Antony and Cleopatra

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. Antony

’Tis spoken well.
Were we before our armies, and to fight,
I should do thus. Flourish.

Caesar Welcome to Rome. Antony Thank you. Caesar Sit. Antony Sit, sir. Caesar Nay, then. Antony

I learn, you take things ill which are not so,
Or being, concern you not.

Caesar

I must be laugh’d at,
If, or for nothing or a little, I
Should say myself offended, and with you
Chiefly i’ the world; more laugh’d at, that I should
Once name you derogately, when to sound your name
It not concern’d me.

Antony

My being in Egypt, Caesar,
What was’t to you?

Caesar

No more than my residing here at Rome
Might be to you in Egypt: yet, if you there
Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt
Might be my question.

Antony How intend you, practised? Caesar

You may be pleased to catch at mine intent
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.

Antony

You do mistake your business; my brother 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.

Caesar

You praise yourself
By laying defects of judgment to me; but
You patch’d up your excuses.

Antony

Not so, not so;
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.

Enobarbas Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women! Antony

So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar,
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.

Caesar

I wrote to you
When rioting in Alexandria; you
Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
Did gibe my missive out of audience.

Antony

Sir,
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 ask’d him pardon. Let this fellow
Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
Out of our question wipe him.

Caesar

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

Lepidus Soft, Caesar! Antony

No,
Lepidus, let him speak:
The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
Supposing that I lack’d it. But, on, Caesar;
The article of my oath.

Caesar

To lend me arms and aid when I required them;
The which you both denied.

Antony

Neglected, rather;
And then when poison’d hours had bound me up
From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,
I’ll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty
Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,
To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;
For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
To stoop in such a case.

Lepidus ’Tis noble spoken. Mecaenas

If it might please you, to enforce no further
The griefs between ye: to forget them quite
Were to remember that the present need
Speaks to atone you.

Lepidus Worthily spoken, Mecaenas. Enobarbas Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do. Antony Thou art a soldier only: speak no more. Enobarbas That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. Antony You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more. Enobarbas Go to, then; your considerate stone. Caesar

I do not much dislike the matter, but
The manner of his speech; for’t cannot be
We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
So differing in their acts. Yet if I knew
What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge
O’ the world I would pursue it.

Agrippa Give me leave, Caesar⁠— Caesar Speak, Agrippa. Agrippa

Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side,
Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.

Caesar

Say not so, Agrippa:
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deserved of rashness.

Antony I am not married, Caesar: let me hear Agrippa further speak. Agrippa

To hold you in perpetual amity,
To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
With an unslipping knot, take Antony
Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of men;
Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
That which none else can utter. By this marriage,
All little jealousies, which now seem great,
And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
Would then be nothing: truths would be tales,
Where now half tales be truths: her love to both
Would, each to other and all loves to both,
Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;
For ’tis a studied, not a present thought,
By duty ruminated.

Antony Will Caesar speak? Caesar

Not till he hears how Antony is touch’d
With what is spoke already.

Antony

What power is in Agrippa,
If I would say, “Agrippa, be it so,”
To make this good?

Caesar

The power of Caesar, and
His power unto Octavia.

Antony

May I never
To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,
Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand:
Further this act of grace; and from this hour
The heart of brothers govern in our loves
And sway our great designs!

Caesar

There is my hand.
A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
Did ever love so dearly: let her live
To join our kingdoms and