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, Rather than purchas'd; what he cannot change, CES. You are too indulgent. Let us grant, 't is not amiss 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 Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones, 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 belov'd of those That only have fear'd Cæsar: to the ports CES. 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, Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide, To rot itself with motion. (*) First folio, abstracts. Cæsar, I bring thee word, (+) Old text, fear'd; corrected by Warburton. (1) Old text, lacking; corrected by Theobald. - his soils,-] A reading suggested by Malone in lieu of "foyles," the very doubtful word of the old text. Call on him for 't:] Call him to account for it. The change, "Fall on him," &c. of Mr. Collier's annotator is a modern dilution. Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound Lack blood to think on 't, and flush youth revolt: Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against, Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, LEP. "Tis 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 wet immediate council. Pompey Thrives in our idleness. LEP. To-morrow, Cæsar, I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly 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. CES. I knew it for my bond. Doubt not, sir; SCENE V.-Alexandria. [Exeunt. A Room in the Palace. Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN. CLEO. Charmian, (*) Old text, Vassailes. (†) First folio, me. ·1 they ear-] They plough. CHAR. Madam. CLEO. Ha, ha!-Give me to drink mandragora. CLEO. That I might sleep out this great gap of time, CHAR. CLEO. O, 't is treason! CHAR. You think of him too much. Madam, I trust not so. What's your highness' pleasure! CLEO. Thou, eunuch Mardian! MAR. CLEO. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure In aught an eunuch has. "Tis well for thee, That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections? CLEO. Indeed! MAR. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing But what indeed is honest to be done: Yet I have fierce affections, and think What Venus did with Mars. O, Charmian, CLEO. Stands he, or sits he? Or does he walk? or is he on his horse? O, happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! Do bravely, horse! for wott'st thou whom thou mov'st? The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm And burgonet of men.-He's speaking now, Or murmuring, Where's my serpent of old Nile? For so he calls me :-now I feed myself ALEX. Enter ALEXAS. Sovereign of Egypt, hail! CLEO. How much unlike art thou Mark Axtony! Yet, coming from him, that great med'cine hath With his tinct gilded thee. How goes it with my brave Mark Antony? He kiss'd, the last of many doubled kisses,- Good friend, quoth he, •-orient-] Pellucid, lustrous. See note (*), p. 489, Vol. V. Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends Her opulent throne with kingdoms: all the east, Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke CLEO. What, was he sad or merry? ALEX. Like to the time o' the year between the extremes Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry. CLEO. O, well-divided disposition!—Note him, Note him, good Charmian, 't is the man; but note him: O, heavenly mingle!-Be'st thou sad or merry, So does it no man* else.-Mett'st thou my posts? CLEO. Who's born that day Shall die a beggar.-Ink and paper, Charmian.- CHAR. O, that brave Cæsar! CLEO. Be chok'd with such another emphasis! Say, the brave Antony! CHAR. The valiant Cæsar! CLEO. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth, If thou with Cæsar paragon again My man of men! CHAR. I sing but after you. CLEO. By your most gracious pardon, My salad days; When I was green in judgment, cold in blood: (*) Old text, mans. an arm-gaunt steed,-] The epithet "arm-gaunt" has been fruitful of controversy. Hanmer reads arm-girt; Mason suggests, not unhappily, termagant; and Mr. Boaden, arrogant. If the original lection be genuine, which we doubt, gaunt" must be understood to mean fierce, eager; a sense it, perhaps, bears in the following passage from Ben Jonson's "Catiline," Act III. Sc. 3,— The correction of "dumb'd" for dumbe, the reading of the folio, was made by Theobald, and is countenanced by a passage in "Pericles," Act V. Sc. 1,—(GOWER.) To say as I said then!-But come, away: [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I.-Messina. A Room in Pompey's House. Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS. POM. If the great gods be just, they shall assist The deeds of justest men. MENE. Know, worthy Pompey, That what they do delay, they not deny. POM. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays The thing we sue for. MENE. We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit, By losing of our prayers. POM. I shall do well: The people love me, and the sea is mine; My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope No wars without doors: Cæsar gets money where Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves, Nor either cares for him. MEN. Cæsar and Lepidus are in the field; A mighty strength they carry. POM. Where have you this? 't is false. ΜΕΝ. From Silvius, sir. POм. He dreams; I know they are in Rome together, Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love, Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan'd lip! Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both! they shall assist-] The precision now observable in the employment of shall and will among the best writers was not regarded in Shakespeare's day. He commonly follows the old custom of using the former for the latter to denote futurity, whether in the second and third persons or in the first. b My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope Theobald, for the sake of concord, reads, "My power's a crescent," &c., a change generally, though perhaps too readily, adopted by subsequent editors. |