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*Rome. A Room in the House of Lepidus. 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.
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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 today.
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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.
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LEPIDUS. Your speech is passion; But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes The noble Antony. *Enter Antony and Ventidius.* ENOBARBUS. And yonder Caesar. *Enter Caesar, Maecenas and Agrippa.*
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ANTONY. If we compose well here, to Parthia. Hark, Ventidius. CAESAR. I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.
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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.
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LEPIDUS. 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.
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CAESAR. Welcome to Rome. ANTONY. Thank you. CAESAR. Sit. ANTONY. Sit, sir. CAESAR. Nay, then.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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ANTONY. 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. CAESAR. You praise yourself By laying defects of judgment to me; but You patched up your excuses.
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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.
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ANTONY. 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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ANTONY. 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!
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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.
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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.
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ANTONY. 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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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 What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge O' th' world I would pursue it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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AGRIPPA. 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.
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AGRIPPA. 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.
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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.
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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!
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CAESAR. There's 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! LEPIDUS. Happily, amen!
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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 except Enobarbus, Agrippa and Maecenas.]*
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MAECENAS. Welcome from Egypt, sir. ENOBARBUS. Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa! AGRIPPA. Good Enobarbus!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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ENOBARBUS. For her own person, It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue, O'erpicturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature.
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ENOBARBUS. 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!
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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.
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ENOBARBUS. 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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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ENOBARBUS. 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.
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AGRIPPA. Let us go. Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest Whilst you abide here. ENOBARBUS. Humbly, sir, I thank you. *[Exeunt.]*