Speeches (Lines) for LEPIDUS in "Antony and Cleopatra"

OCTAVIUS. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate
Our great competitor: from Alexandria
This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel; is not more man-like
Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy
More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or
Vouchsafed to think he had partners: you shall find there
A man who is the abstract of all faults
That all men follow.

LEPIDUS. I must not think there are
Evils enow to darken all his goodness:
His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,
More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary,
Rather than purchased; what he cannot change,
Than what he chooses.

OCTAVIUS. You are too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not
Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;
To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;
To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
With knaves that smell of sweat: say this
becomes him,--
As his composure must be rare indeed
Whom these things cannot blemish,--yet must Antony
No way excuse his soils, when we do bear
So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd
His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones,
Call on him for't: but to confound such time,
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
As his own state and ours,--'tis to be chid
As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgment.

LEPIDUS. Here's more news.

OCTAVIUS. Antony,
Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer: thou didst drink
The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this--
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now--
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank'd not.

LEPIDUS. 'Tis pity of him.

OCTAVIUS. Let his shames quickly
Drive him to Rome: 'tis time we twain
Did show ourselves i' the field; and to that end
Assemble we immediate council: Pompey
Thrives in our idleness.

LEPIDUS. To-morrow, Caesar,
I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly
Both what by sea and land I can be able
To front this present time.

OCTAVIUS. Till which encounter,
It is my business too. Farewell.

LEPIDUS. Farewell, my lord: what you shall know meantime
Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,
To let me be partaker.

POMPEY. 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 between
themselves;
For they have entertained 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 to use our strongest hands.
Come, Menas.

LEPIDUS. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
To soft and gentle speech.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS. I shall entreat him
To answer like himself: if Caesar move him,
Let Antony look over Caesar's head
And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,
I would not shave't to-day.

LEPIDUS. 'Tis not a time
For private stomaching.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS. Every time
Serves for the matter that is then born in't.

LEPIDUS. But small to greater matters must give way.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS. Not if the small come first.

LEPIDUS. Your speech is passion:
But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes
The noble Antony.

OCTAVIUS. I do not know,
Mecaenas; 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 the matter.

OCTAVIUS. You have broken
The article of your oath; which you shall never
Have tongue to charge me with.

LEPIDUS. Soft, Caesar!

ANTONY. Neglected, rather;
And then when poison'd 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.

MECAENAS. 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, Mecaenas.

OCTAVIUS. There is my hand.
A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
Did ever love so dearly: let her live
To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never
Fly off our loves again!

LEPIDUS. Happily, amen!

ANTONY. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;
For he hath laid strange courtesies and great
Of late upon me: I must thank him only,
Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;
At heel of that, defy him.

LEPIDUS. Time calls upon's:
Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
Or else he seeks out us.

ANTONY. Let us, Lepidus,
Not lack your company.

LEPIDUS. Noble Antony,
Not sickness should detain me.
[Flourish. Exeunt OCTAVIUS CAESAR, MARK ANTONY,]
and LEPIDUS]

ANTONY. Get thee gone:
Say to Ventidius I would speak with him:
[Exit Soothsayer]
He shall to Parthia. Be it art or hap,
He hath spoken true: the very dice obey him;
And in our sports my better cunning faints
Under his chance: if we draw lots, he speeds;
His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt:
And though I make this marriage for my peace,
I' the east my pleasure lies.
[Enter VENTIDIUS]
O, come, Ventidius,
You must to Parthia: your commission's ready;
Follow me, and receive't.

LEPIDUS. Trouble yourselves no further: pray you, hasten
Your generals after.

AGRIPPA. Sir, Mark Antony
Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.

LEPIDUS. Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,
Which will become you both, farewell.

MECAENAS. We shall,
As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount
Before you, Lepidus.

LEPIDUS. Your way is shorter;
My purposes do draw me much about:
You'll win two days upon me.

MECAENAS. [with Agrippa] Sir, good success!

LEPIDUS. Farewell.

POMPEY. At land, indeed,
Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house:
But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
Remain in't as thou mayst.

LEPIDUS. Be pleased to tell us--
For this is from the present--how you take
The offers we have sent you.

POMPEY. Well, I know not
What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;
But in my bosom shall she never come,
To make my heart her vassal.

LEPIDUS. Well met here.

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.

ANTONY. Ay, Lepidus.

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

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.

POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Forbear me till anon.
This wine for Lepidus!

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 its 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.

OCTAVIUS. Adieu; be happy!

LEPIDUS. Let all the number of the stars give light
To thy fair way!