Rome. A Room in Lepidus' House.
 Enter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS.

Lepidus	Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
	And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
	To soft and gentle speech.

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 Antonio's beard,
	I would not shave't today.

Lepidus									'Tis not a time
	For private stomaching.

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

Lepidus	But small to greater matters must give way.

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 ANTONY and VENTIDIUS.

Enobarbus						And yonder, Caesar.

                   Enter CAESAR, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA.

Antony	If we compose well here, to Parthia.
	Hark, Ventidius.

Caesar							I do not know,
	Maecenas; 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 th' matter.

Antony										'Tis spoken well.
	Were we before our armies, and to fight,
	I should do thus.
											[ANTONY embraces CAESAR.
													[Flourish.
Caesar	Welcome to Rome.

Antony	Thank you.

Caesar	Sit.

Antony	Sit, sir.

Caesar	Nay, then.
													[They sit.
Antony	I learn you take things ill which are not so,
	Or being, concern you not.

Caesar								I must be laughed at
	If or for nothing or a little I
	Should say myself offended, and with you
	Chiefly i'th' world; more laughed at that I should
	Once name you derogately when to sound your name
	It not concerned 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 "practised"?

Caesar	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
	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 to make it with,
	It must not be with this.

Caesar								You praise yourself
	By laying defects of judgment to me; but
	You patched 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'th' world 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'th'morning; but next day
	I told him of myself, which was as much
	As to have asked 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 lacked it. But on, Caesar,
	The article of my oath-

Caesar	To lend me arms and aid when I required them,
	The which you both denied.

Antony									Neglected, rather;
	And then when poisoned 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 diff'ring in their acts. Yet if I knew
	What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge
	O'th' world I would pursue it.

Agrippa								Give me leave, Caesar.

Caesar	Speak, Agrippa.

Agrippa	Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
	Admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony
	Is now a widower.

Caesar							Say not so, Agrippa.
	If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
	Were well deserved of rashness.

Antony	I am not married, Caesar; let me hear
	Agrippa farther 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.

Antony							Will Caesar speak?

Caesar	Not till he hears how Antony is touched
	With what is spoke already.

Antony								What power is in Agrippa
	If I would say "Agrippa, be it so"
	To make this good?

Caesar						The power of Caesar, and
	His power unto Octavia.

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!

Caesar								There's 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!

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.

Antony								Where lies he?

Caesar	About the Mount Misena.

Antony							What is his strength?

Caesar	By land, great and increasing; but by sea
	He is an absolute master.

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 talked of.

Caesar										With most gladness;
	And do invite you to my sister's view,
	Whither straight I'll lead you.

Antony								Let us, Lepidus,
	Not lack your company.

Lepidus							Noble Antony,
	Not sickness should detain me.
							 [Flourish. Exeunt. Manet ENOBARBUS,
													AGRIPPA, MAECENAS.

Maecenas	Welcome from Egypt, sir.

Enobarbus	Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable 
	friend Agrippa!

Agrippa	Good Enobarbus!

Maecenas	We have cause to be glad that matters are so well 
	disgested. You stayed well by't in Egypt.

Enobarbus	Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the 
	night light with drinking.

Maecenas	Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but 
	twelve persons there - is this true?

Enobarbus	This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more 
	monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

Maecenas	She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.

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.

Enobarbus	I will tell you.
	The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
	Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
	Purple the sails, and so perfumd that
	The winds were lovesick 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 beggared all description. She did lie
	In her pavilion - cloth of gold of tissue-
	O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
	The fancy outwork nature. On each side her
	Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
	With divers-coloured fans whose wind did seem
	To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
	And what they undid did.

Agrippa								O, rare for Antony!

Enobarbus	Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
	So many mermaids, tended her i'th' 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'th' market-place, did sit alone
	Whistling to th' air, which but for vacancy
	Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
	And made a gap in nature.

Agrippa									Rare Egyptian!

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 barbered 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 ploughed her, and she cropped.

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.

Maecenas	Now Antony must leave her utterly.

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.

Maecenas	If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
	The heart of Antony, Octavia is
	A blessd lottery to him.

Agrippa								Let us go.
	Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
	Whilst you abide here.

Enobarbus							Humbly, sir, I thank you.
													[Exeunt.

