Act IScene IV
Rome. An Apartment in Caesar’s House
Enter Octavius, [Caesar] Lepidus and their train.
Caesar
You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hateOur great competitor. From AlexandriaThis is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastesThe lamps of night in revel: is not more manlikeThan Cleopatra, nor the queen of PtolemyMore womanly than he; hardly gave audience, orVouchsafed to think he had partners. You shall find thereA man who is the abstract of all faultsThat all men follow.
Lepidus
I must not think there areEvils enough to darken all his goodness.His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,More fiery by night’s blackness; hereditaryRather than purchased; what he cannot changeThan what he chooses.
Caesar
You are too indulgent. Let’s grant it is notAmiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sitAnd keep the turn of tippling with a slave,To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffetWith knaves that smell of sweat. Say this becomes him—As his composure must be rare indeedWhom these things cannot blemish—yet must AntonyNo way excuse his foils when we do bearSo great weight in his lightness. If he filledHis vacancy with his voluptuousness,Full surfeits and the dryness of his bonesCall on him for’t. But to confound such timeThat drums him from his sport, and speaks as loudAs his own state and ours, ’tis to be chidAs we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,Pawn their experience to their present pleasureAnd so rebel to judgment.
Enter a Messenger.
Lepidus
Here’s more news.
Messenger
Thy biddings have been done, and every hour,Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have reportHow ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,And it appears he is beloved of thoseThat only have feared Caesar. To the portsThe discontents repair, and men’s reportsGive him much wronged.
Caesar
I should have known no less.It hath been taught us from the primal stateThat he which is was wished until he were,And the ebbed man, ne’er loved till ne’er 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.
Enter a second Messenger.
Second Messenger
Caesar, I bring thee wordMenecrates and Menas, famous pirates,Make the sea serve them, which they ear and woundWith keels of every kind. Many hot inroadsThey make in Italy—the borders maritimeLack blood to think on’t—and flush youth revolt.No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soonTaken as seen; for Pompey’s name strikes moreThan could his war resisted.
Caesar
Antony,Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou onceWas beaten from Modena, where thou slew’stHirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heelDid famine follow, whom thou fought’st against,Though daintily brought up, with patience moreThan savages could suffer. Thou didst drinkThe stale of horses and the gilded puddleWhich beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deignThe roughest berry on the rudest hedge.Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,The barks of trees thou browsed. On the AlpsIt is reported thou didst eat strange fleshWhich 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 cheekSo much as lanked not.
Lepidus
’Tis pity of him.
Caesar
Let his shames quicklyDrive him to Rome. ’Tis time we twainDid show ourselves i’ th’ field, and to that endAssemble we immediate council. PompeyThrives in our idleness.
Lepidus
Tomorrow, Caesar,I shall be furnished to inform you rightlyBoth what by sea and land I can be ableTo front this present time.
Caesar
Till which encounterIt is my business too. Farewell.
Lepidus
Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantimeOf stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,To let me be partaker.
Caesar
Doubt not, sir.I knew it for my bond.
Exeunt.