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Nay, but this dotage of our general’s
overflows the measure

Those his goodly eyes, that over the files and musters
of the war have glowed like plated Mars...

..now bend, now turn the office and devotion
of their view upon a tawny front

His captain’s heart, which in the scuffles
of great fights hath burst the buckles on his breast...

..reneges all temper and is become
the bellows and the fan to cool a gypsy’s lust

Look where they come

Take but good note,
and you shall see in him...

..the triple pillar of the world
transformed into a strumpet’s fool

Behold and see

- If it be love indeed, tell me how much
- There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned

- I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved
- Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new Earth

News, my good lord, from Rome

- Grates me, the sum
- Nay, hear him, Antony

Fulvia perchance is angry

Or who knows if the scarce-bearded Caesar
have not sent his powerful mandate to you

‘Do this, or this, take in that kingdom,
and enfranchise that’

‘Perform it, or else we damn thee’

- How, my love?
- Perchance? Nay, and most like

You must not stay here longer,
your dismission is come from Caesar

Therefore hear it, Antony
Where’s Fulvia’s process?

Caesar’s, I would say. Both?
The messenger!

As I am Egypt’s queen, thou blushest, Antony,
and that blood of thine is Caesar’s homager

Else so thy cheek pays shame
when shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messenger!

Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch
of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space

Kingdoms are clay.
Our dungy earth alike feeds beast as man

The nobleness of life is to do thus

When such a mutual pair
and such a twain can do it...

..in which I bind, on pain of punishment,
the world to wit we stand up peerless

Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia and not love her?

I’ll seem the fool I am not.
Antony will be himself

But stirred by Cleopatra

Now for the love of Love and her soft hours,
let’s not confound the time with conference harsh

There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch
without some pleasure. Now, what sport tonight?

- Hear the ambassador
- Fie, wrangling queen...

..whom everything becomes,
to chide, to laugh, to weep

Whose every passion fully strives
to make itself, in thee, fair and admired

No messenger but thine

And all alone tonight we’ll wander through the streets
and note the qualities of people

Come, my queen,
last night you did desire it

Boo! Speak not to us

- Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?
- Sir, sometimes when he is not Antony...

..he comes too short of that great property
which still should go with Antony

I am full sorry that he approves the common liar
who thus speaks of him at Rome

Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas,
almost most absolute Alexas

Where’s the soothsayer
that you praised so to the Queen?

O, that I knew this husband which you say
must change his horns with garlands

- Soothsayer!
- Your will?

Is this the man? Is it you, sir, that know things?

- In nature’s infinite book of secrecy a little I can read
- Show him your hand

Bring in the banquet quickly,
wine enough Cleopatra’s health to drink

Good sir, give me good fortune

- I make not, but foresee
- Pray then, foresee me one

- You shall be yet far fairer than you are
- He means in flesh

- No, you shall paint when you are old
- Wrinkles forbid!

- Vex not his prescience. Be attentive
- Hush

- You shall be more beloving than beloved
- I had rather heat my liver with drinking

Nay, hear him

Good now, some excellent fortune

Let me be married to three kings in a forenoon
and widow them all

Let me have a child at fifty
to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage

Find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar,
and companion me with my mistress

- You shall outlive the lady whom you serve
- O, excellent. I love long life better than figs

You have seen and proved a fairer former fortune
than that which is to approach

Then belike my children shall have no names.
Prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

If every of your wishes had a womb,
and fertile every wish, a million

Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch

You think none but your sheets
are privy to your wishes

- Nay, come. Tell Iras hers
- We’ll know all our fortunes

Mine, and most of our fortunes tonight,
shall be drunk to bed

- There’s a palm presages chastity, if nothing else
- Even as the overflowing Nilus presageth famine

- Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay
- Prithee, tell her but a workaday fortune

- Your fortunes are alike
- But how, but how? Give me particulars

- I have said
- Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

Well, if you were but an inch of fortune
better than I, where would you choose it?

Not in my husband’s nose

Our worser thoughts heavens mend!

Alexas, come, his fortune, his fortune!

O, let him marry a woman that cannot go,
sweet Isis, I beseech thee

And let her die, too, and give him a worse,
and let worse follow worse...

..till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave,
fiftyfold a cuckold

Amen, dear goddess,
hear that prayer of the people

For, as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome
man loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow...

- ...to behold a foul knave uncuckolded
- Amen

Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold,
they would make themselves whores but they’d do it

- Saw you my lord?
- No, lady

- Was he not here?
- No, madam

He was disposed to mirth,
but on the sudden a Roman thought hath struck him

- Enobarbus
- Madam?

Seek him and bring him hither

- Where’s Alexas?
- Here at your service

- My lord approaches
- We will not look upon him. Go with us

Move, move

- Fulvia thy wife first came into the field
- Against my brother Lucius?

Ay. But soon that war had end,
and the time’s state made friends of them...

..jointing their force ’gainst Caesar, whose better iss
ue
in the war from Italy upon the first encounter drave them

Well, what worst?

- The nature of bad news infects the teller
- When it concerns the fool or coward

On.
Things that are past are done, with me

’Tis thus: who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
I hear him as he flattered

Labienus, this is stiff news,
hath with his Parthian force extended Asia

From Euphrates his conquering banner shook,
from Syria to Lydia and to Ionia, whilst...

- ...Antony, thou wouldst say?
- O, my lord

Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue

Name Cleopatra as she is called in Rome.
Rail thou in Fulvia’s phrase

And taunt my faults with such full licence
as both truth and malice have power to utter

Fulvia thy wife is dead

- Where died she?
- In Sicyon

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
importeth thee to know, this bears

Forbear me

There’s a great spirit gone.
Thus did I desire it

What our contempts doth often hurl from us,
we wish it ours again

She’s good, being gone.
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on

I must from this enchanting queen break off

Ten thousand harms more than the ills I know
my idleness doth hatch

- Save me, Antony!
- How now, Enobarbus!

- What’s your pleasure, sir?
- I must with haste from hence

Why then we kill all our women

We see how mortal an unkindness is to them.
If they suffer our departure, death’s the word

I must be gone

Under a compelling occasion, let women die.
It were pity to cast them away for nothing

Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this,
dies instantly

I have seen her die twenty times
upon far poorer moment

I do think there is cunning in death
which commits some loving act upon her...

- ...she hath such a celerity in dying
- She is cunning past man’s thought

Alack, sir, no, her passions are made of nothing
but the finest part of pure love

We cannot call her winds and waters
sighs and tears

They are greater storms and tempests
than almanacs can report

This cannot be cunning in her. If it be,
she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove

- Would I had never seen her
- O, sir, you had then left unseen...

..a wonderful piece of work, which not to have been
blest withal would have discredited your travel

Fulvia is dead

- Sir?
- Fulvia is dead

- Fulvia?
- Dead

Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice

If there were no more women but Fulvia, then
had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented

This grief is crowned with consolation.
Your old smock brings forth a new petticoat

The business she hath broached in the state
cannot endure my absence

And the business you have broached here
cannot be without you

Especially that of Cleopatra’s,
which wholly depends on your abode

No more light answers

I shall break the cause of our expedience
to the Queen, and get her leave to part

Sextus Pompeius hath given the dare to Caesar
and commands the empire of the sea

Our slippery people, whose love is never linked
to the deserver till his deserts are past...

..begin to throw Pompey the Great
and all his dignities upon his son

Who, high in name and power, higher than both
in blood and life, stands up for the main soldier

Whose quality, going on,
the sides of the world may danger

Say our pleasure, to such whose place is under us,
requires our quick remove from hence

I shall do it

- Where is he?
- I did not see him since

See where he is, who’s with him, what he does.
I did not send you

If you find him sad, say I am dancing

If in mirth, report that I am sudden sick.
Quick, and return

Madam, methinks,
if you did love him dearly...

..you do not hold the method
to enforce the like from him

What should I do, I do not?

- In each thing give him way
- Cross him in nothing

Thou teachest like a fool the way to lose him

- Tempt him not so too far. I wish, forbear
- In time we hate that which we often fear

But here comes Antony

I am sick and sullen

- I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose
- Help me away, dear Charmian! I shall fall

It cannot be thus long.
The sides of nature will not sustain it

- Now, my dearest queen...
- Pray you stand farther from me

- What’s the matter?
- I know by that same eye there’s some good news

What, says the married woman you may go?
Would she had never given you leave to come

Let her not say ’tis I that keep you here.
I have no power upon you. Hers you are

- The gods best know...
- O, never was there queen so mightily betrayed

- Yet at the first I saw the treasons planted
- Cleopatra...

Why should I think
you can be mine, and true...

Though you in swearing
shake the throned gods

..who have been false to Fulvia?

Riotous madness, to be entangled with those
mouth-made vows which break themselves in swearing

- Most sweet queen...
- Nay, pray you seek no colour for your going

But bid farewell and go

When you sued staying,
then was the time for words. No going then

Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
bliss in our brows’ bent

None our parts so poor
but was a race of heaven

They are so still, or thou, the greatest soldier
of the world, art turned the greatest liar

- How now, lady?
- I would I had thy inches

- Thou shouldst know there were a heart in Egypt
- Hear me, queen

The strong necessity of time
commands our services awhile

But my full heart remains in use with you

Our Italy shines over with civil swords

Sextus Pompeius makes his approaches
to the port of Rome. Rich in his father’s honour...

..he creeps apace into the hearts of such
as have not thrived upon the present state

My more particular, and that which most with you
should safe my going, is Fulvia’s death

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
it does from childishness

Can Fulvia die?

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! Where be the sacred vials
thou shouldst fill with sorrowful water?

Now I see, I see, in Fulvia’s death,
how mine received shall be

Quarrel no more.
By the fire that quickens Nilus’ slime...

..I go from hence thy soldier, servant,
making peace or war as thou affects

Cut my lace, Charmian, come!

But let it be.
I am quickly ill and well, so Antony loves

My precious queen, forbear, and give true evidence
to his love, which stands an honourable trial

So Fulvia told me.
I prithee turn aside and weep for her

Then bid adieu to me,
and say the tears belong to Egypt

Good now, play one scene of excellent dissembling,
and let it look like perfect honour

- You’ll heat my blood. No more!
- You can do better yet, but this is meetly

- Now by my sword...
- ...and target

Still he mends, but this is not the best

Look, prithee, Charmian, how this Herculean Roman
does become the carriage of his chafe

- I’ll leave you, lady
- Courteous lord, one word

Sir, you and I must part, but that’s not it

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

But that your royalty holds idleness your subject,
I should take you for idleness itself

’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 strewed before your feet

Let us go. Come

Our separation so abides and flies
that thou, residing here, goes yet with me

And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee

Away!

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 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

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

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 smells 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 foils
when we do bear so great weight in his lightness

Here’s more news

Most noble Caesar,
Pompey is strong at sea

And it appears he is beloved
of those that only have feared Caesar

To the ports the discontents repair,
and men’s reports give him much wronged

I should have known no less

It hath been taught us from the primal state
that he which is was wished until he were

And the ebbed man, never loved till never worth love,
comes deared by being lacked

This common body,
like to a vagabond flag upon the stream...

..goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide
to rot itself with motion

Caesar, I bring thee word

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
makes the sea serve them...

..which they ear and wound
with keels of every kind

Many hot inroads they make in Italy
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

Antony,
leave thy lascivious wassails

When thou once was beaten from Modena,
at thy heel did famine follow

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

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

- ’Tis pity of him
- Let his shames quickly drive him to Rome

’Tis time we twain did show ourselves in the field,
and to that end assemble we immediate council

Pompey thrives in our idleness

Tomorrow, Caesar,
I shall be furnished to inform you rightly...

..both what by sea and land
I can be able to front this present time

Till which encounter,
it is my business too. Farewell.

Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime
of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir...

- ...to let me be partaker
- Doubt not, sir. I knew it for my bond

If the great gods be just
they shall assist the deeds of justest men

Know, worthy Pompey,
that what they do delay they not deny

I shall do well.
The people love me, and the sea is mine

My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
says it will come to the full

Mark Antony in Egypt sits at dinner,
and will make no wars without doors

Caesar gets money where he loses hearts

Lepidus flatters both, of both is flattered.
But he neither loves, nor either cares for him

Caesar and Lepidus are in the field.
A mighty strength they carry

- Where have you this? ’Tis false
- From Menecrates, sir

He dreams. I know they are in Rome together,
looking for Antony

But all the charms of love, salt Cleopatra,
soften thy waned lip!

Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both

Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
keep his brain fuming

Epicurean cooks
sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite...

..that sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
even till a Lethe’d dullness

- How now, Menecrates?
- This is most certain that I shall deliver

Mark Antony is every hour in Rome expected.
Since he went from Egypt ’tis a space for farther travel

I could have given less matter a better ear

Menas, I did not think this amourous 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 never lust-wearied Antony

I cannot hope Caesar and Antony
shall well greet together

His wife that’s dead did trespasses to Caesar.
His brother warred upon him...

..although I think not moved by Antony

But how the fear of us may cement 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

- Charmian
- Madam?

- Ha, ha! Give me to drink mandragora
- Why, madam?

That I might sleep out
this great gap of time my Antony is away

You think of him too much

- O, ’tis treason
- Madam, I trust not so

- Thou, eunuch Mardian
- What’s your highness’ pleasure?

I take no pleasure in aught an eunuch has.
Hast thou affections?

- Yes, gracious madam
- Indeed?

Not in deed, madam, for I can do nothing
but what indeed is honest to be done

Yet have I fierce affections,
and think what Venus did with Mars

O, Charmian, where thinkest thou he is now?
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 wot’st thou whom thou movest?

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 with most delicious poison

Think on me, that am with Phoebus’
amorous pinches black, and wrinkled deep in time

O, Julius Caesar, when thou wast here
above the ground, I was a morsel for a monarch

And great Pompey would stand
and make his eyes grow in my brow

There would he anchor his aspect,
and die with looking on his life

Your Highness, your Majesty,
Sovereign of Egypt, hail!

How much unlike art thou Mark Antony

Yet coming from him, that great medicine
hath with his tinct gilded thee

How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?

Last thing he did, dear queen, he kissed,
the last of many doubled kisses, this orient pearl

- His speech sticks in my heart
- Mine ear must pluck it thence

‘Good friend’, quoth he, ‘Say the firm Roman
to great Egypt sends this treasure of an oyster’

‘At whose foot, to mend the petty present,
I will piece her opulent throne with kingdoms’

‘All the East,’ say thou,
‘shall call her mistress’

What, was he sad, or merry?

Like to the time of the year between the extremes
of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry

O, well-divided disposition
Note him, note him, good Charmian, ’tis 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!

Be’st thou sad or merry, the violence of either
thee becomes, so does it no man’s else

- Met’st thou my posts?
- Ay, madam, twenty several messengers

Why do you send so thick?

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 Caesar so?
- O, that brave Caesar!

Be choked with such another emphasis

- Say ‘the brave Antony’
- The valiant Caesar

By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth
if thou with Caesar paragon again my man of men

By your most gracious pardon, I sing but after you

My salad days, when I was green in judgment,
cold in blood, to say as I said then

But come, away, get me ink and paper

He shall have every day a several greeting,
or I’ll unpeople Egypt

Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,
and shall become you well...

- ...to entreat your captain to soft and gentle speech
- I shall entreat him to answer like himself

If Caesar move him, let Antony look over Caesar’s head
and speak as loud as Mars

By Jupiter, were I the wearer of Antonio’s beard,
I would not shave it today

’Tis not a time for private stomaching

Every time serves
for the matter that is then born in it

- But small to greater matters must give way
- Not if the small come first

Your speech is passion.
But pray you, stir no embers up

- Here comes the noble Antony
- And yonder Caesar

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

I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa

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

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

- Welcome to Rome
- Thank you

- Sit
- Sit, sir

Nay, then

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

I must be laughed at if or for nothing or a little,
I should say myself offended...

..and with you chiefly in the world

More laughed at,
that I should once name you derogately...

..when to sound your name it not concerned me

My being in Egypt, Caesar, what was it to you?

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

How intend you, practised?

You may be pleased to catch at mine intent
by what did here befall me

Your wife and brother made wars upon me,
and their contestation was theme for you

You were the word of war

You do mistake your business.
My brother never did urge me in his act

Of this my letters before did satisfy you.
If you’ll patch a quarrel, it must not be with this

You praise yourself by laying defects of judgment
to me, but you patched up your excuses

Not so, not so. I know you could not lack.
As for my wife...

..the third of the world is yours, which with a snaffle
you may pace easy, but not such a wife

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

I wrote to you when rioting in Alexandria.
You did pocket up my letters...

..and with taunts
did gibe my missive out of audience

Sir, he fell upon me ere admitted, then

Three kings I had newly feasted,
and did want of what I was in the morning

But next day 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

You have broken the article of your oath,
which you shall never have tongue to charge me with

- Soft, Caesar
- No, Lepidus, let him speak

The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
supposing that I lacked it

But on, Caesar.
The article of my oath?

To lend me arms and aid when I required them,
the which you both denied

Neglected, rather

And then when poisoned hours
had bound me up from mine own knowledge

As nearly as I may I’ll play the penitent to you

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

’Tis noble spoken

If it might please you to enforce no further
the griefs between you...

..to forget them quite were to remember
that the present need speaks to atone you

Worthily spoken, Maecenas

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

- Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more
- That truth should be silent I had almost forgot

- You wrong this presence, therefore speak no more
- Go to, then. Your considerate stone

I do not much dislike the matter,
but the manner of his speech

For it cannot be we shall remain in friendship,
our conditions so differing in their acts

Yet if I knew what hoop should hold us staunch,
from edge to edge of the world I would pursue it

- Give me leave, Caesar
- Speak, Agrippa

Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side, admired Octavia.
Great Mark Antony is now a widower

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

I am not married, Caesar.
Let me hear Agrippa further speak

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

Will Caesar speak?

Not till he hears how Antony is touched
with what is spoke already

What power is in Agrippa, if I would say
‘Agrippa, be it so’, to make this good?

The power of Caesar,
and his power unto Octavia

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

There’s my hand

A sister I bequeath you
whom no brother did ever love so dearly

Let her live to join our kingdoms and our hearts,
and never fly off our loves again

Happily, amen

I did not think to draw my sword ’gainst Pompey...

..for he hath laid strange courtesies and great
of late upon me

I must thank him only,
lest my remembrance suffer ill report

- At heel of that, defy him
- Time calls upon us

Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
or else he seeks out us

Haste we for it.
Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms...

..dispatch we the business we have talked of

With most gladness, and do invite you
to my sister’s view, whither straight I’ll lead you

- Let us, Lepidus, not lack your company
- Noble Antony, not sickness should detain me

Welcome from Egypt, sir

Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas!

- My honourable friend Agrippa!
- Good Enobarbus!

We have cause to be glad that matters
are so well digested. You stayed well by it in Egypt

Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance
and made the night light with drinking

Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast,
and but twelve persons there. Is this true?

This was but as a fly by an eagle

We had much more monstrous matter of feast,
which worthily deserved noting

She’s a most triumphant lady,
if report be square to her

When she first met Mark Antony,
she pursed up his heart upon the river of Cydnus

There she appeared indeed,
or my reporter devised well for her

I will tell you

The barge she sat in
like a burnished throne burned on the water

The poop was beaten gold, purple the sails, and
so perfumed that the winds were lovesick with them

The oars were silver,
which to the tune of flutes kept stroke...

..and made the water which they beat
to follow faster, as amorous of their strokes

For her own person, it beggared all description

She did lie in her pavilion,
cloth-of-gold, of tissue...

..overpicturing that Venus
where we see the fancy outwork nature

On each side her stood pretty dimpled boys,
like smiling Cupids, with divers-coloured fans...

..whose wind did seem to glow the delicate cheeks
which they did cool, and what they undid did

O, rare for Antony!

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
so many mermaids...

..tended her in the eyes,
and made their bends adornings

At the helm a seeming mermaid steers

The silken tackle swell with the touches
of those flower-soft hands that yarely frame the office

From the barge a strange invisible perfume
hits the sense of the adjacent wharfs

The city cast her people out upon her

And Antony, enthroned in the market-place,
did sit alone, whistling to the air...

..which but for vacancy had gone to gaze
on Cleopatra too, and made a gap in nature

Rare Egyptian!

Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
invited her to supper

She replied it should be better
he became her guest, which she entreated

Our courteous Antony,
whom never the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak...

..being barbered ten times over, goes to the feast

And for his ordinary
pays his heart for what his eyes eat only

Royal wench!
She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed

He ploughed her, and she cropped

I saw her once hop forty paces through
the public street, and having lost her breath...

..she spoke and panted that she did make
defect perfection, and breathless pour breath forth

Now Antony must leave her utterly

Never. He will not

Age cannot wither her,
nor custom stale her infinite variety

Other women cloy the appetites they feed,
but she makes hungry where most she satisfies

For vilest things become themselves in her,
that the holy priests bless her when she is riggish

If beauty, wisdom, modesty can settle
the heart of Antony, Octavia is a blessed lottery to him

Let us go. Good Enobarbus,
make yourself my guest whilst you abide here

Humbly, sir, I thank you

The world and my great office
will sometimes divide me from your bosom

All which time before the gods
my knee shall bow my prayers to them for you

Goodnight, sir

My Octavia,
read not my blemishes in the world’s report

I have not kept my square,
but that to come shall all be done by the rule

Good night, dear lady

- Goodnight, sir
- Goodnight

- Now, sirrah, you do wish yourself in Egypt?
- Would I had never come from thence, nor you thither

If you can, your reason?

I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue.
But yet hie you to Egypt again

Say to me, whose fortunes shall rise higher,
Caesar’s or mine?

Caesar’s

If thou dost play with him at any game,
thou art sure to lose

And of that natural luck
he beats thee against the odds

Thy lustre thickens when he shines by.
Thy spirit is all afraid to govern thee near him

- But he away, ’tis noble
- Get thee gone

Say to Ventidius I would speak with him.
He shall to Parthia

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true

The very dice obey him, and in our sports
my better cunning faints under his chance

I will to Egypt

And though I make this marriage for my peace,
in the east my pleasure lies

Give me some music.
Music, moody food of us that trade in love

The music, ho!

Let it alone. Let’s to billiards.
Come, Charmian

My arm is sore. Best play with Mardian

As well a woman with an eunuch played
as with a woman

- Come, you’ll play with me, sir?
- As well as I can, madam

And when good will is showed, though it come too short,
the actor may plead pardon

I’ll none now.
Give me mine angle, we’ll to the river

There, my music playing far off,
I will betray tawny-finned fishes

My bended hook shall pierce their slimy jaws,
and as I draw them up...

..I’ll think them every one an Antony and say
‘Aha, you’re caught’

’Twas merry when you wagered on your angling.
When your diver did hang a salt fish on his hook...

..which he with fervency drew up

That time? O, times!

I laughed him out of patience,
and that night I laughed him into patience

And next morn, ere the ninth hour,
I drunk him to his bed...

..then put my tires and mantles on him,
whilst I wore his sword Philippan

O, from Italy!

Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
that long time have been barren

- Madam, madam
- Antonio’s dead!

If thou say so, villain, thou killest thy mistress

But well and free, if thou so yield him, there is gold

And here my bluest veins to kiss, a hand
that kings have lipped, and trembled kissing

- First, madam, he is well
- Why, there’s more gold

But sirrah, mark,
we use to say the dead are well

Bring it to that, the gold I give thee
will I melt and pour down thy ill-uttering throat

- Good madam, hear me
- Well, go to, I will

But there’s no goodness in thy face

If Antony be free and healthful,
so tart a favour to trumpet such good tidings

If not well, thou shouldst come like a Fury
crowned with snakes, not like a formal man

- Will it please you hear me?
- I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speakest

Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
or friends with Caesar or not captive to him...

..I’ll set thee in a shower of gold
and hail rich pearls upon thee

- Madam, he’s well
- Well said

- And friends with Caesar
- Thou art an honest man

- Caesar and he are greater friends than ever
- Make thee a fortune from me

- But yet, madam...
- I do not like ‘But yet’

It does allay the good precedence.
Fie upon ‘But yet’

‘But yet’ is as a jailer to bring forth
some monstrous malefactor

Prithee, friend, power out the pack of matter
to mine ear, the good and bad together

He’s friends with Caesar,
in state of health, thou sayest, and, thou sayest, free

Free, madam, no. I made no such report.
He’s bound unto Octavia

- For what good turn?
- For the best turn in the bed

I am pale, Charmian

Madam, he’s married to Octavia

- The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
- Good madam, patience!

What say you? Hence, horrible villain, or I’ll spurn
thine eyes like balls before me. I’ll unhair thy head

Thou shalt be whipped with wire
and stewed in brine, smarting in lingering pickle

Gracious madam,
I that do bring the news made not the match

Say it is not so

He is married, madam

Rogue, thou hast lived too long

Good madam, keep yourself within yourself.
The man is innocent

Some innocents ’scape not the thunderbolt

Melt Egypt into Nile,
and kindly creatures turn all to serpents

Call the slave again.
Though I am mad, I will not bite him. Call

- He is afeard to come
- I will not hurt him

These hands do lack nobility
that they strike a meaner than myself...

..since I myself have given myself the cause

Come hither, sir

Though it be honest,
it is never good to bring bad news

Give to a gracious message an host of tongues,
but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt

- I have done my duty
- Is he married?

I cannot hate thee worser than I do
if thou again say ‘yes’

- He’s married, madam
- The gods confound thee!

- Dost thou hold there still?
- Should I lie, madam?

O, I would thou didst, so half my Egypt
were submerged and made a cistern for scaled snakes

Go, get thee hence

Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face,
to me thou wouldst appear most ugly

- He is married?
- I crave your Highness’ pardon

- He is married?
- Take no offence that I would not offend you

To punish me for what you make me do
seems much unequal. He’s married to Octavia

O, that his fault should make a knave of thee,
that art not what thou art sure of

Get thee hence

The merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome
are all too dear for me

Lie they upon thy hand, and be undone by them

- Good your Highness, patience
- In praising Antony, I have dispraised Caesar

- Many times, madam
- I am paid for it now

Lead me from hence, I faint

O, Iras, Charmian! ’Tis no matter

Go to the fellow, good Alexas

Bid him report the feature of Octavia,
her years, her inclination

Let him not leave out the colour of her hair.
Bring me word quickly

Let him forever go...
Let him not, Charmian

Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
the other way’s a Mars

Bid you Alexas bring me word how tall she is

Pity me, Charmian, but do not speak to me

Your hostages I have, so have you mine,
and we shall talk before we fight

Most meet that first we come to words, and therefore
have we our written purposes before us sent

Which if thou hast considered, let us know
if it will tie up thy discontented sword...

..and carry back to Sicily much tall youth
that else must perish here

To you all three, the senators alone
of this great world, chief factors for the gods

I do not know wherefore my father should
revengers want, having a son and friends...

..since Julius Caesar, who at Philippi the good
Brutus ghosted, there saw you labouring for him

What was it that moved pale Cassius to conspire?

And what made the all-honoured, honest, Roman Brutus,
with the armed rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom...

..to drench the Capitol,
but that they would have one man but a man?

And that is it hath made me rig my navy,
at whose burden the angered ocean foams

With which I meant to scourge the ingratitude
that despiteful Rome cast on my noble father

Take your time

Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails.
We’ll speak with thee at sea

At land thou knowest
how much we do overcount thee

At land indeed
thou dost overcount me of my father’s house

But since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
remain in it as thou mayst

Be pleased to tell us, for this is from the present,
how you take the offers we have sent you

- There’s the point
- Which do not be entreated to...

- ...but weigh what it is worth embraced
- And what may follow, to try a larger fortune

You have made me offer of Sicily, Sardinia

And I must rid all the sea of pirates,
then to send measures of wheat to Rome

This agreed upon, to part with unhacked edges
and bear back our targes undinted

That’s our offer

Know then, I came before you here
a man prepared to take this offer

But Mark Antony put me to some impatience

Though I lose the praise of it by telling, you must know
when Caesar and your brother were at blows...

..your mother came to Sicily
and did find her welcome friendly

I have heard it, Pompey, and am well studied
for a liberal thanks, which I do owe you

Let me have your hand

I did not think, sir, to have met you here

The beds in the East are soft

And thanks to you, that called me timelier
than my purpose hither, for I have gained by it

Since I saw you last, there’s a change upon you

Well, I know not
what counts harsh Fortune casts upon my face

But in my bosom shall she never come
to make my heart her vassal

- Well met here
- I hope so, Lepidus

Thus we are agreed. I crave our composition
may be written and sealed between us

That’s the next to do

We’ll feast each other ere we part,
and let’s draw lots who shall begin

- That will I, Pompey
- No, Antony, take the lot

But, first or last, your fine Egyptian cookery
shall have the fame

I have heard that Julius Caesar
grew fat with feasting there

You have heard much

- I have fair meanings, sir
- And fair words to them

Aboard my galley I invite you all

Thy father, Pompey,
would never have made this treaty

You and I have known, sir

- At sea, I think
- We have, sir

- You have done well by water
- And you by land

I will praise any man that will praise me,
though it cannot be denied what I have done by land

- Nor what I have done by water
- Yes, something you can deny for your own safety

- You have been a great thief by sea
- And you by land

There I deny my land service

But give me your hand, Menas.
We came hither to fight with you

For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking.
Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune

- If he do, sure he cannot weep it back again
- You have said, sir

We looked not for Mark Antony here.
Pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?

- Caesar’s sister is called Octavia
- True, sir. She was the wife of Caius Marcellus

- But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius
- Pray you, sir?

- ’Tis true
- Then is Caesar and he forever knit together

If I were bound to divine of this unity,
I would not prophesy so

I think the policy of that purpose made more
in the marriage than the love of the parties

I think so, too. But you shall find the band
that seems to tie their friendship together...

..will be the very strangler of their amity

- Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation
- Who would not have his wife so?

Not he that himself is not so, which is Mark Antony.
He will to his Egyptian dish again

- He married but his occasion here
- And thus it may be

Come, sir, will you aboard?
I have a health for you

I shall take it, sir.
We have used our throats in Egypt

Thus do they, sir. They take the flow of the Nile
by certain scales in the Pyramid

They know by the height, the lowness, or the mean
if dearth or foison follow

The higher Nilus swells, the more it promises

As it ebbs, the seedsman upon the slime and ooze
scatters his grain, and shortly comes to harvest

- You’ve strange serpents there?
- Ay, Lepidus

Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud
by the operation of your sun

- So is your crocodile
- They are so

- Sit, and some wine. A health to Lepidus
- Lepidus!

I am not so well as I should be,
but I’ll never out

Not till you have slept.
I fear me you’ll be in till then

Nay, certainly, I have heard
the Ptolemies’ pyramises are very goodly things

Without contradiction I have heard that

- Pompey, a word
- Say, what is it?

Forsake thy sport, I do beseech thee, captain,
and hear me speak a word

Forbear me till anon

- This health to Lepidus
- Lepidus!

What manner of thing is your crocodile?

It is shaped, sir, like itself,
and it is as broad as it hath breadth

It is just so high as it is,
and moves with it own organs

It lives by that which nourisheth it,
and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates

- What colour is it of?
- Of it own colour too

- ’Tis a strange serpent
- ’Tis so, and the tears of it are wet

Will this description satisfy him?

With the health that Pompey gives him,
else he is a very epicure

Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that?
Away! Do as I bid you

If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear me,
rise from thy stool

- I think thou art mad. The matter?
- I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes

Thou hast served me with much faith.
What’s else to say?

Be jolly, lords

These quicksands, Lepidus,
keep off them, for you sink

- Wilt thou be lord of all the world?
- What sayst thou?

- Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That’s twice
- How should that be?

But entertain it, and though thou think me poor,
I am the man will give thee all the world

- Hast thou drunk well?
- No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup

Thou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove

Whatever the ocean pales or sky inclips
is thine, if thou wilt have it

Show me which way

These three world-sharers, these competitors,
are in thy vessel

Let me cut the cable, and when we are put off,
fall to their throats. All there is thine

Ah, this thou shouldst have done
and not have spoke on it

In me ’tis villainy.
In thee it had been good service

Thou must know ’tis not my profit
that does lead mine honour. Mine honour, it

Repent that ever thy tongue
hath so betrayed thine act

Being done unknown,
I should have found it afterwards well done

But must condemn it now.
Desist and drink

For this I’ll never follow thy palled fortunes more

Who seeks and will not take
when once ’tis offered shall never find it more

- This health to Lepidus
- Lepidus!

Bear him ashore.
I’ll pledge it for him, Pompey

- There’s a strong fellow, Menas
- Why?

He bears the third part of the world, man,
see’st not?

The third part, then, is drunk.
Would it were all, that it might go on wheels

- Drink thou. Increase the reels
- Come

- This is not yet an Alexandrian feast
- It ripens towards it. Strike the vessel, ho!

Here’s to Caesar

I could well forbear it. It’s monstrous labour
when I wash my brain and it grows fouler

- Be a child of the time
- Possess it, I’ll make answer

But I had rather fast from all, four days,
than drink so much in one

Come, let’s all take hands till that the conquering wine
hath steeped our sense in soft and delicate Lethe

All take hands

Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus, with pink eyne!

In thy vats our cares be drowned,
With thy grapes our hairs be crowned!

Cup us till the world go round!

What would you more?
Pompey, goodnight

Good brother, let me request you off.
Our graver business frowns at this levity

Gentle lords, let’s part.
You see we have burnt our cheeks

Strong Enobarb is weaker than the wine,
and mine own tongue splits what it speaks

The wild disguise hath almost anticked us all.
What needs more words?

Goodnight.
Good Antony, your hand

- I’ll try you on the shore
- And shall, sir. Give us your hand

O, Antony, you have my father’s house

But what? We are friends.
Come down into the boat

- What, are the brothers parted?
- They have dispatched with Pompey

He is gone. The other three are sealing.
Octavia weeps to part from Rome. Caesar is sad

And Lepidus, since Pompey’s feast, as Menas says,
is troubled with the green sickness

- ’Tis a noble Lepidus
- A very fine one

- O, how he loves Caesar
- Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony

- Caesar? Why, he’s the Jupiter of men
- What’s Antony? The god of Jupiter

- Spake you of Caesar? How, the nonpareil
- O Antony, O thou Arabian bird

Would you praise Caesar, say ‘Caesar’.
Go no further

- Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises
- But he loves Antony, yet he loves Caesar

Hoo, hearts, tongues, figures,
scribes, bards, poets...

.. cannot think, speak, cast, write, sing, number,
his love to Antony

But as for Caesar,
kneel down, kneel down, and wonder

- Both he loves
- They are his shards and he their beetle

- So, this is to Athens. Adieu, noble Agrippa
- Good fortune, worthy soldier, and farewell

No further, sir

You take from me a great part of myself.
Use me well in it

Sister, prove such a wife as my thoughts make thee,
and as my farthest bond shall pass on thy approof

Most noble Antony, let not the piece of virtue
which is set betwixt us...

..as the cement of our love to keep it builded,
be the ram to batter the fortress of it

For better might we have loved without this mean,
if on both parts this be not cherished

- Make me not offended in your distrust
- I have said

You shall not find, though you be therein curious,
the least cause for what you seem to fear

So the gods keep you,
and make the hearts of Romans serve your ends

We will here part

Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well

The elements be kind to thee
and make thy spirits all of comfort. Fare thee well

My noble brother

The April’s in her eyes. It is love’s spring,
and these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful

Sir, look well to my husband’s house, and...

- What, Octavia?
- I’ll tell you in your ear

Her tongue will not obey her heart,
nor can her heart inform her tongue

The swan’s-down feather that stands upon the swell
at the full of tide, and neither way inclines

- Will Caesar weep?
- Why, Enobarbus

When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,
he cried almost to roaring

And he wept
when at Philippi he found Brutus slain

That year indeed he was troubled with a rheum

No, sweet Octavia, you shall hear from me still.
The time shall not outgo my thinking on you

Come, sir, come,
I’ll wrestle with you in my strength of love

Look, here I have you, thus I let you go,
and give you to the gods

Adieu, be happy

Let all the number of the stars
give light to thy fair way

Farewell, farewell

Farewell

- Where is the fellow?
- Half afeard to come

Go to, go to.
Come hither, sir

Good Majesty, Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you
but when you are well pleased

That Herod’s head I’ll have

But how, when Antony is gone,
through whom I might command it?

- Come thou near
- Most gracious Majesty

- Did’st thou behold Octavia?
- Ay, dread queen

- Where?
- Madam, in Rome

I looked her in the face and saw her led
between her brother and Mark Antony

Is she as tall as me?

She is not, madam

- Didst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongued or low?
- Madam, I heard her speak. She is low-voiced

That’s not so good. He cannot like her long

- Like her? O Isis, ’tis impossible!
- I think so, Charmian

Dull of tongue, and dwarfish

What majesty is in her gait?
Remember, if ever thou looked’st on majesty

She creeps.
Her motion and her station are as one

She shows a body rather than a life,
a statue, than a breather

- Is this certain?
- Or I have no observance

Three in Egypt cannot make better note

He’s very knowing, I do perceive it.
There’s nothing in her yet

- The fellow has good judgment
- Excellent

- Guess at her years, I prithee
- Madam, she was a widow

- Widow? Charmian, hark
- And I do think she’s thirty

- Bearest thou her face in mind? Is it long or round?
- Round even to faultiness

For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.
Her hair what colour?

Brown, madam,
and her forehead as low as she would wish it

There’s gold for thee.
Thou must not take my former sharpness ill

I will employ thee back again.
I find thee most fit for business

Go, make thee ready.
Our letters are prepared

- A proper man
- Indeed he is so

I repent me much that so I harried him.
Why, methinks...

..by him, this creature’s no such thing
- Nothing, madam

The man hath seen some majesty,
and should know

Hath he seen majesty?
Isis else defend, and serving you so long!

I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian

But ’tis no matter.
Thou shalt bring him to me where I will write

- All may be well enough
- I warrant you, madam

How now, friend Eros?

- There’s strange news come, sir
- What, man?

Caesar and Lepidus
have made new wars upon Pompey

This is old. What is the success?

Caesar, having made use of Lepidus
in the wars ’gainst Pompey...

..presently denied him rivality,
would not let him partake in the glory of the action

And, not resting here, accuses him
of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey

Upon his own appeal seizes him

- So the poor third is up
- Till death enlarge his confine

Then, world,
thou hast a pair of chaps, no more

And throw between them all the food thou hast,
they’ll grind the one the other

Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that

That were excusable, that and thousands more
of semblable import

But he hath waged new wars against Pompey,
made his will and read it to public ear

Spoke scantly of me. When perforce
he could not but pay me terms of honour...

- ...cold and sickly he vented them
- O, my good lord, believe not all

Or if you must believe, stomach not all

A more unhappy lady, if this division chance,
never stood between, praying for both parts

The good gods will mock me presently
when I shall pray ‘O, bless my lord and husband’

Undo that prayer by crying out as loud
‘O, bless my brother’

Husband win, win brother
prays and destroys the prayer

No midway ’twixt these extremes at all

Gentle Octavia, let your best love draw
to that point which seeks best to preserve it

If I lose mine honour, I lose myself.
Better I were not yours than yours so branchless

But, as you requested,
yourself shall go between us

The meantime, lady, I’ll raise the preparation
of a war shall stain your brother

Make your soonest haste,
so your desires are yours

Thanks to my lord. The Jove of power make me,
most weak, most weak, your reconciler

Wars ’twixt you twain would be
as if the world should cleave...

..and that slain men
should solder up the rift

Provide your going. Choose your own company,
and command what cost your heart has mind to

Contemning Rome,
he has done all this and more in Alexandria

Here’s the manner of it.
In the marketplace, on a tribunal silvered...

..Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
were publicly enthroned

At their feet sat Caesarion,
whom they call my father’s son...

..and all the unlawful issue that their lust
since then hath made between them

Unto her he gave the stablishment of Egypt

Made her of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
absolute queen

- This in the public eye?
- In the common showplace where they exercise

His sons he there proclaimed the kings of kings

Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia
he gave to Alexander

To Ptolemy he assigned
Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia

She in the habiliments of the goddess Isis
that day appeared

- And oft before gave audience, as ’tis reported, so
- Let Rome be thus informed

Who, queasy with his insolence already,
will their good thoughts call from him

The people knows it,
and have now received his accusations

Who does he accuse?

Caesar, and that,
having in Sicily Sextus Pompeius spoiled...

..we had not rated him his part of the isle

Then does he say
he lent me some shipping, unrestored

Lastly, he frets that Lepidus
of the triumvirate should be deposed

And, being, that we detain all his revenue

- Sir, this should be answered
- ’Tis done already, and the messenger gone

I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel

That he his high authority abused
and did deserve his change

For what I have conquered, I grant him part

But then in his Armenia and other
of his conquered kingdoms I demand the like

- He’ll never yield to that
- Nor must not then be yielded to in this

Hail, Caesar, and my lords!
Hail, most dear Caesar

- That ever I should call thee castaway!
- You have not called me so, nor have you cause

Why have you stolen upon us thus?
You come not like Caesar’s sister

The wife of Antony
should have an army for an usher...

..and the neighs of horse to tell of her approach
long ere she did appear

The trees by the way should have borne men,
and expectation fainted, longing for what it had not

Nay, the dust should have ascended
to the roof of heaven, raised by your populous troops

But you are come a market-maid to Rome...

..and have prevented the ostentation of our love,
which, left unshown, is often left unloved

Good my lord, to come thus
was I not constrained, but did it on my free will

My lord, Mark Antony,
hearing that you prepared for war...

..acquainted my grieved ear withal,
whereon I begged his pardon for return

Which soon he granted,
being an abstract ’tween his lust and him

Do not say so, my lord

I have eyes upon him,
and his affairs come to me on the wind

- Where is he now?
- My lord, in Athens

No, my most wronged sister.
Cleopatra hath nodded him to her

He hath given his empire up to a whore,
who now are levying the kings of the Earth for war

He hath assembled Bocchus, the King of Libya,
Archelaus of Cappadocia...

Philadelphos, King of Paphlagonia
the Thracian king, Adallas...

King Manchus of Arabia, King of Pont,
Herod of Jewry, Mithridates, King of Comagen...

Polemon and Amyntas,
the Kings of Mede and Lycaonia...

..with a more larger list of sceptres

Ay me, most wretched, that have my heart parted
betwixt two friends that does afflict each other!

Welcome to Rome,
nothing more dear to me

You are abused beyond the mark of thought...

..and the high gods, to do you justice,
makes his ministers of us and those that love you

- Welcome, lady
- Welcome, dear madam

Each heart in Rome does love and pity you

Only the adulterous Antony,
most large in his abominations, turns you off...

..and gives his potent regiment
to a trull that noises it against us

- Is it so, sir?
- Most certain. Sister, welcome

Pray you, be ever known to patience.
My dearest sister!

- I will be even with thee, doubt it not
- But why, why, why?

Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars
and say’st it is not fit

Well, is it, is it?

Is it not denounced against us?
Why should not we be there in person?

Your presence needs must puzzle Antony

Take from his heart, take from his brain,
from his time, what should not then be spared

He is already traduced for levity

And ’tis said in Rome that Mardian, an eunuch,
and your maids manage this war

Sink Rome,
and their tongues rot that speak against us!

A charge we bear in the war, and as the president
of my kingdom will appear there for a man

Speak not against it.
I will not stay behind

Nay, I have done.
Here comes the Emperor

Is it not strange, Ventidius,
that from Tarentum and Brundusium...

..he could so quickly cut the Ionian Sea
and take in Toryne?

- You have heard on it, sweet?
- Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent

A good rebuke, which might have well becomed
the best of men, to taunt at slackness

- Ventidius, we will fight with him by sea
- By sea, what else?

- Why will my lord do so?
- For that he dares us to it

So hath my lord dared him to single fight

Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia,
where Caesar fought with Pompey

But these offers, which serve not for his vantage,
he shakes off, and so should you

Your ships are not well manned, your mariners are
muleteers, reapers, people engrossed by swift impress

In Caesar’s fleet are those
that often have against Pompey fought

Their ships are yare, yours heavy.
No disgrace shall fall you for refusing him at sea...

- ...being prepared for land
- By sea, by sea

Most worthy sir, you therein throw away
the absolute soldiership you have by land...

Distract your army, which doth most consist
of war-marked footmen...

Leave unexecuted your own renowned knowledge,
quite forgo the way which promises assurance...

..and give up yourself merely to chance and hazard
from firm security

- I’ll fight at sea
- I have sixty sails, Caesar none better

Our overplus of shipping will we burn,
and with the rest full-manned...

..from the head of Actium
beat the approaching Caesar

But if we fail, we then can do it at land

- Scarus, thy business?
- The news is true, my lord, he is descried

- Caesar has taken Toryne
- Can he be there in person?

’Tis impossible,
strange that his power should be

Ventidius, our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,
and our twelve thousand horse

We’ll to our ship.
Away, my Thetis

O noble emperor, do not fight by sea!
Trust not to rotten planks

Do you misdoubt this sword
and these my wounds?

Let the Egyptians and the Phoenicians
go a-ducking

We have used to conquer standing on the earth
and fighting foot to foot

Well, well, away

By Hercules, I think I am in the right

Soldier, thou art, but his whole action
grows not in the power on it

So our leader’s led,
and we are women’s men

Strike not by land, keep whole.
Provoke not battle till we have done at sea

Set we our squadrons on yond side of the hill
in eye of Caesar’s battle

Our fortune lies upon this jump

Naught, naught, all naught!
I can behold no longer

The Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,
with all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder

To see it mine eyes are blasted

- Gods and goddesses, all the whole synod of them!
- What’s thy passion?

The greater cantle of the world is lost
with very ignorance

- We have kissed away kingdoms and provinces
- How appears the fight?

On our side, like the tokened pestilence,
where death is sure

Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt, whom leprosy overtake,
in the midst of the fight...

When vantage like a pair of twins appeared
both as the same, or rather, ours the elder...

..the breeze upon her like a cow in June,
hoists sails and flies

That I beheld. Mine eyes did sicken at the sight
and could not endure a further view

She once being loofed,
the noble ruin of her magic, Antony...

..claps on his sea-wing and, like a doting mallard,
leaving the fight in height, flies after her

I never saw an action of such shame

Experience, manhood, honour
never before did violate so itself

Alack, alack

Our fortune on the sea is out of breath
and sinks most lamentably

Had our general been what he knew himself,
it had gone well

O, he has given example for our flight
most grossly by his own

Ay, are you thereabouts?
Why then, goodnight indeed

Toward Peloponnesus are they fled. ’Tis easy to it,
and there I will attend what further comes

To Caesar will I render my legions and my horse

I’ll yet follow the wounded chance of Antony,
though my reason sits in the wind against me

Hark, the land bids me tread no more upon it.
It is ashamed to bear me

Friends, come hither

I am so lated in the world
that I have lost my way forever

I have a ship laden with gold. Take that, divide it.
Fly, and make your peace with Caesar

I have myself resolved upon a course
which has no need of you

Let that be left which leaves itself.
To the sea-side straightway

Leave me, I pray, a little.
Pray you, now

Nay, do so. For indeed I have lost command.
Therefore I pray you, I’ll see you by and by

Nay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him

- Do, most dear queen
- Do! Why, what else?

Let me sit down. O Juno!

No, no, no, no, no

- See you here, sir?
- Oh fie, fie, fie!

- Madam
- Madam, O good empress

- Sir, sir...
- Yes, my lord, yes

Octavius at Philippi kept his sword even like a dancer,
while I struck the lean and wrinkled Cassius

And ’twas I that the mad Brutus ended

Octavius alone dealt on lieutenantry,
and no practice had in the brave squares of war

Yet now... no matter

Ah, stand by

The Queen, my lord, the Queen

Go to him, madam, speak to him.
He’s unqualitied with very shame

Well, then, sustain me

Most noble sir, arise. The Queen approaches

Her head’s declined, and death will seize her
but your comfort makes the rescue

I have offended reputation,
a most unnoble swerving

Sir, the Queen

O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt?

See how I convey my shame out of thine eyes...

..by looking back what I have left behind
’stroyed in dishonour

O, my lord, my lord, forgive my fearful sails!
I little thought you would have followed

Egypt, thou knew’st too well my heart
was to thy rudder tied by the strings...

..and thou shouldst tow me after

Over my spirit thy full supremacy thou knewest,
and that thy beck...

- ...might from the bidding of the gods command me
- O, my pardon!

Now I must to the young man send humble treaties,
dodge and palter in the shifts of lowness...

..who with half the bulk of the world played
as I pleased, making and marring fortunes

You did know how much you were my conqueror

And that my sword, made weak by my affection,
would obey it on all cause

Pardon, pardon!

Fall not a tear, I say.
One of them rates all that is won and lost

Give me a kiss

Even this repays me

We sent our schoolmaster.
Is he come back?

Love, I am full of lead

Some wine within there,
and our viands!

Fortune knows we scorn her most
when most she offers blows

Let him appear that’s come from Antony

- Know you him?
- Caesar, ’tis his schoolmaster

An argument that he is plucked,
when hither he sends so poor a pinion of his wing...

..which had superfluous kings for messengers
not many moons gone by

Approach, and speak

- Such as I am, I come from Antony
- Declare thine office

Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee,
and requires to live in Egypt

Which not granted,
he lessens his requests, and to thee sues...

..to let him breathe between the heavens and earth,
a private man in Athens. This for him

Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness,
submits her to thy might...

..and of thee craves the circle of the Ptolemies
for her heirs, now hazarded to thy grace

For Antony, I have no ears to his request

The Queen of audience nor desire shall fail...

..so she from Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,
or take his life there

This if she perform, she shall not sue unheard.
So to them both

- Fortune pursue thee
- Bring him through the bands

To try thy eloquence now ’tis time, dispatch.
From Antony win Cleopatra

Promise, and in our name, what she requires.
Add more, from thine invention, offers

Women are not in their best fortunes strong,
but want will perjure the never-touched vestal

Try thy cunning, Demetrius

Make thine own edict for thy pains,
which we will answer as a law

- Caesar, I go
- Observe how Antony becomes his flaw...

..and what thou think’st his very action speaks
in every power that moves

Caesar, I shall

- What shall we do, Enobarbus?
- Think, and die

Is Antony or we in fault for this?

Antony only,
that would make his will lord of his reason

What though you fled from that great face of war,
whose several ranges frighted each other?

Why should he follow? The itch of his affection
should not then have nicked his captainship

’Twas a shame no less than was his loss,
to course your flying flags and leave his navy gazing

Prithee, peace

- Is that his answer?
- Ay, my lord

The Queen shall then have courtesy,
so she will yield us up?

- He says so
- Let her know it

To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head, and
he will fill thy wishes to the brim with principalities

That head, my lord?

To him again.
Tell him he wears the rose of youth upon him...

..from which the world should note
something particular

His coin, ships, legions may be a coward’s.
I dare him therefore...

..to lay his gay caparisons apart and answer
me declined, sword against sword, ourselves alone

I’ll write it. Follow me

Yes, like enough,
high-battled Caesar will unstate his happiness...

..and be staged to the show against a sworder

That he should dream, knowing all measures,
the full Caesar will answer his emptiness!

Caesar, thou hast subdued his judgment too

- A messenger from Caesar
- What, no more ceremony? Admit him, sir

Mine honesty and I begin to square

The loyalty well held to fools
does make our faith mere folly

Yet he that can endure
to follow with allegiance a fallen lord...

..does conquer him that did his master conquer,
and earns a place in the story

- Caesar’s will?
- Hear it apart

- None but friends. Say boldly
- So haply are they friends to Antony

He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has,
or needs not us

If Caesar please,
our master will leap to be his friend

For us, you know whose he is, we are,
and that is Caesar’s

So.
Thus then, thou most renowned

Caesar entreats not to consider in what case
thou standest further than he is Caesar

Go on. Right royal

He knows that you embrace not Antony
as you did love, but as you feared him

The scars upon your honour therefore he does pity
as constrained blemishes, not as deserved

He is a god and knows what is most right.
Mine honour was not yielded, but conquered merely

To be sure of that, I will ask Antony

Shall I say to Caesar what you require of him?
For he partly begs to be desired to give

It much would please him that of his fortunes
you should make a staff to lean upon

But it would warm his spirits
to hear from me you had left Antony...

..and put yourself under his shroud,
the universal landlord

- What’s your name?
- My name is Demetrius

Most kind messenger,
say to great Caesar this in deputation

I kiss his conquering hand. Tell him I am prompt
to lay my crown at his feet, and there to kneel

Tell him, from his all-obeying breath
I hear the doom of Egypt

’Tis your noblest course.
give me grace to lay my duty on your hand

Your Caesar’s father oft,
when he hath mused of taking kingdoms in...

..bestowed his lips on that unworthy place
as it rained kisses

Favours? By Jove that thunders!
Approach, there

Ah, you kite!

Now, gods and devils!
Authority melts from me of late

Have you no ears? I am Antony yet.
Take hence this jack and whip him

’Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp
than with an old one dying

Moon and stars, whip him

Were it twenty of the greatest tributaries
that do acknowledge Caesar...

..should I find them
so saucy with the hand of she here...

What’s her name, since she was Cleopatra?

Whip him, fellows, till like a boy
you see him cringe his face and whine aloud for mercy

- Take him hence
- Mark Antony!

Tug him away.
Being whipped, bring him again

This jack of Caesar’s shall bear us an errand to him

You were half blasted ere I knew you

Have I my pillow left unpressed in Rome,
forborne the getting of a lawful race...

..and by a gem of women,
to be abused by one that looks on feeders?

Good my lord...

- You have been a boggler ever
- O, is it come to this?

I found you as a morsel
cold upon dead Caesar’s trencher

Nay, you were a fragment of Gnaeus Pompey’s...

..besides what hotter hours, unregistered
in vulgar fame, you have luxuriously picked out

- Wherefore is this?
- To let a fellow that will take rewards...

..and say ‘God quit you!’
be familiar with my playfellow, your hand

This kingly seal and plighter of high hearts!

O, that I were upon the hill of Basan,
to outroar the horned herd

- Is he whipped?
- Soundly, my lord

- Cried he? And begged he pardon?
- He did ask favour

If that thy father live, let him repent
thou wast not made his daughter

And be thou sorry to follow Caesar in his triumph,
since thou hast been whipped for following him

Henceforth the white hand of a lady fever thee.
Shake thou to look on it

Get thee back to Caesar,
tell him thy entertainment

Look thou say he makes me angry with him...

..for he seems proud and disdainful,
harping on what I am, not what he knew I was

He makes me angry

And at this time most easy ’tis to do it,
when my good stars that were my former guides...

..have empty left their orbs
and shot their fires into the abysm of hell

If he mislike my speech and what is done,
tell him he has Scarus, my enfranched bondman...

..whom he may at pleasure whip,
or hang, or torture, as he shall like to quit me

Urge it thou

Hence with thy stripes, begone

Have you done yet?

Alack, our terrene moon is now eclipsed,
and it portends alone the fall of Antony

I must stay his time

To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes
with one that ties his points?

- Not know me yet?
- Cold-hearted toward me?

Ah, dear, if I be so, from my cold heart
let heaven engender hail and poison it in the source

And the first stone drop in my neck.
As it determines, so dissolve my life

The next Caesarion smite,
till by degrees the memory of my womb...

..together with my brave Egyptians all,
by the discandying of this pelleted storm lie graveless

Till the flies and gnats of Nile
have buried them for prey

I am satisfied

Caesar sets down in Alexandria,
where I will oppose his fate

Our force by land hath nobly held

Our severed navy too have knit again,
and fleet, threatening most sealike

Where hast thou been, my heart?
Dost thou hear, lady?

If from the field I shall return once more
to kiss these lips, I will appear in blood

I and my sword will earn our chronicle

- There’s hope in it yet
- That’s my brave lord

I will be treble-sinewed, -hearted, -breathed,
and fight maliciously

It is my birthday.
I had thought to have held it poor

But since my lord is Antony again,
I will be Cleopatra

We will yet do well

Call all his noble captains to my lord

Do so, we’ll speak to them, and tonight
I’ll force the wine peep through their scars

Come on, my queen, there’s sap in it yet

The next time I do fight I’ll make Death love me,
for I will contend even with his pestilent scythe

Now he’ll outstare the lightning

To be furious is to be frighted out of fear,
and in that mood the dove will peck the estridge

And I see still a diminution in our captain’s brain
restores his heart

When valour preys on reason,
it eats the sword it fights with

I will seek some way to leave him

He calls me ‘boy’, and chides
as he had power to beat me out of Egypt

Demetrius he hath whipped with rods,
dares me to personal combat, Caesar to Antony

Let the old ruffian know I have many other ways to die.
Meantime laugh at his challenge

Caesar must think, when one so great begins to rage,
he’s hunted even to falling

Give him no breath, but now make boot of his distraction.
Never anger made good guard for itself

Let our best heads know that tomorrow
the last of many battles we mean to fight

Within our files there are, of those that served
Mark Antony but late, enough to fetch him in

See it done, and feast the army

We have store to do It,
and they have earned the waste

Poor Antony

He will not fight with me, Domitius?

- No
- Why should he not?

He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,
he is twenty men to one

Tomorrow, soldier, by sea and land I’ll fight

Or I will live, or bathe my dying honour
in the blood shall make it live again

- Woo’t thou fight well?
- I’ll strike and cry ‘Take all’

Well said. Come on

Call forth my household servants.
Let’s tonight be bounteous at our meal

Give me thy hand

Thou hast been rightly honest

So hast thou, thou, and thou, and thou

You have served me well,
and kings have been your fellows

Well, my good fellows, wait on me tonight.
Scant not my cups...

..and make as much of me as when mine empire
was your fellow too, and suffered my command

- What does he mean?
- To make his followers weep

Tend me tonight.
Maybe it is the period of your duty

Haply you shall not see me more,
or if, a mangled shadow

Perchance tomorrow you’ll serve another master

I look on you as one that takes his leave

Mine honest friends, I turn you not away

But, like a master married to your good service,
stay till death

Tend me tonight two hours, I ask no more,
and the gods yield you for it

What mean you, sir, to give them this discomfort?
Look, they weep

And I, an ass, am onion-eyed.
For shame, transform us not to women

Now the witch take me if I meant it thus!
Grace grow where those drops fall

Know, my hearts, I hope well of tomorrow,
and will lead you...

..where rather I’ll expect victorious life
than death and honour

Let’s to supper, come,
and drown consideration

Brother, goodnight. Tomorrow is the day

It will determine one way. Fare you well

- Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?
- Nothing. What news?

- Belike ’tis but a rumour. Goodnight to you
- Well, sir, goodnight

- Soldiers, have careful watch
- And you. Goodnight, goodnight

Here we. And if tomorrow our navy thrive,
I have an absolute hope our landmen will stand up

’Tis a brave army, and full of purpose

Peace. What noise?

- List, list
- Hark

- Music in the air
- Under the earth

- It bodes well, does it not?
- No

Peace, I say.
What should this mean?

’Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved,
now leaves him

Follow the noise so far as we have quarter.
Let’s see how it will give off

- Content
- ’Tis strange

Eros! Mine armour, Eros!

- Sleep a little
- No, my chuck

Eros, come, mine armour, Eros!
Come, good fellow, put mine iron on

If fortune be not ours today,
it is because we brave her. Come

Nay, I’ll help too

- What’s this for?
- Ah, let be, let be

Thou art the armourer of my heart

False, false. This, this!

Sooth, la, I’ll help. Thus it must be

Well, well, we shall thrive now.
Seest thou, my good fellow?

- Go, put on thy defences
- Briefly, sir

- Is not this buckled well?
- Rarely, rarely

He that unbuckles this, till we do please
to doff it for our repose, shall hear a storm

Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen’s
a squire more tight at this than thou

Dispatch

O love, that thou couldst see my wars today,
and knewest the royal occupation...

..thou shouldst see a workman in it

The gods make this a happy day to Antony

Would thou and those thy scars
before prevailed to make me fight at land

Had’st thou done so, the kings that have revolted
and the soldier that has this morning left thee...

..would have still followed thy heels

- Who’s gone this morning?
- Who? One ever near thee

Call for Enobarbus, he shall not hear thee,
or from Caesar’s camp say ‘I am none of thine’

- What sayest thou?
- Sir, he is with Caesar

Sir, his chests and treasure
he has not with him

- Is he gone?
- Most certain

Go, Eros, send his treasure after.
Do it

Detain no jot, I charge thee

Write to him, I will subscribe,
gentle adieus and greetings

Say that I wish he never find more cause
to change a master

O, my fortunes have corrupted honest men

Dispatch

Enobarbus!

Fare thee well, dame

Whatever becomes of me,
this is a soldier’s kiss

Rebukable and worthy shameful check
it were to stand on more mechanic compliment

I’ll leave thee now like a man of steel

You that will fight, follow me close.
I’ll bring you to it

Adieu

Please you retire to your chamber?

Lead me.
He goes forth gallantly

That he and Caesar might
determine this great war in single fight!

Then Antony...

But now...
Well, on

Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight.
Our will is Antony be took alive

- Make it so known
- Caesar, I shall

The time of universal peace is near

Prove this a prosperous day,
the three-nooked world shall bear the olive freely

Antony is come into the field

Go charge Agrippa,
plant those that have revolted in the van...

..that Antony may seem to spend his fury
upon himself

Alexas did revolt.
For this pains, Caesar hath hanged him

Scarus and the rest that fell away
have entertainment but no honourable trust

I have done ill

Of which I do accuse myself so sorely
that I will joy no more

Enobarbus, Antony hath after thee sent all thy treasure,
with his bounty overplus

The messenger came on my guard,
and at thy tent is now unloading of his mules

I give it you

Mock not, Enobarbus, I tell you true.
Your emperor continues still a Jove

I am alone the villain of the Earth,
and feel I am so most

O Antony, thou mine of bounty

How wouldst thou have paid my better service,
when my turpitude thou dost so crown with gold?

This blows my heart

If swift thought break it not,
a swifter mean shall outstrike thought

But thought will do it, I feel

I fight against thee? No

I will go seek some ditch wherein to die.
The foulest best fits my latter part of life

We have beat him to his camp. Run one before
and let the Queen know of our deeds

Tomorrow before the sun shall see us,
we’ll spill the blood that has today escaped

You have shown all Hectors.
Enter the city. Clip your wives, your friends

Tell them your feats, whilst they with joyful tears...

..wash the congealment from your wounds
and kiss the honoured gashes whole

Lord of lords! O infinite virtue, comest thou smiling
from the world’s great snare uncaught?

Mine nightingale,
we have beat them to their beds

Behold this man,
commend unto his lips thy favouring hand

Kiss it, my warrior. He hath fought today as if a god
in hate of mankind had destroyed in such a shape

I’ll give thee, friend, an armour all of gold.
It was a king’s

He has deserved it,
were it carbuncled like holy Phoebus’ car

Give me thy hands

Had our great palace the capacity to camp this host,
we all would sup together...

..and drink carouses to the next day’s fate,
which promises royal peril

Trumpeters,
with brazen din blast you the city’s ear...

..that heaven and Earth may strike their sounds
together, applauding our approach

O, bear me witness, night.
Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon

When men revolted
shall upon record bear hateful memory...

..poor Enobarbus did before thy face repent

O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
the poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me

That life, a very rebel to my will,
may hang no longer on me

Throw my heart
against the flint and hardness of my fault...

..which, being dried with grief,
will break to powder and finish all foul thoughts

O Antony, nobler than my revolt is infamous,
forgive me in thine own particular

But let the world rank me in register
a master-leaver and a fugitive

O Antony! O Antony!

Their preparation is today by sea,
yet they are not joined

Swallows have built in Cleopatra’s sails their nests.
The augurs say they know not...

..they cannot tell, look grimly
and dare not speak their knowledge

Antony is valiant and dejected,
and by starts his fretted fortunes...

..give him hope and fear
of what he has and has not

All is lost!
This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me

My fleet hath yielded to the foe...

..and yonder they cast their caps up
and carouse together like friends long lost

Triple-turned whore!
’Tis thou hast sold me to this novice...

..and my heart makes only wars on thee

Bid them all fly. For when I am revenged
upon my charm, I have done all

Bid them all fly. Begone

O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more

Fortune and Antony part here.
Even here do we shake hands

- Ah, thou spell, avaunt!
- Why is my lord enraged against his love?

Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving
and blemish Caesar’s triumph

Let him take thee
and hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians

Follow his chariot,
like the greatest spot of all thy sex

Most monster-like be shown
to poorest diminutives, to dolts

And let patient Octavia plow thy visage up
with her prepared nails

’Tis well thou art gone, if it be well to live

But better ’twere thou fell’st into my fury,
for one death might have prevented many

The witch shall die

To the young Roman boy she hath sold me,
and I fall under this plot. She dies for it

Help me, my women

O, he’s more mad than Telamon for his shield.
The boar of Thessaly was never so embossed

To the monument.
There lock yourself and send him word you are dead

The soul and body rive not more in parting
than greatness going off

To the monument.
Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself

Say that the last I spoke was ‘Antony’,
and word it, prithee, piteously

Hence, Mardian,
and bring me how he takes my death

To the monument

Eros, thou yet beholdest me?

Ay, noble lord

Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
a vapour sometime like a bear or lion...

A towered citadel, a pendent rock,
a forked mountain, or blue promontory...

..with trees upon it that nod unto the world
and mock our eyes with air

Thou hast seen these signs,
they are black vesper’s pageants

Ay, my lord

That which is now a horse,
even with a thought the rack dislimns...

- ...and makes it indistinct as water is in water
- It does, my lord

My good knave Eros,
now thy captain is even such a body

Here I am Antony,
yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave

I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen,
whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine

Which whilst it was mine
had annexed unto it a million more, now lost

She, Eros, has packed cards with Caesar
and false-played my glory unto an enemy’s triumph

Nay, weep not, gentle Eros.
There is left us ourselves to end ourselves

O, thy vile lady!
She has robbed me of my sword

No, Antony, my mistress loved thee
and her fortunes mingled with thine entirely

Hence, saucy eunuch, peace!
She hath betrayed me and shall die the death

Death of one person can be paid but once,
and that she has discharged

What thou wouldst do is done unto thy hand.
The last she spake was ‘Antony, most noble Antony’

Then in the midst a tearing groan
did break the name of Antony

It was divided between her heart and lips.
She rendered life thy name so buried in her

- Dead, then?
- Dead

Unarm, Eros.
The long day’s task is done, and we must sleep

That thou depart’st hence safe
does pay thy labour richly. Go. Off, pluck off

The sevenfold shield of Ajax
cannot keep the battery from my heart

O, cleave, my sides!
Heart, once be stronger than thy continent

Crack thy frail case.
Apace, Eros, apace

No more a soldier

Bruised pieces, go.
You have been nobly borne

From me awhile

I will overtake thee, Cleopatra,
and weep for my pardon

So it must be, for now the torch is out.
Seal, then, and all is done

Eros!
I come, my queen

Eros!
Stay for me

Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand,
and with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze

Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,
and all the haunt be ours

- Come, Eros, Eros!
- What would my lord?

Thou art sworn, Eros, that when the exigent
should come, which now is come indeed...

When I should see behind me
the inevitable prosecution of disgrace and horror...

..that on my command thou then wouldst kill me.
Do it. The time is come

Thou strikest not me, ’tis Caesar thou defeatest.
Put colour in thy cheek

The gods withhold me! Shall I do that which all the
Parthian darts, though enemy, lost aim and could not?

Eros, wouldst thou be windowed in great Rome
and see thy master thus with pleached arms...

..bending down his corrigible neck,
his face subdued to penetrative shame?

- I would not see it
- Come, then, for with a wound I must be cured

Draw that thy honest sword...

- ...which thou hast worn most useful for thy country
- O, sir, pardon me

When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then
to do this when I bade thee?

Do it at once, or thy precedent services
are all but accidents unpurposed

Draw, and come

Turn from me then that noble countenance
wherein the worship of the whole world lies

- Lo thee
- My sword is drawn

Then let it do at once
the thing why thou hast drawn it

My dear master, my captain, and my emperor,
let me say, before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell

- ’Tis said, man, and farewell
- Farewell, great chief

- Shall I strike now?
- Now, Eros

Why, there, then

Thus I do escape the sorrow of Antony’s death

Thrice nobler than myself

Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros,
what I should and thou couldst not

But I will be a bridegroom in my death
and run into it as to a lover’s bed

Come then, and, Eros, thy master dies thy scholar.
To do thus I learned of thee

How, not dead?

Not dead

The guard, how? O, dispatch me!

What’s the noise?

I have done my work ill, friend.
O, make an end of what I have begun

Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly

This sword but shown to Caesar with this tidings
shall enter us with him

- Where’s Antony?
- There, Diomed, there

Lives he?
Wilt thou not answer, man?

Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword,
and give me sufficing strokes for death

Most absolute lord,
my mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee

- When did she send thee?
- Now, my lord

- Where is she?
- Locked in her monument

She had a prophesying fear of what hath come to pass.
For when she saw, which never shall be found...

..you did suspect she had disposed with Caesar,
and that your rage would not be purged...

..she sent you word she was dead

But fearing since how it might work,
hath sent me to proclaim the truth

- And I am come, I dread, too late
- Too late, good Diomed. Call my guard, I prithee

What ho! The Emperor’s guard!
The guard, what ho! Come, your lord calls

Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides.
’Tis the last service that I shall command you

I have led you oft. Carry me now, good friends,
and have my thanks for all

O Charmian, I will never go from hence

- Be comforted, dear madam
- No, I will not

All strange and terrible events are welcome,
but comforts we despise

Our size of sorrow, proportioned to our cause,
must be as great as that which makes it

- How now? Is he dead?
- His death’s upon him, but not dead

O sun, burn the great sphere thou movest in.
Darkling stand the varying shore of the world

O Antony, Antony, Antony!

Help me, Charmian! Help me, Iras!
Let’s draw him hither. Help, good friends below!

Peace! Not Caesar’s valour hath overthrown Antony,
but Antony’s hath triumphed on itself

So it should be that none but Antony
should conquer Antony, but woe ’tis so

I am dying, Egypt, dying

Only I here importune death awhile until of many
thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips

I dare not, dear, dear my lord, pardon,
I dare not, lest I be taken

But come, come, Antony.
Help me, my women. We must draw thee up

- Assist, good friends
- O, quick, or I am gone

Here’s sport indeed.
How heavy weighs my lord

Our strength is all gone into heaviness,
that makes the weight

Had I great Juno’s power, the strong-winged Mercury
should fetch thee up and set thee by Jove’s side

Yet come a little. Wishers were ever fools.
O, come, come, come

And welcome, welcome

Die where thou hast lived, quicken with kissing.
Had my lips that power, thus would I wear them out

I am dying, Egypt, dying.
Give me some wine, and let me speak a little

No, let me speak, and let me rail so high...

..that the false huswife Fortune
break her wheel, provoked by my offence

One word, sweet queen.
Of Caesar seek your honour with your safety

- They do not go together
- Gentle, hear me

None about Caesar trust but Proculeius

My resolution and my hands I’ll trust,
none about Caesar

The miserable change now at my end
lament nor sorrow at

But please your thoughts in feeding them
with those my former fortunes

Wherein I lived the greatest prince of the world,
the noblest

And do now not basely die,
not cowardly put off my helmet to my countryman

A Roman by a Roman valiantly vanquished

Now my spirit is going.
I can no more

Noblest of men, woo’t die?
Hast thou no care of me?

Shall I abide in this dull world,
which in thy absence is no better than a sty?

O see, my women,
the crown of the earth doth melt

My lord!

O, withered is the garland of the war,
the soldier’s pole is fallen

Young boys and girls
are level now with men

The odds is gone, and there is nothing left remarkable
beneath the visiting moon

O, quietness, lady

She’s dead, too, our sovereign.
Royal Egypt, Empress!

- O madam, madam, madam!
- Peace, peace, Iras!

No more but even a woman

And commanded by such poor passion
as the maid that milks and does the meanest chares

It were for me
to throw my sceptre at the injurious gods...

..to tell them that this world did equal theirs
till they had stolen our jewel

All’s but naught

Patience is sottish,
and impatience does become a dog that’s mad

Then is it sin to rush into the secret house of death
ere death dare come to us?

How do you, women?
What, what, good cheer

Why, how now, Charmian?
My noble girls

Ah, women, women.
Look, our lamp is spent, it’s out. Come, away

This case of that huge spirit now is cold

Ah women, women! Come, we have no friend
but resolution and the briefest end

Go to him, Maecenas, bid him yield

Being so frustrate, tell him,
he mocks the pauses that he makes

Caesar, I shall

Wherefore is that? And what art thou
that darest appear thus to us?

I am called Ventidius

Mark Antony I served,
and wore my life to spend upon his haters

If thou please to take me to thee,
as I was to him I’ll be to Caesar

If thou pleasest not, I yield thee up my life

- What is’t thou sayest?
- I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead

The breaking of so great a thing
should make a greater crack

He is dead, Caesar,
This is his sword

I robbed his wound of it.
Behold it stained with his most noble blood

O Antony, I have followed thee to this,
but we do lance diseases in our bodies

I must perforce have shown to thee
such a declining day or look on thine

We could not stall together
in the whole world

But yet let me lament
with tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts...

That thou my brother, my competitor
in top of all design, my mate in empire...

Friend and companion in the front of war,
the arm of mine own body...

And the heart
where mine his thoughts did kindle...

..that our stars unreconciliable
should divide our equalness to this

Hear me, good friends...
But I will tell you at some meeter season

Whence are you?

The Queen my mistress, confined in her monument,
of thy intents desires instruction

That she preparedly may frame herself
to the way she’s forced to

Bid her have good heart.
She soon shall know of us, by some of ours...

..how honourable and how kindly
we determine for her

- For Caesar cannot live to be ungentle
- May fortune pursue thee

Come hither, Proculeius.
Go and say we purpose her no shame

Give her what comforts
the quality of her passion shall require

Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke
she do defeat us

For her life in Rome
would be eternal in our triumph

Go, and with your speediest bring us what she says...

- ...and how you find of her
- Caesar, I shall

Go with me to my tent, where you shall see
how hardly I was drawn into this war

How calm and gentle I proceeded still
in all my writings

Go with me and see
what I can show in this

Caesar sends greeting to the Queen of Egypt

And bids thee study on what fair demands
thou meanest to have him grant thee

- What’s thy name?
- My name is Proculeius

Antony did tell me of you, bade me trust you

But I do not greatly care to be deceived
that have no use for trusting

If your master would have a queen his beggar,
you must tell him that majesty, to keep decorum...

..must no less beg than a kingdom.
If he please to give me conquered Egypt for my son...

..he gives me so much of mine own
as I will kneel to him with thanks

Be of good cheer.
You’re fallen into a princely hand, fear nothing

Make your full reference freely to my lord, who is
so full of grace that it flows over on all that need

Let me report to him your sweet dependency,
and you shall find a conqueror...

..that will pray in aid for kindness
where he for grace is kneeled to

Pray you tell him I am his fortune’s vassal
and I give him the greatness he has got

I hourly learn a doctrine of obedience,
and would gladly look him in the face

This I’ll report, dear lady. Have comfort, for I know
your plight is pitied of him that caused it

Guard her till Caesar come

- Royal queen!
- O, Cleopatra, thou art taken, queen!

Quick, quick, good hands

Hold, worthy lady, hold

Do not yourself such wrong,
who are in this relieved, but not betrayed

What, of death, too,
that rids our dogs of languish?

Cleopatra, do not abuse my master’s bounty
by the undoing of yourself

Let the world see his nobleness well acted,
which your death will never let come forth

Where art thou, Death?
Come hither, come!

Come, come, and take a queen
worth many babes and beggars

- O, temperance, lady
- Sir, I will eat no meat, I’ll not drink, sir

If idle talk will once be necessary, I’ll not sleep neither

This mortal house I’ll ruin, do Caesar what he can

Know, sir, that I will not wait pinioned
at your master’s court

Nor once be chastised
with the sober eye of dull Octavia

Shall they hoist me up and show me
to the shouting varletry of censuring Rome?

Rather a ditch in Egypt be gentle grave unto me

Rather on Nilus’ mud lay me stark naked,
and let the waterflies blow me into abhorring

Rather make my country’s high pyramides my gibbet
and hang me up in chains

You do extend these thoughts of horror
further than you shall find cause in Caesar

Proculeius, what thou hast done
thy master Caesar knows, and he hath sent for thee

- For the Queen, I’ll take her to my guard
- Be gentle to her

To Caesar I will speak what you shall please,
if you’ll employ me to him

Say I would die

- Most noble empress, you have heard of me
- I cannot tell

- Assuredly you know me
- No matter, sir, what I have heard or known

You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams

- Is it not your trick?
- I understand not, madam

I dreamt there was an emperor Antony

O, such another sleep,
that I might see but such another man

- If it might please you...
- His face was as the heavens

And therein stuck a sun and moon,
which kept their course...

- ...and lighted the little O, the earth
- Most sovereign creature...

His legs bestrid the ocean,
his reared arm crested the waves

His voice was propertied
as all the tuned spheres, and that to friends

But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
he was as rattling thunder

For his bounty, there was no winter in it.
An autumn ’twas, that grew the more by reaping

His delights were dolphin-like,
they showed his back above the element they lived in

In his livery walked crowns and crownets, realms
and islands were as plates dropped from his pocket

Think you there was, or might be,
such a man as this I dreamt of?

- Gentle madam, no
- You lie up to the hearing of the gods

But if there be nor ever were one such,
it’s past the size of dreaming

Nature wants stuff
to vie strange forms with fancy

Yet to imagine an Antony were nature’s
piece ’gainst fancy, condemning shadows quite

Hear me, good madam. Your loss is as yourself, great,
and you bear it as answering to the weight

Would I might never overtake pursued success...

..but I do feel, by the rebound of yours,
a grief that smites my very heart at root

I thank you, sir

- Know you what Caesar means to do with me?
- I am loath to tell you what I would you knew

- Nay, pray you, sir
- Though he be honourable...

- He’ll lead me, then, in triumph
- Madam, he will. I know it

Which is the Queen of Egypt?

It is the Emperor, madam

Arise. You shall not kneel

I pray you, rise. Rise, Egypt

Sir, the gods will have it thus.
My master and my lord I must obey

Cleopatra, know we will extenuate rather than enforce

If you apply yourself to our intents, which towards you
are most gentle, you shall find a benefit in this change

But if you seek to lay on me a cruelty
by taking Antony’s course...

..you shall bereave yourself
of my good purposes

And put your children to that destruction
which I’ll guard them from if thereon you rely

- I’ll take my leave
- And may through all the world

’Tis yours, and we, your scutcheons and your signs
of conquest, shall hang in what place you please

Cleopatra, make not your thoughts your prisons.
No, dear queen

For we intend so to dispose you
as yourself shall give us counsel. Feed and sleep

Our care and pity is so much upon you
that we remain your friend. And so adieu

- My master and my lord
- Not so. Adieu

He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
be noble to myself. But hark thee, Charmian

Finish, good lady.
The bright day is done, and we are for the dark

Hie thee again.
I have spoke already, and it is provided

- Go put it to the haste
- Madam, I will

Madam, Caesar through Syria intends his journey...

..and within three days
you with your children will he send before

Make your best use of this

- Agrippa, I shall remain your debtor
- I your servant

- Adieu, good queen. I must attend on Caesar
- Farewell, and thanks

Now, Iras, what thinkest thou?

Thou an Egyptian puppet
shall be shown in Rome as well as I

- The gods forbid!
- Nay, ’tis most certain, Iras

Saucy lictors will catch at us like strumpets,
and scald rhymers ballad us out of tune

The quick comedians extemporally will stage us
and present our Alexandrian revels

Antony shall be brought drunken forth

And I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra
boy my greatness in the posture of a whore

I’ll never see it! For I am sure mine nails
are stronger than mine eyes

Why, that’s the way to fool their preparation
and to conquer their most absurd intents

Now, Charmian!
Show me, my women, like a queen

Go fetch my best attires.
I am again for Cydnus to meet Mark Antony

Sirrah Iras, go.
Now, noble Charmian, we’ll dispatch indeed

And when thou hast done this chare,
I’ll give thee leave to play till Doomsday

Bring our crown and all

- Wherefore’s this noise?
- Here is a rural fellow...

..that will not be denied your Highness’ presence.
He brings you figs

Let him come in

What poor an instrument may do a noble deed.
He brings me liberty

My resolution’s placed,
and I have nothing of woman in me

Now from head to foot I am marble-constant.
Now the fleeting moon no planet is of mine

Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there
that kills and pains not?

Truly I have him, but I would not be the party
that should desire you to touch him

For his biting is immortal.
Those that do die of it do seldom or never recover

- Rememberest thou any that have died on it?
- Very many, men and women too

I heard of one of them no longer than yesterday.
A very honest woman, but something given to lie...

..as a woman should not do but in the way of honesty

How she died of the biting of it, what pain she felt.
Truly, she makes a very good report of the worm

But this is most falliable, the worm’s an odd worm

- Get thee hence. Farewell
- I wish you all joy of the worm

- Farewell
- Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you...

- ...for it is not worth the feeding
- Will it eat me?

You must not think I am so simple
but I know the devil himself will not eat a woman

I know that a woman is a dish for the gods
if the devil dress her not

But truly these same whoreson devils
do the gods great harm in their women...

..for in every ten that they make,
the devils mar five

- Well, get thee gone. Farewell
- Yes, forsooth

I wish you joy of the worm

Give me my robe

Put on my crown

I have immortal longings in me

Now no more the juice of Egypt’s grape
shall moist this lip

Yare, yare, good Iras, quick

Methinks I hear Antony call.
I see him rouse himself to praise my noble act

I hear him mock the luck of Caesar,
which the gods give men to excuse their after wrath

Husband, I come.
Now to that name my courage prove my title

I am fire and air.
My other elements I give to baser life

So, have you done?
Come then, and taste the last warmth of my lips

Farewell, kind Charmian

Iras, long farewell

Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?

Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain,
that I may say the gods themselves do weep

This proves me base.
If she first meet the curled Antony...

..he’ll make demand of her,
and spend that kiss which is my heaven to have

Come, thou mortal wretch

With thy sharp teeth
this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie

Poor venomous fool,
be angry and dispatch

- O eastern star
- Peace, peace

Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
that sucks the nurse asleep?

- O, break, O, break!
- As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle...

O Antony

Nay, I will take thee too

What should I stay...

..in this vile world?
So, fare thee well

Now boast thee, Death,
in thy possession lies a lass unparalleled

Downy windows, close

And golden Phoebus,
never be beheld of eyes again so royal

Your crown’s awry.
I’ll mend it, and then play

- Where’s the Queen?
- Speak softly. Wake her not

- Caesar hath sent...
- Too slow a messenger

What work is here, Charmian?
Is this well done?

It is well done, and fitting for a princess
descended of so many royal kings

Ah, soldier!

Caesar, thy thoughts touch their effects in this

Thyself art coming to see performed
the dreaded act which thou so soughtest to hinder

O sir, you are too sure an augurer.
That you did fear is done

Bravest at the last, she leveled at our purposes
and, being royal, took her own way

The manner of their deaths?

O Caesar,
this Charmian lived but now, she stood and spake

I found her trimming up the diadem
on her dead mistress

Tremblingly she stood,
and on the sudden dropped

She looks like sleep, as she would catch
another Antony in her strong toil of grace

A pair so famous

High events as these
strike those that make them

And their story is no less in pity
than his glory which brought them to be lamented

Our army shall in solemn show attend this funeral,
and then to Rome

Come, Agrippa,
see high order in this great solemnity