ENOBARBUS.
’Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp
Than with an old one dying.
ANTONY.
Moon and stars!
Whip him. Were’t twenty of the greatest tributaries
That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them
So saucy with the hand of she here—what’s her name
Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,
Till like a boy you see him cringe his face
And whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.
THIDIAS.
Mark Antony—
ANTONY.
Tug him away. Being whipp’d,
Bring him again. This jack of Caesar’s shall
Bear us an errand to him.
[Exeunt Servants with Thidias.]
You were half blasted ere I knew you. Ha!
Have I my pillow left unpressed in Rome,
Forborne the getting of a lawful race,
And by a gem of women, to be abused
By one that looks on feeders?
CLEOPATRA.
Good my lord—
ANTONY.
You have been a boggler ever.
But when we in our viciousness grow hard—
O misery on’t!—the wise gods seal our eyes,
In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us
Adore our errors, laugh at’s while we strut
To our confusion.
CLEOPATRA.
O, is’t come to this?
ANTONY.
I found you as a morsel cold upon
Dead Caesar’s trencher; nay, you were a fragment
Of Gneius Pompey’s, besides what hotter hours,
Unregistered in vulgar fame, you have
Luxuriously pick’d out. For I am sure,
Though you can guess what temperance should be,
You know not what it is.