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.      (2.2.126-132)   Agrippa is […]

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.         (2.2.117-125) […]

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 diff’ring in their acts. […]

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 spoke, 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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

CAESAR                      I wrote to you When, rioting in Alexandria, you Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts Did gibe my missive out of audience. 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 […]

ENOBARBUS  Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women. ANTONY         So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar, Made out of her impatience—which not wanted Shrewdness of policy too—I grieving grant Did you too much disquiet, for that you must But say I could not help it.   (2.2.65-71)   Enobarbus […]

CAESAR                      You praise yourself By laying to me defects of judgement, but You patched up your excuses. ANTONY                                 Not so, not so. I know you could not lack, I am certain on’t, Very necessity of this thought, that I, Your partner in the cause ’gainst which he fought, Could not with graceful eyes attend those […]

ANTONY         You do mistake the business. My brother never Did urge me in his act. I did enquire it, And have my learning from some true reports That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather Discredit my authority with yours, And make the wars alike against my stomach, Having alike your cause? Of […]