Rome. A Room in CÆSAR'S House. |
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Enter OCTAVIUS CÆSAR, LEPIDUS, and Attendants. |
Cæs. 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 manlike |
Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy |
More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or |
Vouchsaf'd to think he had partners: you shall find there |
A man who is the abstract of all faults |
That all men follow. |
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 purchas'd; what he cannot change |
Than what he chooses. |
Cæs. 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. |
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Enter a Messenger. |
Lep. Here's more news. |
Mess. Thy biddings have been done, and every hour, |
Most noble Cæsar, shalt thou have report |
How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea, |
And it appears he is belov'd of those |
That only have fear'd Cæsar; to the ports |
The discontents repair, and men's reports |
Give him much wrong'd. |
Cæs. 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 lov'd 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. |
Mess. Cæsar, 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. |
Cæs. 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 thy honour that I speak it now— |
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek |
So much as lank'd not. |
Lep. 'Tis pity of him. |
Cæs. Let his shames quickly |
Drive him to Rome. 'Tis time we twain |
Did show ourselves i' the field; and to that end |
Assemble me immediate council; Pompey |
Thrives in our idleness. |
Lep. To-morrow, Cæsar, |
I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly |
Both what by sea and land I can be able |
To front this present time. |
Cæs. Till which encounter, |
It is my business too. Farewell. |
Lep. Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime |
Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir, |
To let me be partaker. |
Cæs. Doubt not, sir; |
I knew it for my bond. [Exeunt. |
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