Sir, you and I have loved, but there's not it;That you know well: something it is I would, O, my oblivion is a very Antony, And I am all forgotten. MARK ANTONY But that your royalty Holds idleness your subject, I should take you For idleness itself. CLEOPATRA 'Tis sweating labour To bear such idleness so near the heart As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;Since my becomings kill me, when they do not Eye well to you: 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 strew'd before your feet! MARK ANTONY Let us go. Come;Our separation so abides, and flies, That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me, And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.
Away!
Exeunt 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:
