I lose myself: better I were not yours,

Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested, Yourself shall go between us: The mean time, lady, I'll raise the preparation of a war

Shall stain your brother; Make

So your desires are yours.

your soonest haste;

Thanks to my lord.

Oct. The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak, Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be As if the world should cleave, and that slain men Should solder up the rift.

Ant. When it appears to you where this begins, Turn your displeasure that way; for our faults Can never be so equal, that your love Can equally move with them. Choose your own company, Your heart has mind to.

Provide your going;

and command what cost

SCENE V.

[Exeunt.

The same. Another Room in the same.

Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting.

Eno. How now, friend Eros?

Eros. There's strange news come, sir,

3 Mr. Boswell suggests that, perhaps, we should read, 'Shall stay your brother.' To stain is not here used for to shame or disgrace, as Johnson supposed; but for to eclipse, extinguish, throw into the shade, to put out; from the old French esteindre. In this sense it is used in all the examples cited by Steevens: - here at hand approacheth one

Whose face will stain

you all.'

Tottel's Miscellany, 1568.

So Shore's wife's face made fowle Brownetta blush,
As pearle staynes pitch, or gold surmounts a rush.'

Shore's Wife, by Churchyard, 1593.

Whose beautie staines the faire Helen of Greece.'

Churchyard's Charitie, 1595.

the praise and yet the stain of all womankind.' Sidney's Arcadia.

Eno. What, man?

Eros. Cæsar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

Eno. This is old; What is the success?

Eros. Cæsar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality 1! would not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him: So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

Eno. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more 3;

And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? Eros. He's walking in the garden-thus; and

spurns

The rush that lies before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus! And threats the throat of that his officer,

That murder'd Pompey.

Eno.

Our great navy's rigged. Eros. For Italy, and Cæsar. More, Domitius; My lord desires you presently: my news

I might have told hereafter.

Eno.

"Twill be naught:

[Exeunt.

But let it be.-Bring me to Antony.

Eros. Come, sir.

1i. e. equal rank. In Hamlet Horatio and Marcellus are styled by Bernardo 'the rivals' of his watch.'

2 Appeal here means accusation. Cæsar seized Lepidus without any other proof than Cæsar's accusation.

3 No more does not signify no longer; but has the same meaning as if Shakspeare had written and no more: Thou hast now a pair of chaps, and only a pair. Cæsar and Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey on between them.' The old copy reads would instead of world, and omits one the in the third line of this speech.

Rome.

SCENE VI.

A Room in Cæsar's House.

Enter CESAR, AGRIPPA, and MECÆNAS.

Cæs. Contemning Rome, he has done all this; And more;

In Alexandria,—here's the manner of it,
I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd1,
Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
Were publickly enthron'd: at the feet, sat
Cæsarion, whom they call my father's son;
And all the unlawful issue, that their lust
Since then hath made between them.

Unto her
He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt; made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,

Absolute queen.

Mec.

This in the publick eye?

Cæs. I' the common show-place, where they exercise.

His sons he there proclaim'd, The kings of kings;
Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia, ·

He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: She

In the habiliments of the goddess Isis

That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience As 'tis reported, so.

Mec. Inform'd,

Let Rome be thus

Agr. Who, queasy with his insolence Already, will their good thoughts call from him. Cas. The people know it: and have now receiv'd His accusations.

Agr.

Whom does he accuse?

1 This is closely copied from the old translation of Plutarch.

Cæs. Cæsar: and that, having in Sicily

Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him
His part o' the isle: then does he say, he lent me
Some shipping unrestor'd: lastly, he frets,
That Lepidus of the triumvirate

Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain
All his revenue.

Agr.

Sir, this should be answer'd.

Cæs. 'Tis done already, and the messenger gone. I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel; That he his high authority abus'd,

And did deserve his change; for what I have conquer'd,

I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia,
And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I
Demand the like.

Mec.

He'll never yield to that.

Cæs. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.

Enter OCTAVIA.

Oct. Hail, Cæsar, and my lord! hail, most dear Cæsar!

Cas. That ever I should call thee, cast-away! Oct. You have not call'd me so, nor have you

cause.

Cæs. Why have

come not

you stol'n upon us thus? You

Like Cæsar's sister: The wife of Antony
Should have an army for an usher, and
The neighs of horse to tell of her approach,
Long ere she did appear; the trees by the way,
Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,
Longing for what it had not: nay, the dust
Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
Rais'd by your populous troops: But you are come
A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented

The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown
Is often left unlov'd: we should have met you
By sea, and land; supplying every stage
With an augmented greeting.

Good my lord,

Oct.
To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it
On my free-will. My lord, Mark Antony
Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted
My griev'd ear withal; whereon, I begg'd
His pardon for return.

Cæs.
Being an obstruct? 'tween his lust and him.
Oct. Do not say so, my lord.

Which soon he granted,

Cæs.

I have eyes upon him,

And his affairs come to me on the wind.

Where is he now?

Oct.

My lord, in Athens.

Cæs. No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire Up to a whore; who now are levying 3

The kings o'the earth for war: He hath assembled Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus,

Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king

Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas:
King Malchus of Arabia; king of Pont;
Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king
Of Comagene; Polemon and Amintas,
The kings of Mede, and Lycaonia, with a
More larger list of sceptres.

2 The old copy reads, abstract. The alteration was made by Warburton.

3 That is, which two persons are now levying, &c. Upton bserves, that there are some errors in the enumeration of the auxiliary kings: but it is probable that the poet did not care to be scrupulously accurate. He proposed to read

Polemon and Amintus,

Of Lycaonia, and the king of Mede.'

which obviates all impropriety.