William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene VII
Music plays. Enter two or three Servants with a banquet
Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are ill-rooted already: the least wind i' the world will blow them down.
As they pinch one another by the disposition, he cries out 'No more;' reconciles them to his entreaty, and himself to the drink.
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.
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
To Octavius Caesar
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.
Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun: so is your crocodile.
Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are very goodly things; without contradiction, I have heard that.
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.
Aside to Menas
Do as I bid you. Where's this cup I call'd for?
Rises, and walks aside
Thou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove:
Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,
Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.
Are in thy vessel: let me cut the cable;
And, when we are put off, fall to their throats:
All there is thine.
And not have spoke on't! In me 'tis villany;
In thee't had been good service. Thou must know,
'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;
Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue
Hath so betray'd thine act: being done unknown,
I should have found it afterwards well done;
But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.
Aside
I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.
Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,
Shall never find it more.
Pointing to the Attendant who carries off Lepidus
It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain,
And it grows fouler.
But I had rather fast from all four days
Than drink so much in one.
To Mark Antony
And celebrate our drink?
Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense
In soft and delicate Lethe.
Make battery to our ears with the loud music:
The while I'll place you: then the boy shall sing;
The holding every man shall bear as loud
As his strong sides can volley.
Music plays. Domitius Enobarbus places them hand in hand
The Song.
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
In thy fats our cares be drown'd,
With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd:
Cup us, till the world go round,
Cup us, till the world go round!
Let me request you off: our graver business
Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;
You see we have burnt our cheeks: strong Enobarb
Is weaker than the wine; and mine own tongue
Splits what it speaks: the wild disguise hath almost
Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.
Good Antony, your hand.
Exeunt all but Domitius Enobarbus and Menas
These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!
Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
To these great fellows: sound and be hang'd, sound out!
Sound a flourish, with drums
Exeunt
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