Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
For idleness itself. 2

Cleo.

'Tis sweating labour,

To bear such idleness so near the heart

As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;
Since my becomings kill me,3 when they do not
Eye well to you: Your honour calls you hence;
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,

And all the gods go with you! upon your sword
Sit laurel'd victory!† and smooth success
Be strew'd before your feet!

Ant.

Let us go.

Come;

Our separation so abides, and flies,

That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me,
And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee,

Away.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

Rome. An Apartment in Caesar's House.

Enter OCTAVIUS CESAR, LEPIDUS, and Attendants.

Cas. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know, It is not Cæsar's natural vice to hate

One great competitor: from Alexandria

• But that your royalty

Holds idleness your subject, I should take you

For idleness itself.] i. e. But that I know you to be a queen, and that your royalty holds idleness in subjection to you, exalting you far above its influence, I should suppose you to be the very genius of idleness itself.

3 Since my becomings kill me,] There is somewhat of obscurity in this expression; perhaps she may mean-That conduct which, in my own opinion, becomes me, as often as it appears ungraceful to you, is a shock to my insensibility.

+ “ Sit laurel victory !" - MALONE.

+ One great competitor:] Competitor means here, as it does where-, ever the word occurs in Shakspeare, associate or partner.

This is the news; He fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel: is not more manlike
Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy

More womanly than he: hardly gave audience, or Vouchsaf'd to think he had partners: You shall find

there

A man, who is the abstract of all faults

That all men follow.

Lep.

I must not think, there are

Evils enough to darken all his goodness:

His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven,
More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary,
Rather than purchas'd'; what he cannot change,
Than what he chooses.

Cas. You are too indulgent: Let us grant, it is not Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;

To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit

And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;

To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet

With knaves that smell of sweat; say this becomes him,

(As his composure must be rare indeed,

Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet must Antony way excuse his soils, when we do bear

No

6

So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd

His vacancy with his voluptuousness,

Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones,
Call on him for't': but, to confound such time,
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
As his own state, and ours, -'tis to be chid

As we rate boys; who, being mature in knowledge,

5

· purchas'd;] Procured by his own fault or endeavour. • So great weight in his lightness.] The word light is one of Shakspeare's favourite play-things. The sense is-His trifling levity throws so much burden upon us.

7 Call on him for't;] Call on him, is visit him. Says Cæsar - If Antony followed his debaucheries at a time of leisure, I should leave him to be punished by their natural consequences, hy surfeits and dry bones. JOHNSON.

Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgment.

Lep.

Enter a Messenger.

Here's more news.

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

Cæs.
It hath been taught us from the primal state,
That he, which is, was wish'd, until he were;

I should have known no less :

And the ebb'd man, ne'er lov'd, till ne'er worth love,
Comes dear'd, by being lack'd. This common body,
Like a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,9
To rot itself with motion.

Mess.

Cæsar, I bring thee word,

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,

Make the sea serve them; which they ear1 and wound With keels of every kind: Many hot inroads

They make in Italy; the borders maritime

Lack blood to think on't2, and flush youth3 revolt:

No vessel can peep forth, but 'tis as soon
Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more,
Than could his war resisted.

8 The discontents repair,] That is, the malecontents.

9 — lackeying the varying tide,] i. e. floating backwards and forwards with the variation of the tide, like a page, or lackey, at his master's heels.

1 which they ear— ] To ear, is to plough.

2 Lack blood to think on't,] Turn pale at the thought of it.

3 - and flush youth-] Flush youth is youth ripened to manhood; youth whose blood is at the flow.

Cæs.

4

Antony,

Leave thy lascivious wassels.* When thou once
Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer: Thou didst drink
The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;

Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
It is reported, thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which 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 cheek
So much as lank'd not.

Lep.

It is pity of him. Cas. Let his shames quickly

Drive him to Rome: 'Tis time we twain

Did show ourselves i'the field; and, to that end,
Assemble we immediate council: Pompey
Thrives in our idleness.

Lep.

To-morrow, Cæsar,

I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly
Both what by sea and land I can be able,
To 'front this present time.

Cæs.

Till which encounter,

It is my business too. Farewell.

Lep. Farewell, my lord: What you shall know mean

time

Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,

To let me be partaker.

thy lascivious wassels.] Wassel is here put for intemperance in general.

5-gilded puddle-] There is frequently observable on the surface of stagnant pools that have remained long undisturbed, a reddish gold coloured slime; to this appearance the poet here refers.

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN.

Char.

Why, madam?

Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of time,

Cleo. Thou, eunuch! Mardian!

Mar.

What's your highness' pleasure?

Cleo. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure

In aught an eunuch has: 'Tis well for thee,

That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts

May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?

Mar. Yes, gracious madam.

Cleo. Indeed?

Mar. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing
But what in deed is honest to be done:

Yet I have fierce affections, and think,
What Venus did with Mars.

Cleo.

O Charmian,

Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?

6

I knew it for my bond.] That is, to be my bounden duty. mandragora.] A plant of which the infusion was supposed to procure sleep.

7

+"O, 'tis treason!" — MALONE.