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Antony and Cleopatra: Act II, Scene 7

Antony and Cleopatra
Act II, Scene 7

On board Pompey’s galley, off Misenum.

  1. Music plays.
  1. Enter two or three Servants with a banquet.

Pompey’s First Servant

1 - 2
  1. Here they’ll be, man. Some o’ their plants are ill rooted
  2. already, the least wind i’ th’ world will blow them down.

Pompey’s Second Servant

3
  1. Lepidus is high-color’d.

Pompey’s First Servant

4
  1. They have made him drink alms-drink.

Pompey’s Second Servant

5 - 7
  1. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he cries out,
  2. No more”; reconciles them to his entreaty, and himself to
  3. th’ drink.

Pompey’s First Servant

8 - 9
  1. But it raises the greater war between him and his
  2. discretion.

Pompey’s Second Servant

10 - 12
  1. Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship. I
  2. had as live have a reed that will do me no service as a
  3. partisan I could not heave.

Pompey’s First Servant

13 - 15
  1. To be call’d into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move
  2. in’t, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully
  3. disaster the cheeks.
  1. A sennet sounded. Enter Caesar, Antony, Pompey, Lepidus,
  2. Agrippa, Maecenas, Enobarbus, Menas, with other Captains.

Mark Antony

16 - 22
  1. To Caesar.
  2. Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o’ th’ Nile
  3. By certain scales i’ th’ pyramid; they know,
  4. By th’ height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
  5. Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells,
  6. The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman
  7. Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
  8. And shortly comes to harvest.

Lepidus

23
  1. Y’ have strange serpents there?

Mark Antony

24
  1. Ay, Lepidus.

Lepidus

25 - 26
  1. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
  2. operation of your sun. So is your crocodile.

Mark Antony

27
  1. They are so.

Pompeius

28
  1. Sitand some wine! A health to Lepidus!

Lepidus

29
  1. I am not so well as I should be; but I’ll ne’er out.

Domitius Enobarbus

30
  1. Not till you have slept; I fear me you’ll be in till then.

Lepidus

31 - 33
  1. Nay certainly, I have heard the Ptolomies’ pyramises are
  2. very goodly things; without contradiction, I have heard
  3. that.

Menas

34
  1. Aside to Pompey.
  2. Pompey, a word.

Pompeius

35
  1. Aside to Menas.
  2.                 Say in mine ear, what is’t.

Menas

36 - 37
  1. Whispers in ’s ear.
  2. Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee, captain,
  3. And hear me speak a word.

Pompeius

38 - 39
  1. Aside to Menas.
  2.                           Forbear me till anon.—
  3. This wine for Lepidus!

Lepidus

40
  1. What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?

Mark Antony

41 - 44
  1. It is shap’d, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it
  2. hath breadth. It is just so high as it is, and moves with it
  3. own organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the
  4. elements once out of it, it transmigrates.

Lepidus

45
  1. What color is it of?

Mark Antony

46
  1. Of it own color too.

Lepidus

47
  1. ’Tis a strange serpent.

Mark Antony

48
  1. ’Tis so, and the tears of it are wet.

Caesar

49
  1. Will this description satisfy him?

Mark Antony

50 - 51
  1. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very
  2. epicure.
  1. Menas whispers again.

Pompeius

52 - 53
  1. Aside to Menas.
  2. Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that? Away!
  3. Do as I bid you.—Where’s this cup I call’d for?

Menas

54 - 55
  1. Aside to Pompey.
  2. If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear me,
  3. Rise from thy stool.

Pompeius

56
  1. Aside to Menas.
  2.                      I think th’ art mad. The matter?
  1. Rises and walks aside.

Menas

57
  1. I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.

Pompeius

58 - 59
  1. Thou hast serv’d me with much faith; what’s else to say?—
  2. Be jolly, lords.

Mark Antony

60 - 61
  1.                  These quicksands, Lepidus,
  2. Keep off them, for you sink.

Menas

62
  1. Wilt thou be lord of all the world?

Pompeius

63
  1.                                     What say’st thou?

Menas

64
  1. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That’s twice.

Pompeius

65
  1. How should that be?

Menas

66 - 68
  1.                     But entertain it,
  2. And though thou think me poor, I am the man
  3. Will give thee all the world.

Pompeius

69
  1.                               Hast thou drunk well?

Menas

70 - 73
  1. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
  2. Thou art, if thou dar’st be, the earthly Jove.
  3. What e’er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,
  4. Is thine, if thou wilt ha’t.

Pompeius

74
  1.                              Show me which way.

Menas

75 - 78
  1. These three world-sharers, these competitors,
  2. Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable,
  3. And when we are put off, fall to their throats:
  4. All there is thine.

Pompeius

79 - 86
  1.                     Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
  2. And not have spoke on’t! In me ’tis villainy,
  3. In thee’t had been good service. Thou must know,
  4. ’Tis not my profit that does lead mine honor;
  5. Mine honor, it. Repent that e’er thy tongue
  6. Hath so betray’d thine act. Being done unknown,
  7. I should have found it afterwards well done,
  8. But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.

Menas

87 - 90
  1. Aside.
  2. For this,
  3. I’ll never follow thy pall’d fortunes more.
  4. Who seeks, and will not take when once ’tis offer’d,
  5. Shall never find it more.

Pompeius

91
  1.                           This health to Lepidus!

Mark Antony

92
  1. Bear him ashore. I’ll pledge it for him, Pompey.

Domitius Enobarbus

93
  1. Here’s to thee, Menas!

Menas

94
  1.                        Enobarbus, welcome!

Pompeius

95
  1. Fill till the cup be hid.

Domitius Enobarbus

96
  1. There’s a strong fellow, Menas.
  1. Pointing to the Attendant who carries off Lepidus.

Menas

97
  1. Why?

Domitius Enobarbus

98
  1. ’A bears the third part of the world, man; seest not?

Menas

99 - 100
  1. The third part then is drunk. Would it were all,
  2. That it might go on wheels!

Domitius Enobarbus

101
  1. Drink thou; increase the reels.

Menas

102
  1. Come.

Pompeius

103
  1. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.

Mark Antony

104 - 105
  1. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels ho!
  2. Here’s to Caesar!

Caesar

106 - 108
  1.                   I could well forbear’t.
  2. It’s monstrous labor when I wash my brain
  3. And it grow fouler.

Mark Antony

109
  1.                     Be a child o’ th’ time.

Caesar

110 - 112
  1. Possess it, I’ll make answer.
  2. But I had rather fast from all, four days,
  3. Than drink so much in one.

Domitius Enobarbus

113 - 115
  1. To Antony.
  2.                            Ha, my brave emperor!
  3. Shall we dance now the Egyptian bacchanals
  4. And celebrate our drink?

Pompeius

116
  1.                          Let’s ha’t, good soldier.

Mark Antony

117 - 119
  1. Come, let’s all take hands,
  2. Till that the conquering wine hath steep’d our sense
  3. In soft and delicate Lethe.

Domitius Enobarbus

120 - 130
  1.                             All take hands.
  2. Make battery to our ears with the loud music;
  3. The while I’ll place you, then the boy shall sing.
  4. The holding every man shall bear as loud
  5. As his strong sides can volley.
  6. Music plays.
  7. Enobarbus places them hand in hand.
  8. The Song
  9. Come, thou monarch of the vine,
  10. Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
  11. In thy fats our cares be drown’d,
  12. With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d!
  13. Cup us till the world go round,
  14. Cup us till the world go round!

Caesar

131 - 138
  1. What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,
  2. Let me request you off, our graver business
  3. Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let’s part,
  4. You see we have burnt our cheeks. Strong Enobarb
  5. Is weaker than the wine, and mine own tongue
  6. Spleets what it speaks; the wild disguise hath almost
  7. Antick’d us all. What needs more words? Good night.
  8. Good Antony, your hand.

Pompeius

139
  1.                         I’ll try you on the shore.

Mark Antony

140
  1. And shall, sir, give ’s your hand.

Pompeius

141 - 143
  1.                                    O Antony,
  2. You have my father’s houseBut what, we are friends?
  3. Come down into the boat.

Domitius Enobarbus

144 - 145
  1.                          Take heed you fall not.
  2. Exeunt all but Enobarbus and Menas.
  3. Menas, I’ll not on shore.

Menas

146 - 149
  1.                           No, to my cabin.
  2. These drums, these trumpets, flutes! What!
  3. Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
  4. To these great fellows. Sound and be hang’d, sound out!
  1. Sound a flourish, with drums.

Domitius Enobarbus

150
  1. Hoo, says ’a. There’s my cap.

Menas

151
  1. Ho, noble captain, come.
  1. Exeunt.
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