Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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1.3 Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Alexas, and Iras

CLEOPATRA

Where is he?

CHARMIAN I did not see him since.

CLEOPATRA ⌈to Alexas⌉

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.

Exit ⌈Alexas⌉

CHARMIAN

Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,

You do not hold the method to enforce

The like from him.

CLEOPATRA What should I do I do not?

CHARMIAN

In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.

CLEOPATRA

Thou teachest like a fool, the way to lose him.

CHARMIAN

Tempt him not so too far. Iwis, forbear.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Enter Antony

But here comes Antony.

CLEOPATRA I am sick and sullen.

ANTONY

I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose.

CLEOPATRA

Help me away, dear Charmian, I shall fall.

It cannot be thus long—the sides of nature

Will not sustain it.

ANTONY Now, my dearest queen.

CLEOPATRA

Pray you, stand farther from me.

ANTONY What’s the matter?

CLEOPATRA

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.

ANTONY

The gods best know—

CLEOPATRA O, never was there queen

So mightily betrayed! Yet at the first

I saw the treasons planted.

ANTONY Cleopatra—

CLEOPATRA

Why should I think you can be mine and true—

Though you in swearing shake the thronèd gods—

Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,

To be entangled with those mouth-made vows

Which break themselves in swearing.

ANTONY

Most sweet queen—

CLEOPATRA

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 brow’s 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 turned the greatest liar.

ANTONY

How now, lady!

CLEOPATRA

I would I had thy inches. Thou shouldst know

There were a heart in Egypt.

ANTONY

Hear me, Queen.

The strong necessity of time commands

Our services a while, 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.

Equality of two domestic powers

Breed scrupulous faction. The hated, grown to

strength,

Are newly grown to love. The condemned Pompey,

Rich in his father’s honour, creeps apace

Into the hearts of such as have not thrived

Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;

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.

CLEOPATRA

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?

ANTONY She’s dead, my queen.

He offers letters

Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read

The garboils she awaked. At the last, best,

See when and where she died.

CLEOPATRA

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.

ANTONY

Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know

The purposes I bear, which are or cease

As you shall give th’advice. By the fire

That quickens Nilus’ slime, I go from hence

Thy soldier-servant, making peace or war

As thou affects.

CLEOPATRA

Cut my lace, Charmian, come.

But let it be. I am quickly ill and well;

So Antony loves.

ANTONY

My precious queen, forbear, And give true evidence to his love, which stands

An honourable trial.

CLEOPATRA

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.

ANTONY

You’ll heat my blood. No more.

CLEOPATRA

You can do better yet; but this is meetly.

ANTONY

Now by my sword—

CLEOPATRA

And target. Still he mends.

But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,

How this Herculean Roman does become

The carriage of his chafe.

ANTONY I’ll leave you, lady.

CLEOPATRA 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.

ANTONY

But that your royalty Holds idleness your subject, I should take you

For idleness itself.

CLEOPATRA

’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 strewed before your feet.

ANTONY

Let us go. Come. Our separation so abides and flies

That thou residing here goes yet with me,

And I hence fleeting, here remain with thee.

Away.

Exeunt severally

1.4 Enter Octavius reading a letter, Lepidus, and their train

CAESAR

You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,

It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate

Our great competitor. From Alexandria

This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes

The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike

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.

LEPIDUS

I must not think there are

Evils enough 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.

CAESAR

You are too indulgent. Let’s 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 smells 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 foils when we do bear

So great weight in his lightness. If he filled

His vacancy with his voluptuousness,

Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones

Call on him for’t. But to confound such time

That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud

As his own state and ours—’tis to be chid

As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,

Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,

And so rebel to judgement.

Enter a Messenger

LEPIDUS

Here’s more news.

MESSENGER

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 feared Caesar. To the ports

The discontents repair, and men’s reports

Give him much wronged.

⌈Exit⌉

CAESAR

I should have known no less. It hath been taught us from the primal state

That he which is was wished until he were,

And the ebbed man, ne‘er loved till ne’er worth love,

Comes deared by being lacked. This common body,

Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,

To rot itself with motion.

⌈Enter a second Messenger⌉

SECOND MESSENGER

Caesar, I bring thee word Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,

Makes the sea serve them, which they ear and wound

With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads

They make in Italy. The borders maritime

Lack blood to think on‘t, and flush youth revolt.

No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon

Taken as seen; for Pompey’s name strikes more

Than could his war resisted.

⌈Exit⌉

CAESAR

Antony,

Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once

Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew‘st

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, 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. On the Alps

It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,

Which some did die to look on; and all this—

It wounds thine honour that I speak it now—

Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek

So much as lanked not.

LEPIDUS ’Tis pity of him.

CAESAR Let his shames quickly

Drive him to Rome. ‘Tis time we twain

Did show ourselves i’th’ field; and to that end

Assemble we immediate council. Pompey

Thrives in our idleness.

LEPIDUS

Tomorrow, Caesar,

I shall be furnished to inform you rightly

Both what by sea and land I can be able

To front this present time.

CAESAR Till which encounter

It is my business, too. Farewell.

LEPIDUS

Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime

Of stirs abroad I shall beseech you, sir,

To let me be partaker.

CAESAR

Doubt not, sir. I knew it for my bond.

Exeunt

1.5 Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Mardian

CLEOPATRA Charmian!

CHARMIAN Madam?

CLEOPATRA (yawning)

Ha, ha. Give me to drink mandragora.

CHARMIAN Why, madam?

CLEOPATRA

That I might sleep out this great gap of time

My Antony is away.

CHARMIAN

You think of him too much.

CLEOPATRA

O, ’tis treason!

CHARMIAN Madam, I trust not so.

CLEOPATRA

Thou, eunuch Mardian!

MARDIAN What’s your highness’ pleasure?

CLEOPATRA

Not now to hear thee sing. I take no pleasure

In aught an eunuch has. ’is well for thee

That, being unseminared, thy freer thoughts

May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?

MARDIAN Yes, gracious madam.

CLEOPATRA Indeed?

MARDIAN

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.

CLEOPATRA

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

mov’st?—

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.

Enter Alexas

ALEXAS Sovereign of Egypt, hail!

CLEOPATRA

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?

ALEXAS

Last thing he did, dear Queen, He kissed—the last of many doubled kisses—

This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.

CLEOPATRA

Mine ear must pluck it thence.

ALEXAS

‘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-jaunced steed,

Who neighed so high that what I would have spoke

Was beastly dumbed by him.

CLEOPATRA

What, was he sad or merry?

ALEXAS

Like to the time o’th’ year between the extremes

Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.

CLEOPATRA

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 seemed 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?

ALEXAS

Ay, madam, twenty several messengers.

Why do you send so thick?

CLEOPATRA

Who’s born that day

When I forget to send to Antony

Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian! I

Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,

Ever love Caesar so?

CHARMIAN

O, that brave Caesar!

CLEOPATRA

Be choked with such another emphasis!

Say ‘the brave Antony’.

CHARMIAN

The valiant Caesar.

CLEOPATRA

By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth

If thou with Caesar paragon again

My man of men.

CHARMIAN

By your most gracious pardon, I sing but after you.

CLEOPATRA

My salad days, When I was green in judgement, 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.

Exeunt

2.1 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 th’ 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 flattered; 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 dullness—

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 farther travel.

POMPEY

I could have given less matter

A better ear. Menas, I did not think

This amorous surfeiter would have donned 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 warred 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

2.2 Enter Enobarbus and Lepidus

LEPIDUS

Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,

And shall become you well, to entreat your captain

To soft and gentle speech.

ENOBARBUS

I shall entreat him To answer like himself. If Caesar move him,

Let Antony look over Caesar’s head

And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,

Were I the wearer of Antonio’s beard

I would not shave’t today.

LEPIDUS

’Tis not a time

For private stomaching.

ENOBARBUS

Every time

Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.

LEPIDUS

But small to greater matters must give way.

ENOBARBUS

Not if the small come first.

LEPIDUS Your speech is passion.

But pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes

The noble Antony.

Enter at one door Antony and Ventidius

ENOBARBUS

And yonder Caesar.

Enter at another door Caesar, Maecenas, and Agrippa

ANTONY (to Ventidius)

If we compose well here, to Parthia.

Hark, Ventidius.

CAESAR

I do not know,

Maecenas; ask Agrippa.

LEPIDUS (to Caesar and Antony) 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 th’ matter.

ANTONY

’Tis spoken well.

Were we before our armies, and to fight,

I should do thus.

⌈Antony and Caesar embrace.⌉ Flourish

CAESAR Welcome to Rome.

ANTONY Thank you.

CAESAR Sit.

ANTONY Sit, sir.

CAESAR Nay then.

They sit

ANTONY

I learn you take things ill which are not so,

Or being, concern you not.

CAESAR

I must be laughed at

If or for nothing or a little I

Should say myself offended, and with you

Chiefly i’th’ world; more laughed at that I should

Once name you derogately, when to sound your name

It not concerned me.

ANTONY

My being in Egypt, Caesar, what was’t to you?

CAESAR

No more than my residing here at Rome

Might be to you in Egypt. Yet if you there

Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt

Might be my question.

ANTONY

How intend you ‘practised’?

CAESAR

You 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.

ANTONY

You do mistake the business. My brother never

Did urge me in his act. I did enquire 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 to make it with,

It must not be with this.

CAESAR

You praise yourself

By laying defects of judgement to me, but

You patched up your excuses.

ANTONY

Not so, not so.

I know you could not lack, I am certain on’t,

Very necessity of this thought, that I,

Your partner in the cause ’gainst which he fought,

Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars

Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,

I would you had her spirit in such another.

The third o’th’ world is yours, which with a snaffle

You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

ENOBARBUS Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women.

ANTONY

So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar,

Made out of her impatience—which not wanted

Shrewdness of policy too—I grieving grant

Did you too much disquiet, for that you must

But say I could not help it.

CAESAR

I wrote to you

When, rioting in Alexandria, you

Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts

Did gibe my missive out of audience.

ANTONY

Sir, he fell upon me ere admitted, then.

Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want

Of what I was i’th’ morning; but next day

I told him of myself, which was as much

As to have asked him pardon. Let this fellow

Be nothing of our strife. If we contend,

Out of our question wipe him.

CAESAR

You have broken

The article of your oath, which you shall never

Have tongue to charge me with.

LEPIDUS Soft, Caesar.

ANTONY No, Lepidus, let him speak.

The honour is sacred which he talks on now,

Supposing that I lacked it. But on, Caesar:

The article of my oath—

CAESAR

To lend me arms and aid when I required them,

The which you both denied.

ANTONY

Neglected, rather,

And then when poisoned 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.

MAECENAS

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, Maecenas.

ENOBARBUS Or if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

ANTONY

Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.

ENOBARBUS That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

ANTONY

You wrong this presence, therefore speak no more. ENOBARBUS Go to, then; your considerate stone.

CAESAR

I do not much dislike the matter, but

The manner of his speech, for’t cannot be

We shall remain in friendship, our conditions

So diff‘ring in their acts. Yet if I knew

What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge

O’th’ world I would pursue it.

AGRIPPA Give me leave, Caesar.

CAESAR Speak, Agrippa.

AGRIPPA

Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side,

Admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony

Is now a widower.

CAESAR

Say not so, Agrippa.

If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof

Were well deserved of rashness.

ANTONY

I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear

Agrippa further speak.

AGRIPPA

To hold you in perpetual amity,

To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts

With an unslipping knot, take Antony

Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims

No worse a husband than the best of men;

Whose virtue and whose general graces speak

That which none else can utter. By this marriage

All little jealousies which now seem great,

And all great fears which now import their dangers,

Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales

Where now half-tales be truths. Her love to both

Would each to other and all loves to both

Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke,

For ’tis a studied, not a present thought,

By duty ruminated.

ANTONY

Will Caesar speak?

CAESAR

Not till he hears how Antony is touched

With what is spoke already.

ANTONY What power is in Agrippa,

If I would say ‘Agrippa, be it so’,

To make this good?

CAESAR

The power of Caesar,

And his power unto Octavia.

ANTONY

May I never

To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,

Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand.

Further this act of grace, and from this hour

The heart of brothers govern in our loves

And sway our great designs.

CAESAR

There’s my hand.

Antony and Caesar clasp hands

A sister I bequeath you whom no brother

Did ever love so dearly. Let her live

To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never

Fly off our loves again.

LEPIDUS

Happily, amen.

ANTONY

I did not think to draw my sword ’gainst Pompey,

For he hath laid strange courtesies and great

Of late upon me. I must thank him only,

Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;

At heel of that, defy him.

LEPIDUS Time calls upon’s.

Of us must Pompey presently be sought,

Or else he seeks out us.

ANTONY

Where lies he?

CAESAR

About the Mount Misena.

ANTONY

What is his strength By land?

CAESAR

Great and increasing, but by sea

He is an absolute master.

ANTONY So is the fame.

Would we had spoke together. Haste we for it;

Yet ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we

The business we have talked of.

CAESAR

With most gladness, And do invite you to my sister’s view,

Whither straight I’ll lead you.

ANTONY

Let us, Lepidus,

Not lack your company.

LEPIDUS

Noble Antony,

Not sickness should detain me.

Flourish. Exeunt all but Enobarbus, Agrippa, and Maecenas

MAECENAS (to Enobarbus) Welcome from Egypt, sir.

ENOBARBUS Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas!

My honourable friend, Agrippa!

AGRIPPA Good Enobarbus!

MAECENAS We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by’t in Egypt.

ENOBARBUS Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.

MAECENAS Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast and but twelve persons there—is this true?

ENOBARBUS This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

MAECENAS She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.

ENOBARBUS When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart upon the river of Cydnus.

AGRiPPA There she appeared indeed, or my reporter devised well for her.

ENOBARBUS I will tell you.

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne

Burned 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 beggared 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-coloured fans whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid did.

AGRIPPA O, rare for Antony!

ENOBARBUS

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i‘th’ 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’th’ market-place, did sit alone,

Whistling to th’air, which but for vacancy

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

And made a gap in nature.

AGRIPPA Rare Egyptian!

ENOBARBUS

Upon her landing Antony sent to her,

Invited her to supper. She replied

It should be better he became her guest,

Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,

Whom ne‘er the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak,

Being barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast,

And for his ordinary pays his heart

For what his eyes eat only.

AGRIPPA

Royal wench!

She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed.

He ploughed her, and she cropped.

ENOBARBUS

I saw her once

Hop forty paces through the public street,

And having lost her breath, she spoke and panted,

That she did make defect perfection,

And breathless, pour breath forth.

MAECENAS

Now Antony

Must leave her utterly.

ENOBARBUS

Never. He will not.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety. Other women cloy

The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

Where most she satisfies. For vilest things

Become themselves in her, that the holy priests

Bless her when she is riggish.

MAECENAS

If beauty, wisdom, modesty can settle

The heart of Antony, Octavia is

A blessed lottery to him.

AGRIPPA

Let us go.

Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest

Whilst you abide here.

ENOBARBUS Humbly, sir, I thank you.

Exeunt