Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears
Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene
Of excellent dissembling; and let it look

Like perfect honour.

Ant.

You'll heat my blood: no more! Cleo. You can do better yet; but this is meetly.

Ant. Now, by my sword,—

Cleo.

And target!-Still he mends;

But this is not the best :-look, prithee, Charmian,

How this Herculean Roman does become

The carriage of his chief.2

Ant. I'll leave you, lady.

Cleo.

Courteous lord, one word.

Sir, you and I must part,-but that's not it:
Sir, you and I have loved,—but there 's not it;
That you know well something it is I would 3-
O, my oblivion is a very Antony,

And I am all forgotten! 4

Ant.

But that your royalty

Holds idleness your subject,5 I should take you

For idleness itself.

Cleo.

'T is sweating labour

To bear such idleness so near the heart

As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;

You can do better yet.] You can come out more strongly yet: This is a taunting reference to Antony's preceding speech.

2 His chief.] In the original it is 'his chafe'; but a reference to Extracts from Plutarch, 1, will show that Shakspeare must have meant a reference to Hercules, as the chief of the family of the Antonii.

That you know, &c.] It is something that you know well which I would say. There is here one of the many peculiar inversions of ordinary arrangement characteristic of Shakspeare.

My oblivion, &c.] The thought of Antony overwhelms (causes oblivion of) all other thoughts, and I am lost in forgetfulness.

Holds idleness, &c.] Has a claim of service on all idleness.

Since my becomings kill me, when they do not
Eye well to you:1 your honour calls you hence,
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,

And all the gods go with you! upon your sword
Sit laurel Victory! and smooth success

Be strewed before your feet!

Ant.

Let us go.

Come:

Our separation so abides, and flies,2

That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me,
And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.
Away!

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-Rome. An Apartment in Cæsar's House.

Enter OCTAVIUS CESAR, reading a letter, LEPIDUS, and Attendants.

Caes. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know, It is not Cæsar'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

3

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.4

1 Eye well to you.] Appear well in your eyes.

2 Our separation, &c.] Our separation is such a mixture of remaining and removing.

3 The queen of Ptolemy.] Ptolemy Dionysius and his sister Cleopatra were married that they might reign jointly.

men.

That all men follow.] That follow, beset, or pertain to, all

Lep.

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; 1 what he cannot change,
Than what he chooses.

1

Cas. You are too indulgent.

amiss

To tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;

Let us grant, 't is not

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 composure3 must be rare indeed

Whom these things cannot blemish,-yet must Antony
No way excuse his soils, when we do bear

4

So great weight in his lightness. If he filled
His vacancy 5 with his voluptuousness,

Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones,
Call on him for 't: 6 but to confound such time,7
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
As his own state and ours,8-'t is to be chid
As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,

Purchased.] Acquired.

2 Keep the turn, &c.] See Extracts from Plutarch, 2.

8 His composure.] A man's composition.

His soils.] The blemishes of his character.

5 His vacancy.] His leisure hours.

• Full surfeits, &c.] Let full surfeits, &c., call him to account for it.

"To confound such time.] To consume or waste such time. See p. 5, note 7.

Speaks as loud, &c.] Speaks with the urgency of his own state and ours in hazard.

Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,

And so rebel to judgment.

Lep.

Here's more news.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour, Most noble Cæsar, shalt thou have report How 't is abroad. Pompey is strong at sea; And it appears he is beloved of those That only have feared Cæsar: to the ports The discontents1 repair, and men's reports Give him 2 much wronged.

Cæs.

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 vagabond1 flag upon the stream,

Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,

To rot itself with motion.

Mess.

Cæsar, I bring thee word,

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,5

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 't is as soon

1 Discontents.] Malcontents.

2 Give him.] Represent him as; give him out to be. 3 Comes deared.] Becomes endeared. The original has feared. Vagabond.] Floating about; drifting.

5 Menecrates, &c.] Extracts from Plutarch, 20.

• Ear.] Plough.

• Lack blood to think on 't.] Grow pale in thinking of it.

Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more

Than could his war resisted.1

Cas.

Leave thy lascivious wassails.2

Antony,

When thou once

Wast beaten from Modena,3 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 5
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 lanked not.

Lep.

'T is pity of him.

Cas. Let his shames quickly

Drive him to Rome; 't is time we twain

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

Assemble we immediate council. Pompey
Thrives in our idleness.

Lep.

To-morrow, Cæsar,

1 Than could his war resisted.] Than could his weapons of war if he were resisted.

2 Wassails.] The old text has Vassailes.

When thou once, &c.] Extracts from Plutarch, 7. The ancient name of Modena was Mutina, and both names should be accented on the first syllable. Mutina was a Roman colony of Cisalpine Gaul. Whom.] The antecedent to this word is Famine.

5 With patience more.] More patiently. For the source of this speech, see Extracts from Plutarch, 8.