Page 2418 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

CÆSAR

Antony, [55]
Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew’st

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
Did famine follow, whom thou fought’st against,
Though daintly brought up, with patience more [60]
Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink
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, [65]

The barks of trees thou browsed. On the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this −
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now −
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek [70]

So much as lank’d not.

LEPIDUS
’Tis pity of him.

CÆSAR
Let his shames quickly
Drive him to Rome, ’tis time we twain

Did show ourselves i’ the field, and to that end
Assemble we immediate council; Pompey [75]
Thrives in our idleness.

LEPIDUS
To-morrow Cæsar,
I shall be furnish’d to inform you rightly

Both what by sea and land I can be able
To front this present time.

CÆSAR
Till which encounter,
It is my business too. Farewell. [80]