Page:Antony and Cleopatra (1921) Yale.djvu/28

16

Our great competitor. From Alexandria

This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes

The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike

Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy

More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or

Vouchsaf'd to think he had partners: you shall find there

A man who is the abstract of all faults

That all men follow.

Lep. 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 purchas'd; what he cannot change

Than what he chooses.

Cæs. 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 foils, 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,

 3 competitor: partner

11 enow: enough

19 keep the turn of: to take turns at

22 composure: disposition

24 foils: disgraces; cf. n.

31 rate: scold

