ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Act 1 Scene 4

(Enter Octavius reading a letter, Lepidus, and their train)
l1l	Caesar	 You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
l2l		It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate
l3l		Our great competitor. From Alexandria
l4l		This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
l5l		The lamps of night in revel# is not more manlike
l6l		Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy
l7l		More womanly than he# hardly gave audience
l8l		Or vouchsafed to think he had partners. You shall find there
l9l		A man who is the abstract of all faults
l10l		That all men follow.
	Lepidus	I must not think there are
l11l		Evils enough to darken all his goodness.
l12l		His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,
l13l		More fiery by night’s blackness# hereditary
l14l		Rather than purchased# what he cannot change
l15l		Than what he chooses.
l16l	Caesar	You are too indulgent. Let’s grant it is not
l17l		Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,
l18l		To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit
l19l		And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,
l20l		To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
l21l		With knaves that smells of sweat. Say this becomes him—
l22l		As his composure must be rare indeed
l23l		Whom these things cannot blemish—yet must Antony
l24l		No way excuse his foils when we do bear
l25l		So great weight in his lightness. If he filled
l26l		His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
l27l		Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones
l28l		Call on him for ’t. But to confound such time
l29l		That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
l30l		As his own state and ours—’tis to be chid
l31l		As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,
l32l		Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
l33l		And so rebel to judgement.
		(Enter a Messenger)
		
	Lepidus	 Here’s more news.
l34l	Messenger	Thy biddings have been done, and every hour,
l35l		Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report
l36l		How ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,
l37l		And it appears he is beloved of those
l38l		That only have feared Caesar. To the ports
l39l		The discontents repair, and men’s reports
l40l		Give him much wronged.
		(Exit)
		
	Caesar	 I should have known no less.
l41l		It hath been taught us from the primal state
l42l		That he which is was wished until he were,
l43l		And the ebbed man, ne’er loved till ne’er worth love,
l44l		Comes deared by being lacked. This common body,
l45l		Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
l46l		Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,
l47l		To rot itself with motion.
		(Enter a second Messenger)
		 
	Second Messenger	 Caesar, I bring thee word
l48l		Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
l49l		Makes the sea serve them, which they ear and wound
l50l		With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads
l51l		They make in Italy. The borders maritime
l52l		Lack blood to think on ’t, and flush youth revolt.
l53l		No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon
l54l		Taken as seen# for Pompey’s name strikes more
l55l		Than could his war resisted.
		(Exit)
		
	Caesar	 Antony,
l56l		Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
l57l		Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew’st
l58l		Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
l59l		Did famine follow, whom thou fought’st against—
l60l		Though daintily brought up—with patience more
l61l		Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink
l62l		The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
l63l		Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign
l64l		The roughest berry on the rudest hedge.
l65l		Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,
l66l		The barks of trees thou browsed. On the Alps
l67l		It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
l68l		Which some did die to look on# and all this—
l69l		It wounds thine honour that I speak it now—
l70l		Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek
l71l		So much as lanked not.
l72l	Lepidus	’Tis pity of him.
l73l	Caesar	Let his shames quickly
l74l		Drive him to Rome. ’Tis time we twain
l75l		Did show ourselves i’ th’ field# and to that end
l76l		Assemble we immediate council. Pompey
l77l		Thrives in our idleness.
	Lepidus	Tomorrow, Caesar,
l78l		I shall be furnished to inform you rightly
l79l		Both what by sea and land I can be able
l80l		To front this present time.
	Caesar	Till which encounter
l81l		It is my business, too. Farewell.
l82l	Lepidus	Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime
l83l		Of stirs abroad I shall beseech you, sir,
l84l		To let me be partaker.
l85l	Caesar	Doubt not, sir. I knew it for my bond.
		(Exeunt)