The Complete Works of William ShakespeareShakespeare, William
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The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William
English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
ANTONY.
Sir,
He fell upon me ere admitted, then.
Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
Of what I was i’ th’ morning. But next day
I told him of myself, which was as much
As to have asked him pardon. Let this fellow
Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
Out of our question wipe him.
CAESAR.
You have broken
The article of your oath, which you shall never
Have tongue to charge me with.
LEPIDUS.
Soft, Caesar!
ANTONY.
No, Lepidus, let him speak.
The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
Supposing that I lacked it. But on, Caesar:
The article of my oath?
CAESAR.
To lend me arms and aid when I required them,
The which you both denied.
ANTONY.
Neglected, rather;
And then when poisoned hours had bound me up
From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may
I’ll play the penitent to you. But mine honesty
Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
Work without it. Truth is that Fulvia,
To have me out of Egypt, made wars here,
For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
To stoop in such a case.
LEPIDUS.
’Tis noble spoken.
MAECENAS.
If it might please you to enforce no further
The griefs between ye; to forget them quite
Were to remember that the present need
Speaks to atone you.
LEPIDUS.
Worthily spoken, Maecenas.
ENOBARBUS.
Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you
hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to
wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.
ANTONY.
Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.
ENOBARBUS.
That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.
ANTONY.
You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.
ENOBARBUS.
Go to, then. Your considerate stone!
CAESAR.
I do not much dislike the matter, but
The manner of his speech; for’t cannot be
We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
So differing in their acts. Yet if I knew
What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge
O’ th’ world I would pursue it.
AGRIPPA.
Give me leave, Caesar.
CAESAR.
Speak, Agrippa.
AGRIPPA.
Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side,
Admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.
CAESAR.
Say not so, Agrippa.
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deserved of rashness.
ANTONY.
I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear
Agrippa further speak.
AGRIPPA.
To hold you in perpetual amity,
To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
With an unslipping knot, take Antony
Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of men;
Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
That which none else can utter. By this marriage
All little jealousies, which now seem great,
And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,
Where now half-tales be truths. Her love to both
Would each to other, and all loves to both,
Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke,
For ’tis a studied, not a present thought,
By duty ruminated.
ANTONY.
Will Caesar speak?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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