Alex. Like to the time o' the year between the A several greeting, or I'll unpeople Egypt.

This amorous surfeiter would have donned his The noble Antony.

Touch

you the sourest points with sweetest terms, I know you could not lack (I am certain on 't) Nor curstness grow to the matter.

Cæs. 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.

Ant.

How intend you "practised?"

Cæs. You may be pleased to catch at mine in

tent

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' the world is yours; which with a
snaffle

You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

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

Ant. So much incurbable, her garboils, Cæsar,
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.

I wrote to you

Cæs.
When rioting in Alexandria: you

Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts,
Did gibe my missive out of audience.

He fell upon me ere admitted: then
Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
Of what I was i' the 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,

By what did here befall me. Your wife and bro- Out of our question wipe him.

ther

Cæs.
You have broken
The article of
your oath; which
Have tongue to charge me with.

you shall never

Worthily spoke, Mecanas.

Eno. 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.

Ant. Thou art a soldier only speak no more. Eno. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

Cæs.

The power of Cæsar,
And his power unto Octavia.
Ant. May I never

To this good purpose, that so fairly shews,
Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand:
Further this act of grace; and from this hour

Ant. You wrong this presence; therefore speak The heart of brothers govern in our loves,

And sway our great designs!

Cæs. About the Mount Misenum.
Ant. What is his strength by land?
Cæs. Great and increasing:

But by sea he is an absolute master.

Ant. So is the fame.

Agr. 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 dan- And do invite you to my
sister's view,
Whither straight I will lead you.
Let us, Lepidus,
Not lack your company.

'Would we had spoke together! Haste we for
it:

gers,

Would then be nothing: truths would be but tales,
Where now half tales be truths: her love to both

Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, despatch we
The business we have talked of.
Cæs. With most gladness;

Ant.

Lep.

Noble Antony,.

Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,

Not sickness should detain me.

[Flourish. Exeunt CESAR, ANTONY, and Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone,

LEPIDUS..

Mec. Welcome from Egypt, sir.

Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

Eno. Half the heart of Cæsar, worthy Meca- And made a gap in nature.

Mec. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by it in Egypt. Eno. Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.

Mec. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there is this true? Eno. This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more monstrous matter of feasts, which worthily deserved noting.

Agr.

Rare Egyptian!

Mec. She's a most triumphant lady, if report She made great Cæsar lay his sword to bed: be square to her. He ploughed her, and she cropped.

Eno. When she first met Marc Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus. Agr. There she appeared indeed! or my reporter devised well for her.

Eno. 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

Eno.

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) power breathe forth.

Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly.
Eno. Never; he will not:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

The winds were lovesick with them: the oars were Her infinite variety. Other women

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'erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy out-work nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what the undid did.