So does it no man else. - Mett'st thou my posts?
Alex. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick??

Cleo.

Who's born that day

When I forget to send to Antony

Shall die a beggar. - Ink and paper, Charmian. —
Welcome, my good Alexas. — Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Cæsar so?

Char.

O that brave Cæsar !

Cleo. Be choked with such another emphasis ! Say, the brave Antony.

Char.

The valiant Cæsar !

Cleo. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth, If thou with Cæsar paragon again

When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,

To say as I said then! But, come, away;

Get me ink and paper:

He shall have every day a several greeting,
Or I'll unpeople Egypt.

[Exeunt.

7 That is, so fast, or in such rapid succession. This use of thick occurs repeatedly. See vol. xi. page 190, note 1.

8 Paragon, substantive, is, properly, a model, or a standard of comparison, and is of course supposed to excel all that are compared to it. This is what Antony now is to Cleopatra. So to paragon is to compare; and here it is to do this in such a way as to imply inferiority in the object compared.

ACT II.

SCENE I. Messina. A Room in POMPEY'S House.

Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS.

Pom. If the great gods be just, they shall assist The deeds of justest men.

Mene.

Know, worthy Pompey,

That what they do delay, they not deny.

Pom. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays

The thing we sue for

Mene.

We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers

Deny us for our good; so find we profit

By losing of our prayers.)

The people love me, and the sea is mine;

My power's a crescent,2 and my auguring hope
Says it will come to th' full. Mark Antony

In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make

No wars without doors: Cæsar gets money where
He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,

Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,

Nor either cares for him.

Men.

Cæsar and Lepidus

Are in the field; a mighty strength they carry.
Pom. Where have you this? 'tis false.

Men.

From Silvius, sir.

1 Shall for will; the two being often used indiscriminately.

2 Pompey here speaks under the image of the Moon when crescent.

Pom. He dreams: I know they are in Rome together, Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,

Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip ! 3

Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!
Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks
Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite;

4

That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
Even till a Lethe'd dulness !-

Enter VARRIUS.

How now, Varrius !

Var. This is most certain that I shall deliver:

Mark Antony is every hour in Rome

Expected since he went from Egypt 'tis

A space for further travel.5

Pom.

A better ear.

I could have given less matter

Menas, I did not think

This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm

For such a petty war: his soldiership

Is twice the other twain. But let us rear

The higher our opinion, that our stirring

Can from the lap of Egypt's widow 6 pluck
The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.

Men.

I cannot hope 7

8 "Waned lip" is pale or faint-coloured lip; a lip that shows age or sickness; waned being a participle of the verb wane. - Salt here means lustful. So in Othello, ii. 1: "His salt and most hidden-loose affection."

4 To prorogue is to put off, to postpone. Here the meaning seems to be, "keep his sense of honour from being roused, till it sinks into a death-like lethargy." Till, in the next line, has the force of to; an old usage.

5 Since he left Egypt, there has been time enough for a longer journey. 6 To compose the tearing factions in the Egyptian Court, Cleopatra, at the instance of Julius Cæsar, had been married to her brother Ptolemy, who, not long after, was drowned.

Hope was sometimes used in the sense of expect.

Cæsar and Antony shall well greet together:
His wife that's dead did trespasses to Cæsar;
His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,
Not moved by Antony.

Pom.

I know not, Menas,

How lesser enmities may give way to greater.

Were't not that we stand up against them all,

'Twere pregnant they should square 8 between themselves; For they have entertainèd cause enough

To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
May cement their divisions, and bind up
The petty difference, we yet not know.
Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands
Our lives upon 9 to use our strongest hands.
Come, Menas.

[Exeunt.

Rome. A Room in the House of LEPIDUS.

Enter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS.

Lep. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
And shall become you well, t' entreat your captain
To soft and gentle speech.

Eno.

I shall entreat him

To answer like himself: if Cæsar move him,

8 Should is here used for would. See vol. vii. page 46, note 30.-To square is an old word for to quarrel; probably from the posture or attitude of a pugilist in squaring up to his antagonist. Shakespeare has the word several times in that sense, as he also has squarer for quarreller. Likewise in one of Leicester's Letters: How thinges have bredd this lytle square between these two so well affected princes, I cannot tell." - Pregnant, here, is evident, full of proof in itself. Repeatedly so.

9" It stands us upon" is an old phrase equivalent to the one now in use, "It stands us in hand." The phrase occurs repeatedly in North's Plutarch. Here the meaning seems to be, “Our lives depend upon our using," &c.; or, "it is as much as our lives are worth, that we use."

Let Antony look over Cæsar's head,
And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,

I would not shave't to-day.1

Lep.

For private stomaching.2

Eno.

'Tis not a time

Every time

Serves for the matter that is then born in't.

Lep. But small to greater matters must give way.
Eno. Not if the small come first.

Lep.

Your speech is passion :

But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
The noble Antony.

Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS.

Eno.

And, yonder, Cæsar.

Enter CESAR, MECENAS, and Agrippa.

Ant. If we compose well3 here, to Parthia: Hark ye, Ventidius.

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

1 That is, "I would meet him without any special making of my toilet, or any ceremony of respect." So, later in this scene, Enobarbus describes Antony as "being barber'd ten times o'er," when he first went to meet Cleopatra.

2 Stomaching, here, is resentment, or bearing a grudge. Shakespeare repeatedly has the noun stomach in the same sense. See vol. x. page 134, note 6.

3 If we come to a harmonious composition or agreement.