SCENE II. Rome. The house of LEPIDUS. Antony and Cleopatra  Shakespeare homepage  |  Antony and Cleopatra  | Act 2, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. Rome. The house of LEPIDUS. 

 Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS  LEPIDUS  Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed, 

 And shall become you well, to entreat your captain 

 To soft and gentle speech. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  I shall entreat him 

 To answer like himself: if Caesar move him, 

 Let Antony look over Caesar's head 

 And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter, 

 Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard, 

 I would not shave't to-day. 

 LEPIDUS  'Tis not a time 

 For private stomaching. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Every time 

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

 LEPIDUS  But small to greater matters must give way. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Not if the small come first. 

 LEPIDUS  Your speech is passion: 

 But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes 

 The noble Antony. 



 Enter MARK ANTONY and VENTIDIUS  DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  And yonder, Caesar. 



 Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MECAENAS, and AGRIPPA  MARK ANTONY  If we compose well here, to Parthia: 

 Hark, Ventidius. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  I do not know, 

 Mecaenas; ask Agrippa. 

 LEPIDUS  Noble friends, 

 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 

 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 grow to the matter. 

 MARK ANTONY  'Tis spoken well. 

 Were we before our armies, and to fight. 

 I should do thus. 



 Flourish  OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Welcome to Rome. 

 MARK ANTONY  Thank you. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Sit. 

 MARK ANTONY  Sit, sir. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Nay, then. 

 MARK ANTONY  I learn, you take things ill which are not so, 

 Or being, concern you not. 

 OCTAVIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  My being in Egypt, Caesar, 

 What was't to you? 

 OCTAVIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  How intend you, practised? 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  You may be pleased to catch at mine intent 

 By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother 

 Made wars upon me; and their contestation 

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

 MARK 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. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  You praise yourself 

 By laying defects of judgment to me; but 

 You patch'd up your excuses. 

 MARK 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' the world is yours; which with a snaffle 

 You may pace easy, but not such a wife. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Would we had all such wives, that the men might go 

 to wars with the women! 

 MARK 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. 

 OCTAVIUS 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. 

 MARK 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. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  You have broken 

 The article of your oath; which you shall never 

 Have tongue to charge me with. 

 LEPIDUS  Soft, Caesar! 

 MARK 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. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  To lend me arms and aid when I required them; 

 The which you both denied. 

 MARK 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. 

 MECAENAS  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, Mecaenas. 

 DOMITIUS 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. 

 MARK ANTONY  Thou art a soldier only: speak no more. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. 

 MARK ANTONY  You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Go to, then; your considerate stone. 

 OCTAVIUS 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,-- 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Speak, Agrippa. 

 AGRIPPA  Thou hast a sister by the mother's side, 

 Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony 

 Is now a widower. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Say not so, Agrippa: 

 If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof 

 Were well deserved of rashness. 

 MARK 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, not a present thought, 

 By duty ruminated. 

 MARK ANTONY  Will Caesar speak? 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd 

 With what is spoke already. 

 MARK ANTONY  What power is in Agrippa, 

 If I would say, 'Agrippa, be it so,' 

 To make this good? 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  The power of Caesar, and 

 His power unto Octavia. 

 MARK ANTONY  May I never 

 To this good purpose, that so fairly shows, 

 Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand: 

 Further this act of grace: and from this hour 

 The heart of brothers govern in our loves 

 And sway our great designs! 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  There is my hand. 

 A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother 

 Did ever love so dearly: let her live 

 To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never 

 Fly off our loves again! 

 LEPIDUS  Happily, amen! 

 MARK ANTONY  I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey; 

 For he hath laid strange courtesies and great 

 Of late upon me: I must thank him only, 

 Lest my remembrance suffer ill report; 

 At heel of that, defy him. 

 LEPIDUS  Time calls upon's: 

 Of us must Pompey presently be sought, 

 Or else he seeks out us. 

 MARK ANTONY  Where lies he? 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  About the mount Misenum. 

 MARK ANTONY  What is his strength by land? 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  Great and increasing: but by sea 

 He is an absolute master. 

 MARK ANTONY  So is the fame. 

 Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it: 

 Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we 

 The business we have talk'd of. 

 OCTAVIUS CAESAR  With most gladness: 

 And do invite you to my sister's view, 

 Whither straight I'll lead you. 

 MARK ANTONY  Let us, Lepidus, 

 Not lack your company. 

 LEPIDUS  Noble Antony, 

 Not sickness should detain me. 



 Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, and LEPIDUS  MECAENAS  Welcome from Egypt, sir. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas! My 

 honourable friend, Agrippa! 

 AGRIPPA  Good Enobarbus! 

 MECAENAS  We have cause to be glad that matters are so well 

 digested. You stayed well by 't in Egypt. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and 

 made the night light with drinking. 

 MECAENAS  Eight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and 

 but twelve persons there; is this true? 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more 

 monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting. 

 MECAENAS  She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to 

 her. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up 

 his heart, upon the river of Cydnus. 

 AGRIPPA  There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised 

 well for her. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  I will tell you. 

 The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, 

 Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; 

 Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 

 The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were 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 beggar'd all description: she did lie 

 In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue-- 

 O'er-picturing that Venus where we see 

 The fancy outwork nature: on each side her 

 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 

 With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem 

 To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, 

 And what they undid did. 

 AGRIPPA  O, rare for Antony! 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, 

 So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, 

 And made their bends adornings: at the helm 

 A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle 

 Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, 

 That yarely frame the office. From the barge 

 A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 

 Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast 

 Her people out upon her; and Antony, 

 Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone, 

 Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, 

 Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, 

 And made a gap in nature. 

 AGRIPPA  Rare Egyptian! 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, 

 Invited her to supper: she replied, 

 It should be better he became her guest; 

 Which she entreated: our courteous Antony, 

 Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak, 

 Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast, 

 And for his ordinary pays his heart 

 For what his eyes eat only. 

 AGRIPPA  Royal wench! 

 She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed: 

 He plough'd her, and she cropp'd. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  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. 

 MECAENAS  Now Antony must leave her utterly. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Never; he will not: 

 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 

 Her infinite variety: other women cloy 

 The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry 

 Where most she satisfies; for vilest things 

 Become themselves in her: that the holy priests 

 Bless her when she is riggish. 

 MECAENAS  If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle 

 The heart of Antony, Octavia is 

 A blessed lottery to him. 

 AGRIPPA  Let us go. 

 Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest 

 Whilst you abide here. 

 DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS  Humbly, sir, I thank you. 



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