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 VII. 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,
And not have spoke on’t! In me ’tis villany;
In thee’t had been good service. Thou must know,
’Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;
Mine honour, it. Repent that e’er thy tongue
Hath so betray’d thine act: being done unknown,
I should have found it afterwards well done;
But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.
Menas
[Aside] For this,
I’ll never follow thy pall’d fortunes more.
Who seeks, and will not take when once ’tis offer’d,
Shall never find it more.
Pompey
This health to Lepidus!
Mark Antony
Bear him ashore. I’ll pledge it for him, Pompey.
Domitius Enobarbus
Here’s to thee, Menas!
Menas
Enobarbus, welcome!
Pompey
Fill till the cup be hid.
Domitius Enobarbus
There’s a strong fellow, Menas.
Pointing to the Attendant who carries off Lepidus
Menas
Why?
Domitius Enobarbus
A’ bears the third part of the world, man; see’st not?
Menas
The third part, then, is drunk: would it were all,
That it might go on wheels!
Domitius Enobarbus
Drink thou; increase the reels.
Menas
Come.
Pompey
This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.
Mark Antony
It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho?
Here is to Caesar!
Octavius Caesar
I could well forbear’t.
It’s monstrous labour, when I wash my brain,
And it grows fouler.
Mark Antony
Be a child o’ the time.
Octavius Caesar
Possess it, I’ll make answer:
But I had rather fast from all four days
Than drink so much in one.
Domitius Enobarbus
Ha, my brave emperor!
To Mark Antony
Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals,
And celebrate our drink?
Pompey
Let’s ha’t, good soldier.
Mark Antony
Come, let’s all take hands,
Till that the conquering wine hath steep’d our sense
In soft and delicate Lethe.
Domitius Enobarbus
All take hands.
Make battery to our ears with the loud music:
The while I’ll place you: then the boy shall sing;
The holding every man shall bear as loud
As his strong sides can volley.
Music plays. Domitius Enobarbus places them hand in hand
The Song.
Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
In thy fats our cares be drown’d,
With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d:
Cup us, till the world go round,
Cup us, till the world go round!
Octavius Caesar
What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,
Let me request you off: our graver business
Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let’s part;
You see we have burnt our cheeks: strong Enobarb
Is weaker than the wine; and mine own tongue
Splits what it speaks: the wild disguise hath almost
Antick’d us all. What needs more words? Good night.
Good Antony, your hand.
Pompey
I’ll try you on the shore.
Mark Antony
And shall, sir; give’s your hand.
Pompey
O Antony,
You have my father’s house,— But, what? we are friends.
Come, down into the boat.
Domitius Enobarbus
Take heed you fall not.
Exeunt all but Domitius Enobarbus and Menas
Menas, I’ll not on shore.
Menas
No, to my cabin.
These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!
Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
To these great fellows: sound and be hang’d, sound out!
Sound a flourish, with drums
Domitius Enobarbus
Ho! says a’ There’s my cap.
Menas
Ho! Noble captain, come.
Exeunt
ACT III
SCENE I. A PLAIN IN SYRIA.
Enter Ventidius as it were in triumph, with Silius, and other Romans, Officers, and Soldiers; the dead body of Pacorus borne before him
Ventidius
Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck; and now
Pleased fortune does of Marcus Crassus’ death
Make me revenger. Bear the king’s son’s body
Before our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,
Pays this for Marcus Crassus.
Silius
Noble Ventidius,
Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm,
The fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,
Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither
The routed fly: so thy grand captain Antony
Shall set thee on triumphant chariots and
Put garlands on thy head.
Ventidius
O Silius, Silius,
I have done enough; a lower place, note well,
May make too great an act: for learn this, Silius;
Better to leave undone, than by our deed
Acquire too high a fame when him we serve’s away.
Caesar and Antony have ever won
More in their officer than person: Sossius,
One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,
For quick accumulation of renown,
Which he achieved by the minute, lost his favour.
Who does i’ the wars more than his captain can
Becomes his captain’s captain: and ambition,
The soldier’s virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
Than gain which darkens him.
I could do more to do Antonius good,
But ’twould offend him; and in his offence
Should my performance perish.
Silius
Thou hast, Ventidius, that
Without the which a soldier, and his sword,
Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony!
Ventidius
I’ll humbly signify what in his name,
That magical word of war, we have effected;
How, with his banners and his well-paid ranks,
The ne’er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia
We have jaded out o’ the field.
Silius
Where is he now?
Ventidius
He purposeth to Athens: whither, with what haste
The weight we must convey with’s will permit,
We shall appear before him. On there; pass along!
Exeunt
SCENE II. ROME. AN ANTE-CHAMBER IN OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S HOUSE.
Enter Agrippa at one door, Domitius Enobarbus at another
Agrippa
What, are the brothers parted?
Domitius Enobarbus
They have dispatch’d with Pompey, he is gone;
The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps
To part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,
Since Pompey’s feast, as Menas says, is troubled
With the green sickness.
Agrippa
’Tis a noble Lepidus.
Domitius Enobarbus
A very fine one: O, how he loves Caesar!
Agrippa
Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!
Domitius Enobarbus
Caesar? Why, he’s the Jupiter of men.
Agrippa
What’s Antony? The god of Jupiter.
Domitius Enobarbus
Spake you of Caesar? How! the non-pareil!
Agrippa
O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!
Domitius Enobarbus
Would you praise Caesar, say ‘Caesar:’ go no further.
Agrippa
Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.
Domitius Enobarbus
But he loves Caesar best; yet he loves Antony:
Ho! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, cannot
Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number, ho!
His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,
Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.
Agrippa
Both he loves.
Domitius Enobarbus
They are his shards, and he their beetle.
Trumpets within
So;
This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.
Agrippa
Good fortune, worthy soldier; and farewell.
Enter Octavius Caesar, Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavia
Mark Antony
No further, sir.
Octavius Caesar
You take from me a great part of myself;
Use me well in ’t. Sister, prove such a wife
As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band
Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,
Let not the piece of virtue, which is set
Betwixt us as the cement of our love,
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