Pom. He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,
Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,
Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip! 3

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 4 his honour
Even till a Lethe'd dulness !

Enter VARRIUS.

How now, Varrius !

Var. This is most certain that I shall deliver:

Mark Antony is every hour in Rome

Expected since he went from Egypt 'tis

This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd 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 6 pluck
The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.

Men.

I cannot hope?

3 "Waned lip" is pale or faint-coloured lip; a lip that shows age or sickness; waned being a participle of the verb wane. —. - Salt here means lustful. So in Othello, ii. 1: "His salt and most hidden-loose affection."

4 To prorogue is to put off, to postpone. Here the meaning seems to be, "keep his sense of honour from being roused, till it sinks into a death-like lethargy." Till, in the next line, has the force of to; an old usage.

5 Since he left Egypt, there has been time enough for a longer journey. 6 To compose the tearing factions in the Egyptian Court, Cleopatra, at the instance of Julius Cæsar, had been married to her brother Ptolemy, who, not long after, was drowned.

7 Hope was sometimes used in the sense of expect.

Cæsar and Antony shall well greet together:
His wife that's dead did trespasses to Cæsar ;
His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,
Not moved by Antony.

Pom.

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 8 between themselves; For they have entertainèd 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.

SCENE II. - Rome. A Room in the House of LEPIDUS.

Enter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS.

Lep. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,

And shall become you well, t' entreat your captain
To soft and gentle speech.

Eno.

I shall entreat him

To answer like himself: if Cæsar move him,

8 Should is here used for would. See vol. vii. page 46, note 30.—To square is an old word for to quarrel; probably from the posture or attitude of a pugilist in squaring up to his antagonist. Shakespeare has the word several times in that sense, as he also has squarer for quarreller. Likewise in one of Leicester's Letters: "How thinges have bredd this lytle square between these two so well affected princes, I cannot tell." — Pregnant, here, is evident, full of proof in itself. Repeatedly so.

9 "It stands us upon" is an old phrase equivalent to the one now in use, "It stands us in hand." The phrase occurs repeatedly in North's Plutarch. Here the meaning seems to be, "Our lives depend upon our using," &c.; or, "it is as much as our lives are worth, that we use."

Let Antony look over Cæsar's head,
And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,

I would not shave't to-day.1

Lep.

For private stomaching.2

Eno.

'Tis not a time

Every time

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

Lep. But small to greater matters must give way.
Eno. Not if the small come first.

Lep.

Your speech is passion:

But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
The noble Antony.

Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS.

Eno.

And, yonder, Cæsar.

Enter CÆSAR, MECENAS, and AGRIPPA.

Ant. If we compose well 3 here, to Parthia:

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

1 That is, "I would meet him without any special making of my toilet, or any ceremony of respect." So, later in this scene, Enobarbus describes Antony as "being barber'd ten times o'er," when he first went to meet Cleopatra.

2 Stomaching, here, is resentment, or bearing a grudge. Shakespeare repeatedly has the noun stomach in the same sense. See vol. x. page 134,

note 6.

3 If we come to a harmonious composition or agreement.

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 4 grow to th' matter.

Ant.

'Tis spoken well.

Were we before our armies, and to fight,

I should do thus.

Cæs. Welcome to Rome.

Ant. Thank you.

Cæs. Sit.

Ant. Sit, sir.

Cas. Nay, then —

Ant. I learn, you take things ill which are not so,

Or, being, concern you not.

Cæs.

If, or for nothing or a little, I

I must be laugh'd at,

Should say myself offended, and with you

Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at, that I should
Once name you derogately, when to sound your name
It not concern'd me.

Ant.

What was't to you?

My being in Egypt, Cæsar,

Cas. 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? Cas. 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

* Curstness is scolding, lingual spite. Shakespeare uses the adjective curst to denote a scold, a vixen, or termagant.

Was theme for you, you were the word of war.5

Ant. You do mistake your business; my brother never Did urge me in his act : 6 I did inquire it ;

And have my learning from some true reports,7

That drew their swords with you.
Discredit my authority with yours,

Did he not rather

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 lack to make it with,

It must not be with this.8

Cæs.

You praise yourself

By laying defects of judgment to me; but
You patch'd up your excuse.

Ant.

Not so, not so;

I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,
Very necessity of this thought,9 that I,

Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,
Could not with graceful 10 eyes attend those wars
Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
I would you had her spirit in such another :

5 The meaning is, You were the theme or subject for which your wife and brother made their contestation; you were the word of war.

6 Never urged my name as a pretence for the war.

7 Reports for reporters; the same as the Poet uses trumpet for trumpeter, and fife for fifer. See vol. iii. page 149, note 5.

8 The meaning is, " If you will make out a cause of quarrel by patching together little bits of offence, since you have not a piece of whole cloth big enough for that purpose, you must do it with other matter than this, as in this there is not the least bit of offence."

9" Very necessity of this thought" means, apparently, this truly inevitable thought. So the Poet repeatedly uses necessary for natural or unavoidable. See vol. xiv. page 233, note 27. In like manner, he has such phrases as shady stealth for stealing shadow.

10 Graceful for gracious or favourable; these being among the many words of common origin that had not become fully differentiated in the Poet's time. Fronted is opposed or confronted.