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Serves for the matter that is then born in 't. Lep. But small to greater matters must give way. Eno. Not if the small come first.

Lep.

Eno.

Your speech is passion:

But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
The noble Antony.

Enter Antony and Ventidius.

And yonder, Cæsar.

Enter Casar, Macenas, and Agrippa.

Ant. If we compose well here, to Parthia:

Hark, Ventidius.

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Cas.

I do not know,

Mæcenas; ask Agrippa.

Lep.

Noble friends,

That which combined us was most great, and let not

A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,

May it be gently heard: when we debate

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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,

Ant.

Nor curstness grow to the matter.

Were we before our armies and to fight,
I should do thus.

Cas. Welcome to Rome.

Ant. Thank you.

Cas. Sit.

'Tis spoken well.

[Flourish.

Ant. Sit, sir.

Cas. Nay, then.

Ant. I learn, you take things ill which are not so,

Cas.

Ant.

Or being, concern you not.

I must be laugh'd at, 30

If, or for nothing or a little, I

Should say myself offended, and with you

Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at, that I should

Once name you derogately, when to sound your name

It not concern'd me.

My being in Egypt, Cæsar,

What was 't to you?
Cas. 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.

Ant.
How intend you, practised? 40
Cas. You may be pleased to catch at mine intent

By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother
Made wars upon me, and their contestation
Was theme for you, you were the word of war.

Ant. You do mistake your business; my brother never
Did urge me in his act: I did inquire it,

And have my learning from some true reports
That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather
Discredit my authority with yours,

And make the wars alike against my stomach,

Having alike your cause? of this my letters
Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,
As matter whole you have not to make it with,
It must not be with this.

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Cas.

You praise yourself

By laying defects of judgement to me, but

You patch'd up your excuses.

Ant.

Not so, not so;

I know you could not lack, I am certain on 't,
Very necessity of this thought, that I,

Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,
Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars
Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
I would you had her spirit in such another :
The third o' the world is yours, which with a snaffle
You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

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Eno. Would we had all such wives, that the men

might go to wars with the women!

Ant. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Cæsar,

Cas.

Ant.

Cas.

Made out of her impatience, which not wanted
Shrewdness of policy too, I grieving grant
Did you too much disquiet: for that you must
But say, I could not help it.

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 i' the morning: but next day
I told him of myself, which was as much
As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow
Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
Out of our question wipe him.

You have broken
The article of your oath, which you shall never

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80 Lep.

Have tongue to charge me with.

Ant. No, Lepidus, let him speak :

Soft, Cæsar!

The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
Supposing that I lack'd it. But on, Cæsar;
The article of my oath.

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

Ant.

Neglected rather,

And then, when poison'd hours had bound me up 90
From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,
I'll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty
Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power

Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,

To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;
For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
To stoop in such a case.

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

Lep.
Worthily spoken, Mæcenas.
Eno. 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.

Ant. Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.

Eno. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

100

Ant. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.

Eno. Go to, then; your considerate stone.

Cas. I do not much dislike the matter, but

III

The manner of his speech, for 't cannot be
We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
So differing in their acts. Yet, if I knew

Agr.

What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge

O' the world I would pursue it.

Cas. Speak, Agrippa.

Give me leave, Cæsar.

Agr. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,

Cas.

Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.

Say not so, Agrippa:

If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deserved of rashness.

Ant. I am not married, Cæsar: let me hear
Agrippa further speak.

Agr. 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,

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130

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.

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