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.
Exeunt
Act 2
Scene 1
Messina. POMPEY’s house.
Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS, in warlike manner
POMPEY If the great gods be just, they shall assist
The deeds of justest men.
MENECRATES Know, worthy Pompey,
That what they do delay, they not deny.
POMPEY Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays
The thing we sue for.
MENECRATES We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.
POMPEY I shall do well:
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.
MENAS Caesar and Lepidus
Are in the field: a mighty strength they carry.
POMPEY Where have you this? ’tis false.
MENAS From Silvius, sir.
POMPEY He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,
Looking 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!
Enter VARRIUS
How now, Varrius!
VARRIUS This is most certain that I shall deliver:
Mark Antony is every hour in Rome
Expected: since he went from Egypt ’tis
A space for further travel.
POMPEY I could have given less matter
A better ear. 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.
MENAS 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.
POMPEY I know not, Menas,
How lesser enmities may give way to greater.
Were’t not that we stand up against them all,
‘Twere pregnant they should square between
themselves;
For they have entertained cause enough
To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
May cement their divisions and bind up
The petty difference, we yet not know.
Be’t as our gods will have’t! It only stands
Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.
Come, Menas.
Exeunt
Scene 2
Rome. The house of LEPIDUS.
Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS
LEPIDUS Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,
And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
To soft and gentle speech.
DOMITIUS 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.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Every time
Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.
LEPIDUS But small to greater matters must give way.
DOMITIUS 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 MARK ANTONY and VENTIDIUS
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS And yonder, Caesar.
Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MECAENAS, and AGRIPPA
MARK ANTONY If we compose well here, to Parthia:
Hark, Ventidius.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR I do not know,
Mecaenas; ask Agrippa.
LEPIDUS Noble friends,
That which combined us was most great, and let not
A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss,
May it be gently heard: when we 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.
MARK ANTONY ‘Tis spoken well.
Were we before our armies, and to fight.
I should do thus.
Flourish
OCTAVIUS CAESAR Welcome to Rome.
MARK ANTONY Thank you.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR Sit.
MARK ANTONY Sit, sir.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR Nay, then.
MARK ANTONY I learn, you take things ill which are not so,
Or being, concern you not.
OCTAVIUS 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.
MARK ANTONY My being in Egypt, Caesar,
What was’t to you?
OCTAVIUS 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.
MARK ANTONY How intend you, practised?
OCTAVIUS CAESAR 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.
MARK 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 have not to make it with,
It must not be with this.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR You praise yourself
By laying defects of judgment to me; but
You patch’d up your excuses.
MARK 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.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Would we had all such wives, that the men might go
to wars with the women!
MARK 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.
OCTAVIUS 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.
MARK 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.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR You have broken
The article of your oath; which you shall never
Have tongue to charge me with.
LEPIDUS Soft, Caesar!
MARK ANTONY No,
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.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR To lend me arms and aid when I required them;
The which you both denied.
MARK 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.
MECAENAS 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, Mecaenas.
DOMITIUS 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.
MARK ANTONY Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.
MARK ANTONY You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Go to, then; your considerate stone.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR 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