Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Octavius Caesar, reading a letter,
Lepidus, and their Train. CAESAR
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 manlike 5
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 th’ abstract of all faults 10
That all men follow. | Back in Rome, Octavius Caesar conferences with Lepidus, another member of the triumvirate (group of three) that leads Rome. Caesar complains that Antony, the third member of the triumvirate, has been fishing, drinking, and partying in Egypt, instead of doing his duty to Rome. |
LEPIDUS I must not think there are
Evils enough to darken all his goodness.
His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,
More fiery by night’s blackness, hereditary 15
Rather than purchased, what he cannot change
Than what he chooses. | Lepidus tries to defend Antony, suggesting his faults are in his nature, maybe inherited, and that they’re not that big of a deal compared to his good traits. |
CAESAR
You are too indulgent. Let’s grant it is not
Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,
To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit 20
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,
To reel the streets at noon and stand the buffet
With knaves that smells of sweat. Say this becomes
him—
As his composure must be rare indeed 25
Whom these things cannot blemish—yet must
Antony
No way excuse his foils when we do bear
So great weight in his lightness. If he filled
His vacancy with his voluptuousness, 30
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, 35
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure
And so rebel to judgment. | Caesar’s not having any of it, though. He says it’s one thing for Antony to give up his manhood and follow a woman in drunken revelry, but he leaves too great a burden on the other two members of the triumvirate. Basically he’s been letting everyone down. This is no time for him to be fooling around in Egypt, there's serious business is afoot in Rome. |
Enter a Messenger. LEPIDUS Here’s more news. MESSENGER
Thy biddings have been done, and every hour,
Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report 40
How ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,
And it appears he is beloved of those
That only have feared Caesar. To the ports
The discontents repair, and men’s reports
Give him much wronged. 45 CAESAR I should have known no less.
It hath been taught us from the primal state
That he which is was wished until he were,
And the ebbed man, ne’er loved till ne’er worth love,
Comes feared by being lacked. This common body, 50
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide
To rot itself with motion. | A messenger enters with the news that Pompey’s forces at sea are strong. Worse, it turns out that Caesar’s men are defecting and joining Pompey’s army because they were only with Caesar out of fear, not out of loyalty. |
Enter a Second Messenger. SECOND MESSENGER Caesar, I bring thee word
Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, 55
Makes the sea serve them, which they ear and
wound
With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads
They make in Italy—the borders maritime
Lack blood to think on ’t—and flush youth revolt. 60
No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon
Taken as seen, for Pompey’s name strikes more
Than could his war resisted. | Even worse news arrives: the sea is overrun with pirates. |
CAESAR Antony,
Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once 65
Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew’st
Hirsius 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 70
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, 75
The barks of trees thou browsèd. On the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh
Which some did die to look on. And all this—
It wounds thine honor that I speak it now—
Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek 80
So much as lanked not. | Caesar wishes Antony, who has already proven himself as a soldier, would hurry up and get there, as they need his help. |
LEPIDUS ’Tis pity of him. CAESAR Let his shames quickly
Drive him to Rome. ’Tis time we twain
Did show ourselves i’ th’ field, and to that end 85
Assemble we immediate council. Pompey
Thrives in our idleness. LEPIDUS Tomorrow, Caesar,
I shall be furnished to inform you rightly
Both what by sea and land I can be able 90
To front this present time. CAESAR 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, 95
To let me be partaker. CAESAR
Doubt not, sir. I knew it for my bond. They exit. | Lepidus and Caesar agree to raise their forces together against Pompey, and presumably wait for Antony. |