no more.

So far ask pardon, as befits mine honour
To stoop in such a case.

Lep. 'Tis nobly spoken.

Mec. 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 attone you,

Lep. Worthily spoken, Mecænas.

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.
E110. That truth should be filent, I had almost

forgot.
Ant. You wrong this presence, therefore speak
Eno. Go to then: your considerate stone *

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

Agr. Give me leave, Cæfar.
cæf. Speak, Agrippa.

Agr. Thou hast a lister by the mother's side,
Admir'd Oétavia! great Mark Antony
Is not a widower.

Caf. Say not so, Agrippa :
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deserv'd 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
Oétavia to his wife, whose beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of inen;

* Go to then, you considerate ones. Johnson...Perhaps you confederate ones ; ic. the triumvirate.

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 but 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.

Ant. Will Cæsar speak?

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

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

Cæf. The power of Cæsar, and
His power unto O&avia.

Ant. May I never
To this good purpose, that so fairly News,
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 !

Cier. There is my hand:
A fifter 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!

Lep. Happily amen.

Ant. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst PomFor he hath laid strange courtefies and great [pey, Of late upon me.

I must thank him only,
Left my remembrance suffer ill report;
At heel of that, defy him.

Lep. Time calls upon's :
Of us must Pompey presently be fought,
Or else he seeks out us.

Ant. Where lyes he?
Cæs. About the mount Misenus,
Ant. What is his strength by land ?
Cæf. Great, and increasing ; but by sea

He is an absolute master,

Ant. So is the fame.
'Would we had spoke together! haste we for it:
Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we
The business we have talk'd of.

Cæf. With most gladness;
And do invite you to my sister's view,
Whither straight I will lead you.

Ant. Let us, Lepidus, not lack your company.
Lep. Noble Antony, not sickness should detain mez

[Flourist. Exeunt.

Ill.

S CE N E
Manent Enobarbus, Agrippa, Mecænas.
Mec. Welcome from Ægypt, Sir.

Eno. Half the heart of Cæsar, worthy Mecænas ! My honourable friend Agrippa!

Agr. Good Enobarbus!

Mec. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stay'd well by't in Ægypt:

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

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

Eno. This was but as a fly by an eagle; we had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worë thily deserved noting.

Mec. She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.

Eno. When she first met Mark Antony, she purs'd up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.

Ayr. There she appear’d, indeed; or my reporter devis'd well for her: Eno. I will tell

you. The barge she fat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold, Purple the fails, and to perfumed, that The winds were love-fick with 'en; th' oars were

filver,

Which to the tune of Autes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster;.

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description ; she did ly
In her pavilion, cloth of gold, of tissue,
O'er-pièturing that Venus where we fee
The fancy out-work nature. On each side her,
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

Agr. Oh, rare for Antony !

Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, So many mermaids, tended her i'ih' eyes, And made their bends adorings *. At the helm, A seeming inermaid leers; the filken tackles Swell with the touches of those flower-loft hands That yarely frame the othce. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacant wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her; and Antov, Enthrou'd i' th' market-place, did it alone, Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy; Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, And made a gap in nature.

Agr. Rare Ægyptian!

Eno. Upon ber landing, Antony sent to her Invited her to fupper: the reply'd, It should be better he became her guest; Which fhre intreated. Our courteous Antony, Whom ne'er the word of No woman heard speak, Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast; And, for his ordinary, pays his heart, For what his eyes eat only.

Agr. Royal wench!

* The common reading was,

And made their berids adornings. The word, bend, is here used for an arch, and the bends of the eyes are the eye-brows. Thus the sense will be, that these seeming nereids were employed in adjusting Cleopatra's cye-brows, as often as they happened to be discomposed by the fanning of the boys, or any other accident. Revisal.

She made great Cæsar lay his sword to-bed;
He plough'd her, and ihe cropt.

E10. I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street ;
And liaving lost her breath, the spoke, and panted,
That she did make defect perfection,
And breathless power breathe forth.

Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly.

Eno. Never, he will not.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Oiher 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.

Mec. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can setile
The heart of Antony, Octavia is
A blefled lottery to him.

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

Eno. Humbly, Sir, I thank you. [Exeunt.
Enter Antony, Cæsar, Q&avia between them.

Ant. The world, and my great office, will fomen Divide me from your bosom.

[times Otta. All which time, Refore the gods my knee shall bow in prayers To them for you.

Ant. Good night, Sir. My Ottavia,
Read not my blemishes in the world's report,
I have not kept my square ; but that to come
Shall all be done by th’rule. Good night, dear Lady.

Ofta. Good night, Sir.
Cæs. Good night. [Exeunt Cæs. and O&a.

SC EN E

Enter Soothsayer. Ant. Now, firrah? you do wish yourself in Ægypt? Sooth. 'Would I had never come from thence, nor you

thither!

IV.