Rome. A Room in Caesar's House.
 Enter Octavius CAESAR reading a letter, LEPIDUS, and their TRAIN.

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 manlike
	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.

Caesar	You are too indulgent. Let's 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 foils when we do bear
	So great weight in his lightness. If he filled
	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 feared Caesar. To the ports
	The discontents repair, and men's reports
	Give him much wronged.

Caesar							I should have known no less.
	It hath been taught us from the primal state
	That he which is was wished until he were;
	And the ebbed man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love,
	Comes deared by being lacked. 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,
	Makes 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.

Caesar										Antony,
	Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
	Was 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 browsd. 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 lanked not.

Lepidus								'Tis pity of him.

Caesar	Let his shames quickly
	Drive him to Rome. 'Tis time we twain
	Did show ourselves i'th' field, and to that end
	Assemble we immediate council. Pompey
	Thrives in our idleness.

Lepidus							Tomorrow, Caesar,
	I shall be furnished to inform you rightly
	Both what by sea and land I can be able
	To front this present time.

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.

Caesar							Doubt not, sir;
	I know it for my bond.
													[Exeunt.

