When Caesar and your brother were at blows,
Your mother came to Sicily and did find
Her welcome friendly.
MARK ANTONY I have heard it, Pompey;
And am well studied for a liberal thanks
Which I do owe you.
POMPEY Let me have your hand:
I did not think, sir, to have met you here.
MARK ANTONY The beds i’ the east are soft; and thanks to you,
That call’d me timelier than my purpose hither;
For I have gain’d by ‘t.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR Since I saw you last,
There is a change upon you.
POMPEY Well, I know not
What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;
But in my bosom shall she never come,
To make my heart her vassal.
LEPIDUS Well met here.
POMPEY I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed:
I crave our composition may be written,
And seal’d between us.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR That’s the next to do.
POMPEY We’ll feast each other ere we part; and let’s
Draw lots who shall begin.
MARK ANTONY That will I, Pompey.
POMPEY No, Antony, take the lot: but, first
Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery
Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar
Grew fat with feasting there.
MARK ANTONY You have heard much.
POMPEY I have fair meanings, sir.
MARK ANTONY And fair words to them.
POMPEY Then so much have I heard:
And I have heard, Apollodorus carried–
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No more of that: he did so.
POMPEY What, I pray you?
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.
POMPEY I know thee now: how farest thou, soldier?
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Well;
And well am like to do; for, I perceive,
Four feasts are toward.
POMPEY Let me shake thy hand;
I never hated thee: I have seen thee fight,
When I have envied thy behavior.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Sir,
I never loved you much; but I ha’ praised ye,
When you have well deserved ten times as much
As I have said you did.
POMPEY Enjoy thy plainness,
It nothing ill becomes thee.
Aboard my galley I invite you all:
Will you lead, lords?
OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS Show us the way, sir.
POMPEY Come.
Exeunt all but MENAS and ENOBARBUS
MENAS [Aside]
Thy father, Pompey, would ne’er have
made this treaty.–You and I have known, sir.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS At sea, I think.
MENAS We have, sir.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS You have done well by water.
MENAS And you by land.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I will praise any man that will praise me; though it
cannot be denied what I have done by land.
MENAS Nor what I have done by water.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Yes, something you can deny for your own
safety: you have been a great thief by sea.
MENAS And you by land.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS There I deny my land service. But give me your
hand, Menas: if our eyes had authority, here they
might take two thieves kissing.
MENAS All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But there is never a fair woman has a true face.
MENAS No slander; they steal hearts.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS We came hither to fight with you.
MENAS For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking.
Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS If he do, sure, he cannot weep’t back again.
MENAS You’ve said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony
here: pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Caesar’s sister is called Octavia.
MENAS True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.
MENAS Pray ye, sir?
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS ‘Tis true.
MENAS Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would
not prophesy so.
MENAS I think the policy of that purpose made more in the
marriage than the love of the parties.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I think so too. But you shall find, the band that
seems to tie their friendship together will be the
very strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a
holy, cold, and still conversation.
MENAS Who would not have his wife so?
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony.
He will to his Egyptian dish again: then shall the
sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar; and, as
I said before, that which is the strength of their
amity shall prove the immediate author of their
variance. Antony will use his affection where it is:
he married but his occasion here.
MENAS And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard?
I have a health for you.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.
MENAS Come, let’s away.
Exeunt
Scene 7
On board POMPEY’s galley, off Misenum.
Music plays. Enter two or three Servants with a banquet
First Servant Here they’ll be, man. Some o’ their plants are
ill-rooted already: the least wind i’ the world
will blow them down.
Second Servant Lepidus is high-coloured.
First Servant They have made him drink alms-drink.
Second Servant As they pinch one another by the disposition, he
cries out ‘No more;’ reconciles them to his
entreaty, and himself to the drink.
First Servant But it raises the greater war between him and
his discretion.
Second Servant Why, this is to have a name in great men’s
fellowship: I had as lief have a reed that will do
me no service as a partisan I could not heave.
First Servant To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen
to move in’t, are the holes where eyes should be,
which pitifully disaster the cheeks.
A sennet sounded. Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MECAENAS, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MENAS, with other captains
MARK ANTONY [To OCTAVIUS CAESAR]
Thus do they, sir: they take
the flow o’ the Nile
By certain scales i’ the pyramid; they know,
By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
Or foison follow: the higher Nilus swells,
The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
And shortly comes to harvest.
LEPIDUS You’ve strange serpents there.
MARK ANTONY Ay, Lepidus.
LEPIDUS Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
operation of your sun: so is your crocodile.
MARK ANTONY They are so.
POMPEY Sit,–and some wine! A health to Lepidus!
LEPIDUS I am not so well as I should be, but I’ll ne’er out.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Not till you have slept; I fear me you’ll be in till then.
LEPIDUS Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies’
pyramises are very goodly things; without
contradiction, I have heard that.
MENAS [Aside to POMPEY]
Pompey, a word.
POMPEY [Aside to MENAS]
Say in mine ear:
what is’t?
MENAS [Aside to POMPEY]
Forsake thy seat, I do beseech
thee, captain,
And hear me speak a word.
POMPEY [Aside to MENAS]
Forbear me till anon.
This wine for Lepidus!
LEPIDUS What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?
MARK ANTONY It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad
as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is,
and moves with its own organs: it lives by that
which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of
it, it transmigrates.
LEPIDUS What colour is it of?
MARK ANTONY Of it own colour too.
LEPIDUS ‘Tis a strange serpent.
MARK ANTONY ‘Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.
OCTAVIUS CAESAR Will this description satisfy him?
MARK ANTONY With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a
very epicure.
POMPEY [Aside to MENAS]
Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of
that? away!
Do as I bid you. Where’s this cup I call’d for?
MENAS [Aside to POMPEY]
If for the sake of merit thou
wilt hear me,
Rise from thy stool.
POMPEY [Aside to MENAS]
I think thou’rt mad.
The matter?
Rises, and walks aside
MENAS I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.
POMPEY Thou hast served me with much faith. What’s else to say?
Be jolly, lords.
MARK ANTONY These quick-sands, Lepidus,
Keep off them, for you sink.
MENAS Wilt thou be lord of all the world?
POMPEY What say’st thou?
MENAS Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That’s twice.
POMPEY How should that be?
MENAS But entertain it,
And, though thou think me poor, I am the man
Will give thee all the world.
POMPEY Hast thou drunk well?
MENAS Now, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
Thou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove:
Whate’er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,
Is thine, if thou wilt ha’t.
POMPEY Show me which way.
MENAS These three world-sharers, these competitors,
Are in thy vessel: let me cut the cable;
And, when we are put off, fall to their throats:
All there is thine.
POMPEY Ah, this thou shouldst have done,