Antony and Cleopatra
Act I, Scene 4

Rome. Octavius Caesar’s house.

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus

circa 42 BC

0. Enter Octavius Caesar reading a letter, Lepidus, and their
0. Train.

Caesar

1 - 10

1. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
2. It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate
3. Our great competitor. From Alexandria
4. This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
5. The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike
6. Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolomy
7. More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or
8. Vouchsaf’d to think he had partners. You shall find there
9. A man who is th’ abstract of all faults
10. That all men follow.

Lepidus

11 - 16

11.                      I must not think there are
12. Evils enow to darken all his goodness:
13. His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven,
14. More fiery by night’s blackness; hereditary,
15. Rather than purchas’d; what he cannot change,
16. Than what he chooses.

Caesar

17 - 34

17. You are too indulgent. Let’s grant it is not
18. Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolomy,
19. To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit
20. And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,
21. To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
22. With knaves that smells of sweat: say this becomes him
23. (As his composure must be rare indeed
24. Whom these things cannot blemish), yet must Antony
25. No way excuse his foils, when we do bear
26. So great weight in his lightness. If he fill’d
27. His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
28. Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones
29. Call on him for’t. But to confound such time
30. That drums him from his sport and speaks as loud
31. As his own state and ours, ’tis to be chid—
32. As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,
33. Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
34. And so rebel to judgment.

0. Enter Caesar’s First Messenger.

Lepidus

35

35.                           Here’s more news.

Caesar’s First Messenger

36 - 42

36. Thy biddings have been done, and every hour,
37. Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report
38. How ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,
39. And it appears he is belov’d of those
40. That only have fear’d Caesar; to the ports
41. The discontents repair, and men’s reports
42. Give him much wrong’d.

Caesar

43 - 50

43.                        I should have known no less:
44. It hath been taught us from the primal state
45. That he which is was wish’d, until he were;
46. And the ebb’d man, ne’er lov’d till ne’er worth love,
47. Comes dear’d by being lack’d. This common body,
48. Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
49. Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
50. To rot itself with motion.

0. Enter Caesar’s Second Messenger.

Caesar’s Second Messenger

51 - 59

51.                            Caesar, I bring thee word
52. Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
53. Makes the sea serve them, which they ear and wound
54. With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads
55. They make in Italy; the borders maritime
56. Lack blood to think on’t, and flush youth revolt.
57. No vessel can peep forth, but ’tis as soon
58. Taken as seen; for Pompey’s name strikes more
59. Than could his war resisted.

Caesar

60 - 76

60.                              Antony,
61. Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
62. Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew’st
63. Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
64. Did famine follow, whom thou fought’st against
65. (Though daintily brought up) with patience more
66. Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink
67. The stale of horses and the gilded puddle
68. Which beasts would cough at; thy palate then did deign
69. The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
70. Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
71. The barks of trees thou brows’d. On the Alps
72. It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
73. Which some did die to look on; and all this
74. (It wounds thine honor that I speak it now)
75. Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
76. So much as lank’d not.

Lepidus

77

77.                        ’Tis pity of him.

Caesar

78 - 82

78. Let his shames quickly
79. Drive him to Rome. ’Tis time we twain
80. Did show ourselves i’ th’ field, and to that end
81. Assemble we immediate council. Pompey
82. Thrives in our idleness.

Lepidus

83 - 86

83.                          Tomorrow, Caesar,
84. I shall be furnish’d to inform you rightly
85. Both what by sea and land I can be able
86. To front this present time.

Caesar

87 - 88

87.                             Till which encounter,
88. It is my business too. Farewell.

Lepidus

89 - 91

89. Farewell, my lord. What you shall know mean time
90. Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,
91. To let me be partaker.

Caesar

92 - 93

92.                        Doubt not, sir,
93. I knew it for my bond.

0. Exeunt.