Remains in use with you. Our Italy
Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius
Makes his approaches to the port of Rome:
Equality of two domestic powers

Breeds scrupulous faction. The hated, grown to strength,

Are newly grown to love: the condemned Pompey,
Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace
Into the hearts of such as have not thrived
Upon the present state; whose numbers threaten :
And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
By any desperate change. My more particular,
And that which most with you should safe my
going,

Is Fulvia's death.

Cleo. Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness :-can Fulvia die?
Ant. She's dead, my queen:

Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read
The garboils she awaked: at the last, best :-
See when and where she died.

O most false love!

Cleo.
Where be the secret vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water?-Now I see, I see,
In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be.
Ant. Quarrel no more, but be prepared to
know

The purposes I bear: which are or cease
As you shall give the advice. By the fire
That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence
Thy soldier, servant; making peace or war
As thou affect'st.

Cleo. Cut my lace, Charmian, come :But let it be. I am quickly ill and well:

Enter OCTAVIUS,CÆSAR, LEPIDUS, and Attendants.
Cæs. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know
It is not Cæsar's natural vice to hate
One 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 vouchsafed 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 enough 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.

Cæs. You are too indulgent. Let's 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 be-
comes 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 filled
His vacancy with his voluptuousness,

Leave thy lascivious wassels. 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 lanked not!

Alex. Like to the time o' the year between the extremes

Of hot and cold: he was not sad nor merry.
Cleo. O well divided disposition!-Note him,
Note him, good Charmian; 't is the man: but
note him,

He was not sad; for he would shine on those
That make their looks by his: he was not merry;
Which seemed to tell them his remembrance lay
In Egypt with his joy: but between both;
O heavenly mingle!-Beest thou sad or merry,
The violence of either thee becomes;

So does it no man else.-Mett'st thou my posts?
Alex. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers.
Why do you send so thick?

Cleo.

Who's born that day

When I forget to send to Antony,

Shall die a beggar.-Ink and paper, Charmian.Welcome, my good Alexas.-Did I, Charmian, Ever love Cæsar so?

Enter VARRIUS.

Var. This is most certain that I shall deliver: Marc Antony is every hour in Rome Expected since he went from Egypt 't is A space for further travel.

Pom.

I could have given less matter
A better ear.-Menas, I did not think
This amorous surfeiter would have donned his helm
For such a petty war: his soldiership

Is twice the other twain: but let us rear
The higher our opinion, that our stirring
Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck
The ne'er lust-wearied Antony.
I cannot hope

Men.
Cæsar and Antony shall well greet together:
His wife that's dead did trespasses to Cæsar;
His brother warred upon him: although, I think,
Not moved by Antony.

Pom. I know not, Menas, How lesser enmities may give way to greater. Were't not that we stand up against them all, 'T were pregnant they should square between themselves;

For they have entertainéd cause enough
To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
May cément their divisions, and bind up
The petty difference, we yet not know.
Be it as our gods will have it: it only stands
Our lives upon, to use our strongest hands.
Come, Menas.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Rome. A Room in the House of LEPIDUS.

Enter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS. Lep. Good Enobarbus, 't is a worthy deed,

Enter CESAR, MECENAS, and AGRIPPA.

Ant. If we compose well here, to Parthia:
Hark, Ventidius.

Cæs. I do not know, Mecænas: ask Agrippa.
Lep. 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 the matter.

By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother

Made wars upon me: and their contestation
Was theme for you; you were the word of war.
Ant. You do mistake your business: my bro-
ther 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 not to make it with, It must not be with this.

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' the world is yours; which with a
snaffle

You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

Eno. 'Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women!

Ant. So much incurbable, her garboils, Cæsar, 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.

When rioting in Alexandria: you

Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts, Did gibe my missive out of audience.

He fell upon me ere admitted: then
Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
Of what I was i' the 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.

The article of your oath; which you shall never Have tongue to charge me with.

Ant. No, Lepidus, let him speak : The honour's sacred which he talks on now,