Antony and Cleopatra - Act 1 - Scene 4

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.

    Exeunt