To make my heart her vassal.

LEPIDUS

Well met here.

POMPEY

I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed.

I crave our composition may be written

And sealed between us.

CAESAR

That’s the next to do.

POMPEY

We’ll feast each other ere we part, and let’s

Draw lots who shall begin.

ANTONY That will I, Pompey.

POMPEY No, Antony, take the lot.

But, first or last, your fine Egyptian cookery

Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar

Grew fat with feasting there.

ANTONY

You have heard much.

POMPEY I have fair meanings, sir.

ANTONY And fair words to them.

POMPEY Then so much have I heard,

And I have heard Apollodorus carried—

ENOBARBUS

No more o’ that, he did so.

POMPEY

What, I pray you?

ENOBARBUS

A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.

POMPEY

I know thee now. How far’st thou, soldier?

ENOBARBUS

Well, and well am like to do, for I perceive

Four feasts are toward.

POMPEY

Let me shake thy hand.

Pompey and Enobarbus shake hands

I never hated thee. I have seen thee fight

When I have envied thy behaviour.

ENOBARBUS

Sir, I never loved you much, but I ha’ praised ye

When you have well deserved ten times as much

As I have said you did.

POMPEY

Enjoy thy plainness. It nothing ill becomes thee.

Aboard my galley I invite you all.

Will you lead, lords?

CAESAR, ANTONY, and LEPIDUS Show’s the way, sir.

POMPEY

Come.

Exeunt all but Enobarbus and Menas

MENAS (aside)

Thy father, Pompey, would ne’er have made this

treaty.

(To Enobarbus) You and I have known, sir.

ENOBARBUS At sea, I think.

MENAS We have, sir.

ENOBARBUS You have done well by water.

MENAS And you by land.

ENOBARBUS I will praise any man that will praise me, though it cannot be denied what I have done by land.

MENAS Nor what I have done by water.

ENOBARBUS Yes, something you can deny for your own safety. You have been a great thief by sea.

MENAS And you by land.

ENOBARBUS There I deny my land service; but give me your hand, Menas. If our eyes had authority, here they might take two thieves kissing.

They shake hands

MENAS All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are.

ENOBARBUS But there is never a fair woman has a true face.

MENAS No slander; they steal hearts.

ENOBARBUS We came hither to fight with you.

MENAS For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking.

Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

ENOBARBUS If he do, sure he cannot weep’t back again.

MENAS You’ve said, sir. We looked not for Mark Antony here. Pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?

ENOBARBUS Caesar’s sister is called Octavia.

MENAS True, sir. She was the wife of Caius Marcellus.

ENOBARBUS But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.

MENAS Pray ye, sir?

ENOBARBUS ’Tis true.

MENAS Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.

ENOBARBUS If I were bound to divine of this unity I would not prophesy so.

MENAS I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage than the love of the parties.

ENOBARBUS I think so, too. But you shall find the band that seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity. Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.

MENAS Who would not have his wife so?

ENOBARBUS Not he that himself is not so, which is Mark Antony. He will to his Egyptian dish again; then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar, and, as I said before, that which is the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is. He married but his occasion here.

MENAS And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a health for you.

ENOBARBUS I shall take it, sir. We have used our throats in Egypt.

MENAS Come, let’s away.

Exeunt

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

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

SECOND SERVANT Lepidus is high-coloured.

FIRST SERVANT They have made him drink alms-drink.

SECOND SERVANT As they pinch one another by the disposition, he cries out ‘No more!’—reconciles them to his entreaty and himself to th’ drink.

FIRST SERVANT But it raises the greater war between him and his discretion.

SECOND SERVANT Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan I could not heave.

FIRST SERVANT To be called into a huge sphere and not to be seen to move in’t, are the holes where eyes should be which pitifully disaster the cheeks.

A sennet sounded. Enter Caesar, Antony, Pompey, Lepidus, Agrippa, Maecenas,.Enobarbus, and Menas, with other captains ⌈and a boy⌉

ANTONY (to Caesar)

Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o’th’ Nile

By certain scales i’th’ pyramid. They know

By th’ height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth

Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells

The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman

Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,

And shortly comes to harvest.

LEPIDUS You’ve strange serpents there?

ANTONY Ay, Lepidus.

LEPIDUS Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun; so is your crocodile.

ANTONY They are so.

POMPEY

Sit, and some wine. A health to Lepidus!

⌈Antony, Pompey, and Lepidus sit⌉

LEPIDUS I am not so well as I should be, but I’ll ne’er out.

ENOBARBUS Not till you have slept—I fear me you’ll be in till then.

LEPIDUS Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies’ pyramises are very goodly things: without contradiction I have heard that.

MENAS (aside to Pompey)

Pompey, a word.

POMPEY (aside to Menas) Say in mine ear; what is’t?

MENAS (aside to Pompey)

Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee, captain,

And hear me speak a word.

POMPEY (aside to Menas) Forbear me till anon.

(Aloud) This wine for Lepidus!

Menas whispers in Pompey’s ear

LEPIDUS What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?

ANTONY It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad as it hath breadth. It is just so high as it is, and moves with it own organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.

LEPIDUS What colour is it of?

ANTONY Of it own colour, too.

LEPIDUS ’Tis a strange serpent.

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

CAESAR (to Antony)

Will this description satisfy him?

ANTONY With the health that Pompey gives him; else he is a very epicure.

POMPEY (aside to Menas)

Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that? Away,