Page 2409 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had
you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented: this grief is crown’d with
[165] consolation, your old smock brings forth a new petticoat, and indeed
the tears live in an onion, that should water this sorrow.

ANTONY
The business she hath broached in the state

Cannot endure my absence. [170]

ENOBARBUS
And the business you have broach’d here cannot be without you, especially
that of Cleopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.

ANTONY
No more light answers. Let our officers

Have notice what we purpose. I shall break [175]
The cause of our expedience to the queen,
And get her leave to part. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too

Of many our contriving friends in Rome [180]
Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Cæsar, and commands

The empire of the sea. Our slippery people,
Whose love is never link’d to the deserver
Till his deserts are past, begin to throw [185]
Pompey the Great, and all his dignities
Upon his son, who high in name and power,

Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
For the main soldier: whose quality, going on,
The sides o’ the world may danger. Much is breeding, [190]

Which like the courser’s hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent’s poison. Say our pleasure,
To such whose places under us require,
Our quick remove from hence.

ENOBARBUS
I shall do’t.