LEPIDUS. Your speech is passion; But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes The noble Antony. Enter Antony and Ventidius. ENOBARBUS. And yonder Caesar. Enter Caesar, Maecenas and Agrippa. ANTONY. If we compose well here, to Parthia. Hark, Ventidius. CAESAR. I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa. LEPIDUS. Noble friends, That which combined us was most great, and let not A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss, May it be gently heard. When we debate Our trivial difference loud, we do commit Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners, The rather for I earnestly beseech, Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms, Nor curstness grow to th’ matter. ANTONY. ’Tis spoken well. Were we before our armies, and to fight, I should do thus. CAESAR. Welcome to Rome. ANTONY. Thank you. CAESAR. Sit. ANTONY. Sit, sir. CAESAR. Nay, then. ANTONY. I learn you take things ill which are not so, Or being, concern you not. CAESAR. I must be laughed at If, or for nothing or a little, I Should say myself offended, and with you Chiefly i’ th’ world; more laughed at that I should Once name you derogately when to sound your name It not concerned me. ANTONY. My being in Egypt, Caesar, What was’t to you? CAESAR. No more than my residing here at Rome Might be to you in Egypt. Yet if you there Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt Might be my question. ANTONY. How intend you, practised? CAESAR. You may be pleased to catch at mine intent By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother Made wars upon me, and their contestation Was theme for you; you were the word of war. ANTONY. You do mistake your business. My brother never Did urge me in his act. I did inquire it, And have my learning from some true reports That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather Discredit my authority with yours, And make the wars alike against my stomach, Having alike your cause? Of this my letters Before did satisfy you. If you’ll patch a quarrel, As matter whole you have not to make it with, It must not be with this. CAESAR. You praise yourself By laying defects of judgment to me; but You patched up your excuses. ANTONY. Not so, not so. I know you could not lack—I am certain on’t— Very necessity of this thought, that I, Your partner in the cause ’gainst which he fought, Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife, I would you had her spirit in such another. The third o’ th’ world is yours, which with a snaffle You may pace easy, but not such a wife. ENOBARBUS. Would we had all such wives, that the men Might go to wars with the women. ANTONY. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar, Made out of her impatience—which not wanted Shrewdness of policy too—I grieving grant Did you too much disquiet. For that you must But say I could not help it. CAESAR. I wrote to you When rioting in Alexandria; you Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts Did gibe my missive out of audience.