SCENE IV. Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house. Antony and Cleopatra  Shakespeare homepage  |  Antony and Cleopatra  | Act 1, Scene 4 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE IV. Rome. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's house. 

 Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter, LEPIDUS, and their Train  OCTAVIUS CAESAR  You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know, 

 It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate 

 Our great competitor: from Alexandria 

 This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes 

 The lamps of night in revel; is not more man-like 

 Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy 

 More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or 

 Vouchsafed to think he had partners: you shall find there 

 A man who is the abstract of all faults 

 That all men follow. 

 LEPIDUS  I must not think there are 

 Evils enow to darken all his goodness: 

 His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven, 

 More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary, 

 Rather than purchased; what he cannot change, 

 Than what he chooses. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  You are too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not 

 Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy; 

 To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit 

 And keep the turn of tippling with a slave; 

 To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet 

 With knaves that smell of sweat: say this 

 becomes him,-- 

 As his composure must be rare indeed 

 Whom these things cannot blemish,--yet must Antony 

 No way excuse his soils, when we do bear 

 So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd 

 His vacancy with his voluptuousness, 

 Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones, 

 Call on him for't: but to confound such time, 

 That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud 

 As his own state and ours,--'tis to be chid 

 As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge, 

 Pawn their experience to their present pleasure, 

 And so rebel to judgment. 



 Enter a Messenger  LEPIDUS  Here's more news. 

 Messenger  Thy biddings have been done; and every hour, 

 Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report 

 How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea; 

 And it appears he is beloved of those 

 That only have fear'd Caesar: to the ports 

 The discontents repair, and men's reports 

 Give him much wrong'd. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  I should have known no less. 

 It hath been taught us from the primal state, 

 That he which is was wish'd until he were; 

 And the ebb'd man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love, 

 Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body, 

 Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, 

 Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, 

 To rot itself with motion. 

 Messenger  Caesar, I bring thee word, 

 Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, 

 Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound 

 With keels of every kind: many hot inroads 

 They make in Italy; the borders maritime 

 Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt: 

 No vessel can peep forth, but 'tis as soon 

 Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more 

 Than could his war resisted. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Antony, 

 Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once 

 Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st 

 Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel 

 Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against, 

 Though daintily brought up, with patience more 

 Than savages could suffer: thou didst drink 

 The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle 

 Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign 

 The roughest berry on the rudest hedge; 

 Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, 

 The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps 

 It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, 

 Which some did die to look on: and all this-- 

 It wounds thine honour that I speak it now-- 

 Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek 

 So much as lank'd not. 

 LEPIDUS  'Tis pity of him. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Let his shames quickly 

 Drive him to Rome: 'tis time we twain 

 Did show ourselves i' the field; and to that end 

 Assemble we immediate council: Pompey 

 Thrives in our idleness. 

 LEPIDUS  To-morrow, Caesar, 

 I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly 

 Both what by sea and land I can be able 

 To front this present time. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Till which encounter, 

 It is my business too. Farewell. 

 LEPIDUS  Farewell, my lord: what you shall know meantime 

 Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir, 

 To let me be partaker. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Doubt not, sir; 

 I knew it for my bond. 



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