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Music plays. Enter two or three
SERVANTS with a banquet
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Music plays. Two or three SERVANTS
enter with a feast.
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FIRST SERVANT Here they’ll be, man. Some o’ their plants are
ill-rooted
already. The least wind i’ th’ world will blow them
down.
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FIRST SERVANT Here’s where they’ll end up, on the floor. Some of them are
leaning already. It won’t take much for them to fall over.
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SECOND SERVANT Lepidus is high-colored.
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SECOND SERVANT Lepidus is red in the face.
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FIRST SERVANT They have made him drink alms-drink.
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FIRST SERVANT They made him drink the leftover wine usually given to the
poor.
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SECOND SERVANT
5
As they pinch one another by the disposition, he
cries
out, “No more,” reconciles them to his entreaty and
himself to th’ drink.
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SECOND SERVANT Their various personalities grate on one another. Lepidus cries,
“No more arguing!” and then when they agree he resigns himself to
drink.
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FIRST SERVANT But it raises the greater war between him and his
discretion.
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FIRST SERVANT Which goes on to impede his judgment.
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SECOND SERVANT Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s
fellowship.
I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service
as a
partisan I could not heave.
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SECOND SERVANT That’s what happens when you partner with great men but lack their
power. I’d rather carry a reed that obviously can’t protect me than
a sword I cannot lift.
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FIRST SERVANT To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen
to
move in ’t, are the holes where eyes
should be, which
pitifully disaster the cheeks.
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FIRST SERVANT To be so unimportant in the company of important men is like
having a face without any eyes.
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A sennet sounded. Enter CAESAR,
ANTONY, POMPEY,
LEPIDUS, AGRIPPA,
MAECENAS, ENOBARBUS, and
MENAS, with other captains and a
BOY
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A trumpet call sounds. CAESAR,
ANTONY, POMPEY,
LEPIDUS, AGRIPPA,
MAECENAS, ENOBARBUS, and
MENAS enter, along with other captains and a
BOY.
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ANTONY Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o’ th’ Nile
By certain scales i’ th’ Pyramid. They know
By th’ height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
20Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells
The more it promises. As it ebbs, the seedsman
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
And shortly comes to harvest.
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ANTONY This is how they do it, sir: they measure the depth of the Nile,
according to certain marks made on the walls of the Pyramid. They
know by those measurements if there will be famine or plenty. The
higher the Nile flows, the better the harvest. As the river ebbs,
the farmer scatters his seeds on the remaining silt. The harvest
comes shortly after that.
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