
thou didst drink
the stale of horses,
and the gilded puddle
which beasts would cough at:
thy palate then did deign the
roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when
snow the pasture sheets,
the barks of trees
thou browsed'st;
on the Alps it is reported
thou didst eat strange flesh,
which some did die to look on:
and all this was borne
so like a soldier,
that thy cheek
so much as lank'd not.
'Tis pity of him.
Let his shames quickly
drive him to Rome:
'tis time we twain
did show ourselves i' the field;
and to that end
assemble we immediate council:
Pompey thrives in our idleness.
Farewell.
Farewell, my lord: what you shall
know meantime of stirs abroad,
I shall beseech you, sir,
to let me be partaker.
Doubt not, sir; I knew it for my bond.
Charmian!
- Madam?
- Ha, ha!
Give me to drink mandragora.
- Why, madam?
That I might sleep out this great
gap of time my Antony is away.
You think of him too much.
- O, 'tis treason!
- Madam, I trust, not so.
Thou, eunuch Mardian!
What's your highness' pleasure?
Not now to hear thee sing;
I take no pleasure
in aught an eunuch has:
'tis well for thee,
that, being unseminar'd,
thy freer thoughts
may not fly forth of Egypt.
Hast thou affections?
- Yes, gracious madam.
- Indeed!
- Not in deed, madam;
for I can do nothing but what
indeed is honest to be done:
Yet have I fierce affections,
and think what Venus did with Mars.
O Charmian,
where think'st thou he is now?
Stands he, or sits he? Or does
he walk? Or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear
the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse!
For wot'st thou whom thou movest?
The demi-Atlas of this earth,
the arm and burgonet of men.
He's speaking now, or murmuring
'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'
For so he calls me:
now I feed myself with
most delicious poison.
Think on me, that am with Phoebus' amorous
pinches black, and wrinkled deep in time?
Broad-fronted Caesar, when thou
wast here above the ground,
I was a morsel for a monarch:
and great Pompey would stand and
make his eyes grow in my brow;
There would he anchor his aspect
and die with looking on his life.
Antony!
Sovereign of Egypt, hail!
How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!
Yet, coming from him, that great
medicine hath with his tinct gilded thee.
How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?
Last thing he did, dear queen,
he kiss'd,--the last of many
doubled kisses,-- this orient pearl.
His speech sticks in my heart.
Mine ear must pluck it thence.
'Good friend,' quoth he,
'Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt
sends this treasure of an oyster;
at whose foot,
to mend the petty present,
I will piece her opulent
throne with kingdoms,
all the east, say thou,
shall call her mistress.'
So he nodded,
and soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
who neigh'd so high, that what I would
have spoke was beastly dumb'd by him.
What, was he sad or merry?
Like to the time o' the year
between the extremes
of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.
O well-divided disposition!
Note him, note him good Charmian,
'tis the man; but note him:
He was not sad, for he would shine on
those that make their looks by his;
he was not merry, which seem'd
to tell them his remembrance
lay in Egypt with his joy;
but between both:
O heavenly mingle!
Be'st thou sad or merry,
the violence of either thee becomes,
so does it no man else.
Met'st thou my posts?
Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick?
Who's born that day when I forget to
send to Antony, shall die a beggar.
Ink and paper, Charmian.
Welcome, my good Alexas.
Did I, Charmian,
ever love Caesar so?
O that brave Caesar!
Be choked with such another emphasis!
Say, the brave Antony.
- The valiant Caesar!
By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
if thou with Caesar paragon
again my man of men.
By your gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.
My salad days, when I
was green in judgment:
cold in blood,
to say as I said then!
But, come, away;
Get me ink and paper:
He shall have every day
a several greeting,
or I'll unpeople Egypt.
If the great gods be just, they shall
assist the deeds of justest men.
Know, worthy Pompey, that what
they do delay, they not deny.
Whiles we are suitors to their
throne, decays the thing we sue for.
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.
Caesar and Lepidus are in the
field: a mighty strength they carry.
- Where have you this? 'tis false.
- From Silvius, sir.
He dreams: I know they are in Rome
together, waiting 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!
How now, Varrius!
Mark Antony is every hour in Rome expected.
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.
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.
I know not, Menas, but their fear
of us may cement their divisions
and bind up the petty difference.
Come, Menas.
I learn, you take things ill which are
not so, or being, concern you not.
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.
My being in Egypt, Caesar,
what was't to you?
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.
How intend you, practised?
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.
You do mistake your business; my
brother never did urge me in his act:
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.
As for my wife...
Would we had all such wives, that the
men might go to wars with the women!
I wrote to you when rioting in
Alexandria; you did pocket up my letters
and with taunts did gibe
my missive out of audience.
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.
You have broken
the article of your oath;
which you shall never
have tongue to charge me with.
- Soft, Caesar!
- No, Lepidus, let him speak:
But, on, Caesar;
The article of my oath.
To lend me arms and aid
when I required them;
The which you both denied.
Neglected, rather;
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.
'Tis noble spoken.
If it might please you,
to enforce no further
the griefs between ye: to forget them both.
Worthily spoken, Mecaenas.
Or, if you borrow one another's love,
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.
Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.
That truth should be silent
I had almost forgot.
You wrong this presence;
therefore speak no more.
Go to, then; your considerate stone.
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.
- Give me leave, Caesar,--
- Speak, Agrippa.
Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
admired Octavia:
great Mark Antony
is now a widower.
Say not so, Agrippa:
If Cleopatra heard you,
your reproof were well
deserved of rashness.
I am not married, Caesar: let me
hear Agrippa further speak.
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.
Pardon what I have spoke;
For 'tis a studied, not a present
thought, by duty ruminated.
Will Caesar speak?
Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd
with what is spoke already.
What power is in Agrippa, if I would say,
'Agrippa, be it so,' to make this good?
The power of Caesar,
and his power unto Octavia.
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!
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!
Happily, amen!
I did not think to draw
my sword 'gainst Pompey;
For he hath laid strange courtesies
and great of late upon me.
Time calls upon's:
Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
or else he seeks out us.
- Where lies he?
- About the mount Misenum.
- What is his strength by land?
- Great and increasing:
but by sea he is
an absolute master.
Haste we for it:
Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms,
dispatch we the business we have talk'd of.
With most gladness:
And do invite you to my sister's view,
whither straight I'll lead you.
Let us, Lepidus,
not lack your company.
Noble Antony,
not sickness should detain me.
Welcome from Egypt, sir.
Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas!
My honourable friend, Agrippa!
- Good Enobarbus!
We have cause to be glad that
matters are so well digested.
You stayed well by 't in Egypt.
Ay, sir; we did sleep
day out of countenance,
and made the night
light with drinking.
Eight wild-boars roasted
whole at a breakfast,
and but twelve persons
there; is this true?
This was but as a
fly by an eagle:
we had much more monstrous matter of
feast, which worthily deserved noting.
She's a most triumphant lady,
if report be square to her.
When she first saw Mark Antony, she pursed
up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.
There she appeared indeed; or my
reporter devised well for her.
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.
O, rare for Antony!
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.
Rare Egyptian!
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.
Royal wench!
She made great Caesar
lay his sword to bed:
He plough'd her, and she cropp'd.
Now Antony must leave her utterly.
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.
If beauty, wisdom, modesty,
can settle the heart of Antony,
Octavia is a blessed lottery to him.
Let us go.
Good Enobarbus, make yourself
my guest whilst you abide here.
Humbly, sir, I thank you.
The world and my great office will
sometimes divide me from your bosom.
All which time before the gods my knee
shall bow my prayers to them for you.
Good night, sir.
My Octavia...
read not my blemishes
in the world's report:
I have not kept my square; but that
to come shall all be done by the rule.
Good night, dear lady.
Good night, sir.
Now, sirrah; you do
wish yourself in Egypt?
Would I had never come
from thence, nor you thither!
If you can, your reason?
I see it in my motion, have it not in my
tongue: but yet hie you to Egypt again.
Say to me, whose fortunes shall
rise higher, Caesar's or mine?
Caesar's.
Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:
Thy demon,
that's thy spirit which keeps thee,
is noble, courageous high,
unmatchable, where Caesar's is not;
but, near him, thy angel becomes
a fear, as being o'erpower'd:
therefore make space
enough between you.
Speak this no more.
To none but thee;
no more, but when to thee.
Get thee gone:
Be it art or hap,
he hath spoken true:
the very dice obey him.
I will to Egypt:
And though I make
this marriage for my peace,
i' the east my pleasure lies.
Give me some music.
The music, ho!
Music, moody food
of us that trade in love.
Let it alone; let's to billiards:
come, Charmian.
My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.
As well a woman with an eunuch
play'd as with a woman.
Come, you'll play with me, sir?
As well as I can, madam.
And when good will is show'd,
though't come too short,
the actor may plead pardon.
I'll none now:
Give me mine angle;
we'll to the river:
there, my music playing far off,
I will betray tawny-finn'd fishes;
my bended hook shall pierce
their slimy jaws;
and, as I draw them up,
I'll think them every one an Antony,
and say 'Ah, ha! you're caught.'
'Twas merry when
you wager'd on your angling;
when your diver did hang
a salt-fish on his hook,
which he
with fervency drew up.
That time,--O times!--
I laugh'd him out of patience;
and that night
I laugh'd him into patience;
and next morn, ere the ninth
hour, I drunk him to his bed;
Then put my tires
and mantles on him,
whilst I wore his
sword Philippan.
O, from Italy
ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
that long time have been barren.
Madam, madam,--
Antonius dead!--
If thou say so, villain,
thou kill'st thy mistress:
but well and free,
if thou so yield
him, there is gold,
and here
my bluest veins to kiss;
a hand that kings have lipp'd,
and trembled kissing.
First, madam, he is well.
Why, there's more gold.
But, sirrah, mark, we use to say
the dead are well: bring it to that,
the gold I give thee will I melt and
pour down thy ill-uttering throat.
Good madam, hear me.
I have a mind to strike thee
ere thou speak'st:
Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
or friends with Caesar,
or not captive to him,
I'll set thee in a shower of gold,
and hail rich pearls upon thee.
- Madam, he's well.
- Well said.
- And friends with Caesar.
- Thou'rt an honest man.
Caesar and he are
greater friends than ever.
Make thee a fortune from me.
But yet, madam,--
I do not like 'But yet,' it does allay
the good precedence; fie upon 'But yet'!
'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth
some monstrous malefactor.
Prithee, friend, pour out the
pack of matter to mine ear,
the good and bad together:
he's friends with Caesar:
In state of health thou say'st;
and thou say'st free.
Free, madam! no;
I made no such report:
He's bound unto Octavia.
For what good turn?
For the best turn i' the bed.
I am pale, Charmian.
Madam, he's married to Octavia.
The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
Good madam, patience.
What say you?
Hence, horrible villain!
Or I'll spurn thine eyes
like balls before me;
I'll unhair thy head:
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire,
and stew'd in brine,
smarting in lingering pickle.
Gracious madam, I that do bring
the news made not the match.
Say 'tis not so,
a province I will give thee,
and make thy fortunes proud:
the blow thou hadst shall make
thy peace for moving me to rage.
He's married, madam.
Rogue, thou hast lived too long.
What mean you, madam?
Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:
The man is innocent.
Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
Melt Egypt into Nile!
And kindly creatures
turn all to serpents!
Call the slave again:
Though I am mad, I will not bite him: Call.
He is afeard to come.
I will not hurt him.
These hands do lack nobility,
that they strike
a meaner than myself;
since I myself have
given myself the cause.
Come hither, sir.
Though it be honest, it is never
good to bring bad news:
give to a gracious message
an host of tongues;
but let ill tidings tell
themselves when they be felt.
- I have done my duty.
- Is he married?
I cannot hate thee worser than I do,
if thou again say 'Yes.'
He's married, madam.
The gods confound thee!
Dost thou hold there still?
- Should I lie, madam?
- O, I would thou didst,
so half my Egypt were submerged
and made a cistern for scaled snakes!
Go, get thee hence:
Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
thou wouldst appear most ugly.
He is married?
- I crave your highness' pardon.
- He is married?
Take no offence that I
would not offend you:
To punish me for what you make me do
seems much unequal:
he's married to Octavia.
O, that his fault should
make a knave of thee,
that art not what thou'rt sure of!
Get thee hence:
The merchandise which thou hast brought
from Rome are all too dear for me:
lie they upon thy hand,
and be undone by 'em!
Good your highness, patience.
In praising Antony,
I have dispraised Caesar.
Many times, madam.
I am paid for't now.
Lead me from hence:
I faint: O Iras, Charmian!
'tis no matter.
Go to the fellow, good Alexas;
bid him report the feature of
Octavia, her years, her inclination,
let him not leave out the colour
of her hair: bring me word quickly.
Let him for ever go:
--let him not--Charmian,
though he be painted one way like
a Gorgon, the other way's a Mars.
Bid you Alexas
bring me word how tall she is.
Pity me, Charmian,
but do not speak to me.
Lead me to my chamber.
o'erflows the measure:
those his goodly eyes,
that o'er the files and musters of the war
have glow'd like plated Mars,
now bend, now turn,
the office and devotion of their view
upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
which in the scuffles
of great fights hath burst
the buckles on his breast,
reneges all temper,
and is become the bellows and the fan
to cool a gipsy's lust.
Take but good note,
and you shall see in him,
the triple pillar of the world,
transform'd into a strumpet's
fool: behold and see.
If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
There's beggary in the love
that can be reckon'd.
I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
Then must thou needs find
out new heaven, new earth.
News, my good lord, from Rome.
Grates me: the sum.
Nay, hear them, Antony:
Fulvia perchance is angry;
or, who knows if the scarce-bearded Caesar
have not sent his powerful mandate
to you, 'Do this, or this;
take in that kingdom,
and enfranchise that;
perform 't, or else we damn thee.'
How, my love!
You must not stay here longer,
your dismission is come from Caesar;
therefore hear it.
Antony?
As I am Egypt's queen,
thou blushest, Antony;
and that blood of thine
is Caesar's homager:
else so thy cheek pays shame
when shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds.
The messengers!
Let Rome in Tiber melt,
and the wide arch of
the ranged empire fall!
Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
and such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
on pain of punishment, the world to weet
we stand up peerless.
Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I am not;
Antony will be himself.
But stirr'd by Cleopatra.
Now, for the love of
Love and her soft hours,
let's not confound the time
with conference harsh:
there's not a minute
of our lives should stretch
without some pleasure now.
What sport tonight?
Hear the ambassadors.
Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes,
to chide, to laugh,
whose every passion fully strives
to make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger, but thine; and all alone
to-night we'll wander
through the streets
and note the qualities of people.
Come, my queen;
last night you did desire it.
speak not to us.
Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?
Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
he comes too short of that great property
which still should go with Antony.
I am full sorry that he
approves the common liar,
who thus speaks of him at Rome:
but I will hope of better deeds to-morrow.
Rest you happy!
Oh lord Alexas, sweet Alexas,
almost any thing Alexas,
most absolute Alexas,
where's the soothsayer
that you praised so to the queen?
Soothsayer!
- Your will?
- Is this the man?
Is't you, sir, that know things?
In nature's infinite book of secrecy
a little I can read.
Show him your hand.
Bring in the banquet quickly; wine
enough Cleopatra's health to drink.
Good sir, give me good fortune.
I make not, but foresee.
Good, come now, some excellent fortune!
Let me be married to three kings
in a forenoon, and widow them all:
let me have a child at fifty, to whom
Herod of Jewry may do homage:
find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar,
and companion me with my mistress.
You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
O excellent!
I love long life better than figs.
Prithee, how many boys
and wenches must I have?
If every of your wishes had a womb
and fertile every wish, a million.
Out, fool!
I forgive thee for a witch.
You think none but your sheets
are privy to your wishes.
Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
We'll know all our fortunes.
Mine, and most of our fortunes,
to-night, shall be--drunk to bed.
There's a palm presages chastity,
if nothing else.
E'en as the o'erflowing
Nilus presageth famine.
Your fortunes are alike.
But how, but how? Give me particulars.
I have said.
Am I not an inch of
fortune better than she?
Well, if you were but an inch of fortune
better than I, where would you choose it?
Not in my husband's nose.
Our worser thoughts heavens mend!
Alexas,--come,
his fortune, his fortune!
O, let him marry a woman that cannot
go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee!
And let her die too,
and give him a worse!
And let worst follow worse,
till the worst of all
follow him laughing to his grave,
fifty-fold a cuckold!
Good Isis, hear me this prayer.
Amen. Dear goddess,
hear that prayer of the people!
Hush! here comes Antony.
Not he; the queen.
- Saw you my lord?
- No, lady.
- Was he not here?
- No, madam.
He was disposed to
mirth; but on the sudden
a Roman thought hath struck him.
Enobarbus!
- Madam?
- Seek him, and bring him hither.
- Where's Alexas?
- Here, at your service.
My lord approaches.
We will not look upon him: go with us.
Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
Against my brother Lucius?
Ay: but soon that war had end,
and the time's state made friends of them,
joining their forces
'gainst Caesar.
Well, what worst?
The nature of bad news infects the teller.
When it concerns the fool or coward.
On:
who tells me true, though in his tale
lie death, I hear him as he flatter'd.
Labienus-- this is stiff news--
hath, with his Parthian force,
extended Asia from Euphrates;
his conquering banner shook from Syria
to Lydia and to Ionia; Whilst--
- Antony, thou wouldst say,--
- O, my lord!
Speak to me home,
mince not the general tongue:
name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome;
rail thou in Fulvia's phrase;
and taunt my faults
with such full licence as both truth
and malice have power to utter.
Fare thee well awhile.
At your noble pleasure.
The man from Sicyon stays upon your will.
Let him appear.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
or lose myself in dotage.
What are you?
Fulvia thy wife is dead.
Where died she?
In Sicyon: her length of sickness
with what else more serious
importeth thee to know, this bears.
Forbear me.
There's a great spirit gone!
Thus did I desire it:
she's good, being gone;
I must from this enchanting
queen break off:
ten thousand harms, more than the
ills I know, my idleness doth hatch.
How now!
- Enobarbus!
- What's your pleasure, sir?
I must with haste from hence.
Why, then, we kill all our women:
we see how mortal an
unkindness is to them;
if they suffer our departure,
death's the word.
I must be gone.
Cleopatra, catching but the least
noise of this, dies instantly;
I have seen her die twenty
times upon far poorer moment.
She is cunning past man's thought.
Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of
nothing but the finest part of pure love.
Would I had never seen her.
O, sir, you had then left unseen
a wonderful piece of work;
which not to have been blest withal
would have discredited your travel.
Fulvia is dead.
- Sir?
- Fulvia is dead.
- Fulvia!
- Dead.
Why, sir, give the gods
a thankful sacrifice.
If there were no more women but
Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,
and the case to be lamented: this
grief is crowned with consolation.
and indeed the tears live in an
onion that should water this sorrow.
The business she hath broached in the state
cannot endure my absence.
And the business you have broached
here cannot be without you;
especially that of Cleopatra's,
which wholly depends on your abode.
No more light answers.
Let our officers
have notice what we purpose.
I shall break the cause of
our expedience to the queen,
and get her leave to part.
For not alone the death of
Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
do strongly speak to us;
but the letters too
of many our contriving friends
in Rome petition us at home:
Sextus Pompeius hath given the dare to
Caesar, and commands the empire of the sea:
our slippery people, whose love
is never link'd to the deserver
till his deserts are past,
begin to throw Pompey the Great
and all his dignities upon his son;
say, our pleasure, to such
whose place is under us,
requires our quick
remove from hence.
I shall do't.
- Where is he?
- I did not see him since.
See where he is, who's with him,
what he does:
I did not send you: if you find
him sad, say I am dancing;
if in mirth, report that I am
sudden sick: quick, and return.
Madam, methinks,
if you did love him dearly,
you do not hold the method
to enforce the like from him.
What should I do, I do not?
In all things give him way,
cross him nothing.
Thou teachest like a fool
the way to lose him.
Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear:
in time we hate that which we often fear.
But here comes Antony.
I am sick and sullen.
I am sorry to give breathing
to my purpose,--
Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall:
it cannot be thus long, the sides
of nature will not sustain it.
Now, my dearest queen,--
- Pray you, stand further from me.
- What's the matter?
I know, by that same eye,
there's some good news.
What says the married woman?
You may go:
would she had never
given you leave to come!
Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here:
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
The gods best know,--
O, never was there queen
so mightily betray'd!
yet at the first I saw
the treasons planted.
Cleopatra,--
Why should I think you
can be mine and true,
though you in swearing
shake the throned gods,
who have been false to Fulvia?
Riotous madness,
to be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
which break themselves in swearing!
Most sweet queen,--
Nay, pray you, seek no colour for
your going, but bid farewell, and go:
when you sued staying,
then was the time for words:
no going then; eternity
was in our lips and eyes,
bliss in our brows' bent;
none our parts so poor,
but was a race of heaven:
they are so still,
or thou, the greatest soldier of the
world, art turn'd the greatest liar.
How now, lady!
I would I had thy inches; thou shouldst
know there were a heart in Egypt.
Hear me, queen:
the strong necessity of time
commands our services awhile;
but my full heart
remains in use with you.
Our Italy shines o'er
with civil swords:
Sextus Pompeius makes his
approaches to the port of Rome:
and quietness, grown sick of rest,
would purge by any desperate change,
my more particular, and that which
most with you should safe my going,
is Fulvia's death.
Though age from folly
could not give me freedom,
it does from childishness: can Fulvia die?
She's dead, my queen.
O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou
shouldst fill with sorrowful water?
Now I see, I see, in Fulvia's
death, how mine received shall be.
Quarrel no more, but be prepared
to know the purposes I bear;
by the fire that quickens Nilus' slime,
I go from hence thy soldier, servant;
making peace or war as thou affect'st.
Cut my lace, Charmian, come;
but let it be: I am quickly ill,
and well, so Antony loves.
My precious queen, forbear;
and give true evidence to his love,
which stands an honourable trial.
So Fulvia told me.
I prithee, turn aside and weep for her,
then bid adieu to me,
and say the tears belong to Egypt:
good, now play one scene
of excellent dissembling;
and let it look
like perfect honour.
You'll heat my blood: no more.
You can do better yet; but this is meetly.
- Now, by my sword,--
- And target.
Still he mends; look, prithee, Charmian,
how this Herculean Roman does
become the carriage of his chafe.
I'll leave you, lady.
Courteous lord, one word.
Sir, you and I must part,
but that's not it:
sir, you and I have loved,
but there's not it; that you know well:
something it is I would,
o, my oblivion is a very Antony,
and I am all forgotten.
But that your royalty holds
idleness your subject,
I should take you
for idleness itself.
'Tis sweating labour to bear such idleness
so near the heart as Cleopatra this.
But, sir, forgive me;
since my becomings kill me,
when they do not
eye well to you:
your honour calls you hence;
therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly.
And all the gods go with you!
Upon your sword
sit laurel victory!
And smooth success
be strew'd before your feet!
Let us go.
Come;
our separation so abides, and flies,
that thou, residing here,
go'st yet with me,
and I, hence fleeting,
here remain with thee.
Away!
You may see, Lepidus,
and henceforth know,
it is not Caesar's natural vice
to hate our great competitor:
from Alexandria the
news is this: he fishes,
drinks, and wastes the
lamps of night in revel;
is not more man-like than Cleopatra;
nor the queen of Ptolemy
more womanly than he;
hardly gave audience, or vouchsafed
to think he had partners:
you shall find there a man who is the
abstract of all faults that all men follow.
I must not think there are evils
enow to darken all his goodness:
his faults in him seem
as the spots of heaven,
more fiery by night's blackness;
hereditary, rather than purchased;
what he cannot change,
than what he chooses.
You are too indulgent.
Let us grant, it is not amiss
to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;
to give a kingdom for a mirth;
to sit and keep the turn
of tippling with a slave;
to reel the streets at noon,
and stand the buffet
with knaves that smell of sweat:
say this becomes him,--
as his composure must be rare indeed
whom these things cannot blemish,
yet must Antony no
way excuse his soils,
when we do bear so great
weight in his lightness.
Here's more news.
Thy biddings have been done;
and every hour,
most noble Caesar, shalt thou
have report how 'tis abroad.
Pompey is strong at sea;
and it appears he is beloved of those
that only have fear'd Caesar:
to the ports the discontents repair,
and men's reports give him much wrong'd.
I should have known no less.
It hath been taught us
from the primal state,
that he which is was wish'd until he were;
and the ebb'd man, ne'er
loved till ne'er worth love,
comes dear'd by being lack'd.
This common body, like to a
vagabond flag upon the stream,
goes to and back, lackeying the varying
tide, to rot itself with motion.
Caesar, I bring thee word,
Menecrates and Menas, famous
pirates, make the sea serve them,
which they ear and wound
with keels of every kind.
Antony, leave thy lascivious wassails.
When thou once wast beaten from
Modena, at thy heel did famine follow;
whom thou fought'st against,
though daintily brought up,
with patience more
than savages could suffer:
thou didst drink
the stale of horses,
and the gilded puddle
which beasts would cough at:
thy palate then did deign the
roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when
snow the pasture sheets,
the barks of trees
thou browsed'st;
on the Alps it is reported
thou didst eat strange flesh,
which some did die to look on:
and all this was borne
so like a soldier,
that thy cheek
so much as lank'd not.
'Tis pity of him.
Let his shames quickly
drive him to Rome:
'tis time we twain
did show ourselves i' the field;
and to that end
assemble we immediate council:
Pompey thrives in our idleness.
Farewell.
Farewell, my lord: what you shall
know meantime of stirs abroad,
I shall beseech you, sir,
to let me be partaker.
Doubt not, sir; I knew it for my bond.
Charmian!
- Madam?
- Ha, ha!
Give me to drink mandragora.
- Why, madam?
That I might sleep out this great
gap of time my Antony is away.
You think of him too much.
- O, 'tis treason!
- Madam, I trust, not so.
Thou, eunuch Mardian!
What's your highness' pleasure?
Not now to hear thee sing;
I take no pleasure
in aught an eunuch has:
'tis well for thee,
that, being unseminar'd,
thy freer thoughts
may not fly forth of Egypt.
Hast thou affections?
- Yes, gracious madam.
- Indeed!
- Not in deed, madam;
for I can do nothing but what
indeed is honest to be done:
Yet have I fierce affections,
and think what Venus did with Mars.
O Charmian,
where think'st thou he is now?
Stands he, or sits he? Or does
he walk? Or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear
the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse!
For wot'st thou whom thou movest?
The demi-Atlas of this earth,
the arm and burgonet of men.
He's speaking now, or murmuring
'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'
For so he calls me:
now I feed myself with
most delicious poison.
Think on me, that am with Phoebus' amorous
pinches black, and wrinkled deep in time?
Broad-fronted Caesar, when thou
wast here above the ground,
I was a morsel for a monarch:
and great Pompey would stand and
make his eyes grow in my brow;
There would he anchor his aspect
and die with looking on his life.
Antony!
Sovereign of Egypt, hail!
How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!
Yet, coming from him, that great
medicine hath with his tinct gilded thee.
How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?
Last thing he did, dear queen,
he kiss'd,--the last of many
doubled kisses,-- this orient pearl.
His speech sticks in my heart.
Mine ear must pluck it thence.
'Good friend,' quoth he,
'Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt
sends this treasure of an oyster;
at whose foot,
to mend the petty present,
I will piece her opulent
throne with kingdoms,
all the east, say thou,
shall call her mistress.'
So he nodded,
and soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
who neigh'd so high, that what I would
have spoke was beastly dumb'd by him.
What, was he sad or merry?
Like to the time o' the year
between the extremes
of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.
O well-divided disposition!
Note him, note him good Charmian,
'tis the man; but note him:
He was not sad, for he would shine on
those that make their looks by his;
he was not merry, which seem'd
to tell them his remembrance
lay in Egypt with his joy;
but between both:
O heavenly mingle!
Be'st thou sad or merry,
the violence of either thee becomes,
so does it no man else.
Met'st thou my posts?
Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick?
Who's born that day when I forget to
send to Antony, shall die a beggar.
Ink and paper, Charmian.
Welcome, my good Alexas.
Did I, Charmian,
ever love Caesar so?
O that brave Caesar!
Be choked with such another emphasis!
Say, the brave Antony.
- The valiant Caesar!
By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
if thou with Caesar paragon
again my man of men.
By your gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.
My salad days, when I
was green in judgment:
cold in blood,
to say as I said then!
But, come, away;
Get me ink and paper:
He shall have every day
a several greeting,
or I'll unpeople Egypt.
If the great gods be just, they shall
assist the deeds of justest men.
Know, worthy Pompey, that what
they do delay, they not deny.
Whiles we are suitors to their
throne, decays the thing we sue for.
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.
Caesar and Lepidus are in the
field: a mighty strength they carry.
- Where have you this? 'tis false.
- From Silvius, sir.
He dreams: I know they are in Rome
together, waiting 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!
How now, Varrius!
Mark Antony is every hour in Rome expected.
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.
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.
I know not, Menas, but their fear
of us may cement their divisions
and bind up the petty difference.
Come, Menas.
I learn, you take things ill which are
not so, or being, concern you not.
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.
My being in Egypt, Caesar,
what was't to you?
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.
How intend you, practised?
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.
You do mistake your business; my
brother never did urge me in his act:
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.
As for my wife...
Would we had all such wives, that the
men might go to wars with the women!
I wrote to you when rioting in
Alexandria; you did pocket up my letters
and with taunts did gibe
my missive out of audience.
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.
You have broken
the article of your oath;
which you shall never
have tongue to charge me with.
- Soft, Caesar!
- No, Lepidus, let him speak:
But, on, Caesar;
The article of my oath.
To lend me arms and aid
when I required them;
The which you both denied.
Neglected, rather;
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.
'Tis noble spoken.
If it might please you,
to enforce no further
the griefs between ye: to forget them both.
Worthily spoken, Mecaenas.
Or, if you borrow one another's love,
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.
Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.
That truth should be silent
I had almost forgot.
You wrong this presence;
therefore speak no more.
Go to, then; your considerate stone.
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.
- Give me leave, Caesar,--
- Speak, Agrippa.
Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
admired Octavia:
great Mark Antony
is now a widower.
Say not so, Agrippa:
If Cleopatra heard you,
your reproof were well
deserved of rashness.
I am not married, Caesar: let me
hear Agrippa further speak.
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.
Pardon what I have spoke;
For 'tis a studied, not a present
thought, by duty ruminated.
Will Caesar speak?
Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd
with what is spoke already.
What power is in Agrippa, if I would say,
'Agrippa, be it so,' to make this good?
The power of Caesar,
and his power unto Octavia.
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!
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!
Happily, amen!
I did not think to draw
my sword 'gainst Pompey;
For he hath laid strange courtesies
and great of late upon me.
Time calls upon's:
Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
or else he seeks out us.
- Where lies he?
- About the mount Misenum.
- What is his strength by land?
- Great and increasing:
but by sea he is
an absolute master.
Haste we for it:
Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms,
dispatch we the business we have talk'd of.
With most gladness:
And do invite you to my sister's view,
whither straight I'll lead you.
Let us, Lepidus,
not lack your company.
Noble Antony,
not sickness should detain me.
Welcome from Egypt, sir.
Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas!
My honourable friend, Agrippa!
- Good Enobarbus!
We have cause to be glad that
matters are so well digested.
You stayed well by 't in Egypt.
Ay, sir; we did sleep
day out of countenance,
and made the night
light with drinking.
Eight wild-boars roasted
whole at a breakfast,
and but twelve persons
there; is this true?
This was but as a
fly by an eagle:
we had much more monstrous matter of
feast, which worthily deserved noting.
She's a most triumphant lady,
if report be square to her.
When she first saw Mark Antony, she pursed
up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.
There she appeared indeed; or my
reporter devised well for her.
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.
O, rare for Antony!
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.
Rare Egyptian!
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.
Royal wench!
She made great Caesar
lay his sword to bed:
He plough'd her, and she cropp'd.
Now Antony must leave her utterly.
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.
If beauty, wisdom, modesty,
can settle the heart of Antony,
Octavia is a blessed lottery to him.
Let us go.
Good Enobarbus, make yourself
my guest whilst you abide here.
Humbly, sir, I thank you.
The world and my great office will
sometimes divide me from your bosom.
All which time before the gods my knee
shall bow my prayers to them for you.
Good night, sir.
My Octavia...
read not my blemishes
in the world's report:
I have not kept my square; but that
to come shall all be done by the rule.
Good night, dear lady.
Good night, sir.
Now, sirrah; you do
wish yourself in Egypt?
Would I had never come
from thence, nor you thither!
If you can, your reason?
I see it in my motion, have it not in my
tongue: but yet hie you to Egypt again.
Say to me, whose fortunes shall
rise higher, Caesar's or mine?
Caesar's.
Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:
Thy demon,
that's thy spirit which keeps thee,
is noble, courageous high,
unmatchable, where Caesar's is not;
but, near him, thy angel becomes
a fear, as being o'erpower'd:
therefore make space
enough between you.
Speak this no more.
To none but thee;
no more, but when to thee.
Get thee gone:
Be it art or hap,
he hath spoken true:
the very dice obey him.
I will to Egypt:
And though I make
this marriage for my peace,
i' the east my pleasure lies.
Give me some music.
The music, ho!
Music, moody food
of us that trade in love.
Let it alone; let's to billiards:
come, Charmian.
My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.
As well a woman with an eunuch
play'd as with a woman.
Come, you'll play with me, sir?
As well as I can, madam.
And when good will is show'd,
though't come too short,
the actor may plead pardon.
I'll none now:
Give me mine angle;
we'll to the river:
there, my music playing far off,
I will betray tawny-finn'd fishes;
my bended hook shall pierce
their slimy jaws;
and, as I draw them up,
I'll think them every one an Antony,
and say 'Ah, ha! you're caught.'
'Twas merry when
you wager'd on your angling;
when your diver did hang
a salt-fish on his hook,
which he
with fervency drew up.
That time,--O times!--
I laugh'd him out of patience;
and that night
I laugh'd him into patience;
and next morn, ere the ninth
hour, I drunk him to his bed;
Then put my tires
and mantles on him,
whilst I wore his
sword Philippan.
O, from Italy
ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
that long time have been barren.
Madam, madam,--
Antonius dead!--
If thou say so, villain,
thou kill'st thy mistress:
but well and free,
if thou so yield
him, there is gold,
and here
my bluest veins to kiss;
a hand that kings have lipp'd,
and trembled kissing.
First, madam, he is well.
Why, there's more gold.
But, sirrah, mark, we use to say
the dead are well: bring it to that,
the gold I give thee will I melt and
pour down thy ill-uttering throat.
Good madam, hear me.
I have a mind to strike thee
ere thou speak'st:
Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
or friends with Caesar,
or not captive to him,
I'll set thee in a shower of gold,
and hail rich pearls upon thee.
- Madam, he's well.
- Well said.
- And friends with Caesar.
- Thou'rt an honest man.
Caesar and he are
greater friends than ever.
Make thee a fortune from me.
But yet, madam,--
I do not like 'But yet,' it does allay
the good precedence; fie upon 'But yet'!
'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth
some monstrous malefactor.
Prithee, friend, pour out the
pack of matter to mine ear,
the good and bad together:
he's friends with Caesar:
In state of health thou say'st;
and thou say'st free.
Free, madam! no;
I made no such report:
He's bound unto Octavia.
For what good turn?
For the best turn i' the bed.
I am pale, Charmian.
Madam, he's married to Octavia.
The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
Good madam, patience.
What say you?
Hence, horrible villain!
Or I'll spurn thine eyes
like balls before me;
I'll unhair thy head:
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire,
and stew'd in brine,
smarting in lingering pickle.
Gracious madam, I that do bring
the news made not the match.
Say 'tis not so,
a province I will give thee,
and make thy fortunes proud:
the blow thou hadst shall make
thy peace for moving me to rage.
He's married, madam.
Rogue, thou hast lived too long.
What mean you, madam?
Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:
The man is innocent.
Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
Melt Egypt into Nile!
And kindly creatures
turn all to serpents!
Call the slave again:
Though I am mad, I will not bite him: Call.
He is afeard to come.
I will not hurt him.
These hands do lack nobility,
that they strike
a meaner than myself;
since I myself have
given myself the cause.
Come hither, sir.
Though it be honest, it is never
good to bring bad news:
give to a gracious message
an host of tongues;
but let ill tidings tell
themselves when they be felt.
- I have done my duty.
- Is he married?
I cannot hate thee worser than I do,
if thou again say 'Yes.'
He's married, madam.
The gods confound thee!
Dost thou hold there still?
- Should I lie, madam?
- O, I would thou didst,
so half my Egypt were submerged
and made a cistern for scaled snakes!
Go, get thee hence:
Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
thou wouldst appear most ugly.
He is married?
- I crave your highness' pardon.
- He is married?
Take no offence that I
would not offend you:
To punish me for what you make me do
seems much unequal:
he's married to Octavia.
O, that his fault should
make a knave of thee,
that art not what thou'rt sure of!
Get thee hence:
The merchandise which thou hast brought
from Rome are all too dear for me:
lie they upon thy hand,
and be undone by 'em!
Good your highness, patience.
In praising Antony,
I have dispraised Caesar.
Many times, madam.
I am paid for't now.
Lead me from hence:
I faint: O Iras, Charmian!
'tis no matter.
Go to the fellow, good Alexas;
bid him report the feature of
Octavia, her years, her inclination,
let him not leave out the colour
of her hair: bring me word quickly.
Let him for ever go:
--let him not--Charmian,
though he be painted one way like
a Gorgon, the other way's a Mars.
Bid you Alexas
bring me word how tall she is.
Pity me, Charmian,
but do not speak to me.
Lead me to my chamber.