Antony and Cleopatra | Page 9

CAESAR.
Nay, then.
ANTONY.
I learn you take things ill which are not so,
Or being,
concern you not.
CAESAR.
I must be laugh'd at
If, or for nothing or a little, I

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.
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.
ANTONY.
How intend you practis'd?
CAESAR.
You may be pleas'd 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.
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? 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 patch'd up your excuses.
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. As for my wife,
I would you
had her spirit in such another:
The third o' theworld 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.
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.
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.
ANTONY.
Sir,
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 ask'd
him pardon. 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!
ANTONY.
No; Lepidus, let him speak.
The honour is sacred which
he talks on now,

Supposing that I lack'd it.--But on, Caesar;
The

article of my oath.
CAESAR.
To lend me arms and aid when I requir'd them;
The
which you both denied.
ANTONY.
Neglected, rather;
And then when poison'd 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. 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.
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.
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.
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!
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

stanch, from edge to edge
O' the world, I would pursue it.
AGRIPPA.
Give me leave, Caesar,--
CAESAR.
Speak, Agrippa.
AGRIPPA.
Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
Admir'd
Octavia: great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.
CAESAR.
Say not so, Agrippa:
If Cleopatra heard you, your
reproof
Were well deserv'd of rashness.
ANTONY.
I am not married, Caesar: let me hear
Agrippa further
speak.
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. 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. Pardon what I have spoke;
For 'tis a
studied,