Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune. DOMITIUS 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? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS Caesar's sister is called Octavia. MENAS True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius. MENAS Pray ye, sir? DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS 'Tis true. MENAS Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together. DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS 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? DOMITIUS 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. DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt. MENAS Come, let's away.
Exeunt SCENE VII. On board POMPEY's galley, off Misenum. 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' the 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 the drink. First Servant But it raises the greater war between him and his discretion. Second Servant Why, this 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 OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY, LEPIDUS, POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MECAENAS, DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, MENAS, with other captains MARK ANTONY [To OCTAVIUS CAESAR] Thus do they, sir:
they take the flow o' the Nile By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know, By the 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. MARK ANTONY Ay, Lepidus. LEPIDUS Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun: so is your crocodile. MARK ANTONY They are so. POMPEY Sit,--and some wine! A health to Lepidus! LEPIDUS I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out. DOMITIUS 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, Ido beseech thee, captain, And hear me speak a word. POMPEY [Aside to MENAS] Forbear me till anon.
