Antony and Cleopatra
Act II, Scene 7
On board Pompey’s galley, off Misenum.
Come, thou monarch of the vine
From: Songs of Shakespeare
H. C. Hoskyns Abrahall, 1865
- Music plays.
- Enter two or three Servants with a banquet.
Pompey’s First Servant
1 - 2- Here they’ll be, man. Some o’ their plants are ill rooted
- already, the least wind i’ th’ world will blow them down.
Pompey’s Second Servant
3- Lepidus is high-color’d.
Pompey’s First Servant
4- They have made him drink alms-drink.
Pompey’s Second Servant
5 - 7- As they pinch one another by the disposition, he cries out,
- “No more”; reconciles them to his entreaty, and himself to
- th’ drink.
Pompey’s First Servant
8 - 9- But it raises the greater war between him and his
- discretion.
Pompey’s Second Servant
10 - 12- Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship. I
- had as live have a reed that will do me no service as a
- partisan I could not heave.
Pompey’s First Servant
13 - 15- To be call’d 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.
- A sennet sounded. Enter Caesar, Antony, Pompey, Lepidus,
- Agrippa, Maecenas, Enobarbus, Menas, with other Captains.
Mark Antony
16 - 22- To Caesar.
- 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
- Or 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.
Lepidus
23- Y’ have strange serpents there?
Mark Antony
24- Ay, Lepidus.
Lepidus
25 - 26- Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
- operation of your sun. So is your crocodile.
Mark Antony
27- They are so.
Pompeius
28- Sit—and some wine! A health to Lepidus!
Lepidus
29- I am not so well as I should be; but I’ll ne’er out.
Domitius Enobarbus
30- Not till you have slept; I fear me you’ll be in till then.
Lepidus
31 - 33- Nay certainly, I have heard the Ptolomies’ pyramises are
- very goodly things; without contradiction, I have heard
- that.
Menas
34- Aside to Pompey.
- Pompey, a word.
Pompeius
35- Aside to Menas.
- Say in mine ear, what is’t.
Menas
36 - 37- Whispers in ’s ear.
- Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee, captain,
- And hear me speak a word.
Pompeius
38 - 39- Aside to Menas.
- Forbear me till anon.—
- This wine for Lepidus!
Lepidus
40- What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?
Mark Antony
41 - 44- It is shap’d, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it
- hath breadth. It is just so high as it is, and moves with it
- own organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the
- elements once out of it, it transmigrates.
Lepidus
45- What color is it of?
Mark Antony
46- Of it own color too.
Lepidus
47- ’Tis a strange serpent.
Mark Antony
48- ’Tis so, and the tears of it are wet.
Caesar
49- Will this description satisfy him?
Mark Antony
50 - 51- With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very
- epicure.
- Menas whispers again.
Pompeius
52 - 53- Aside to Menas.
- Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that? Away!
- Do as I bid you.—Where’s this cup I call’d for?
Menas
54 - 55- Aside to Pompey.
- If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear me,
- Rise from thy stool.
Pompeius
56- Aside to Menas.
- I think th’ art mad. The matter?
- Rises and walks aside.
Menas
57- I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.
Shall we dance now the Egyptian bacchanals and celebrate our drink?
Bacchus
Charles Lucy, 18th century
Pompeius
58 - 59- Thou hast serv’d me with much faith; what’s else to say?—
- Be jolly, lords.
Mark Antony
60 - 61- These quicksands, Lepidus,
- Keep off them, for you sink.
Menas
62- Wilt thou be lord of all the world?
Pompeius
63- What say’st thou?
Menas
64- Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That’s twice.
Pompeius
65- How should that be?
Menas
66 - 68- But entertain it,
- And though thou think me poor, I am the man
- Will give thee all the world.
Pompeius
69- Hast thou drunk well?
Menas
70 - 73- No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
- Thou art, if thou dar’st be, the earthly Jove.
- What e’er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,
- Is thine, if thou wilt ha’t.
Pompeius
74- Show me which way.
Menas
75 - 78- These three world-sharers, these competitors,
- Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable,
- And when we are put off, fall to their throats:
- All there is thine.
Pompeius
79 - 86- Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
- And not have spoke on’t! In me ’tis villainy,
- In thee’t had been good service. Thou must know,
- ’Tis not my profit that does lead mine honor;
- Mine honor, it. Repent that e’er thy tongue
- Hath so betray’d thine act. Being done unknown,
- I should have found it afterwards well done,
- But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.
Menas
87 - 90- Aside.
- For this,
- I’ll never follow thy pall’d fortunes more.
- Who seeks, and will not take when once ’tis offer’d,
- Shall never find it more.
Pompeius
91- This health to Lepidus!
Mark Antony
92- Bear him ashore. I’ll pledge it for him, Pompey.
Domitius Enobarbus
93- Here’s to thee, Menas!
Menas
94- Enobarbus, welcome!
Pompeius
95- Fill till the cup be hid.
Domitius Enobarbus
96- There’s a strong fellow, Menas.
- Pointing to the Attendant who carries off Lepidus.
Menas
97- Why?
Domitius Enobarbus
98- ’A bears the third part of the world, man; seest not?
Menas
99 - 100- The third part then is drunk. Would it were all,
- That it might go on wheels!
Domitius Enobarbus
101- Drink thou; increase the reels.
Menas
102- Come.
Pompeius
103- This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.
Mark Antony
104 - 105- It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels ho!
- Here’s to Caesar!
Caesar
106 - 108- I could well forbear’t.
- It’s monstrous labor when I wash my brain
- And it grow fouler.
Mark Antony
109- Be a child o’ th’ time.
Caesar
110 - 112- Possess it, I’ll make answer.
- But I had rather fast from all, four days,
- Than drink so much in one.
Domitius Enobarbus
113 - 115- To Antony.
- Ha, my brave emperor!
- Shall we dance now the Egyptian bacchanals
- And celebrate our drink?
Prompt book from Theatre Royal 1849 production of Antony and Cleopatra
Pompeius
116- Let’s ha’t, good soldier.
Mark Antony
117 - 119- Come, let’s all take hands,
- Till that the conquering wine hath steep’d our sense
- In soft and delicate Lethe.
Domitius Enobarbus
120 - 130- All take hands.
- Make battery to our ears with the loud music;
- The while I’ll place you, then the boy shall sing.
- The holding every man shall bear as loud
- As his strong sides can volley.
- Music plays.
- Enobarbus places them hand in hand.
- The Song
- Come, thou monarch of the vine,
- Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
- In thy fats our cares be drown’d,
- With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d!
- Cup us till the world go round,
- Cup us till the world go round!
Caesar
131 - 138- What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,
- Let me request you off, our graver business
- Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let’s part,
- You see we have burnt our cheeks. Strong Enobarb
- Is weaker than the wine, and mine own tongue
- Spleets what it speaks; the wild disguise hath almost
- Antick’d us all. What needs more words? Good night.
- Good Antony, your hand.
Pompeius
139- I’ll try you on the shore.
Mark Antony
140- And shall, sir, give ’s your hand.
Pompeius
141 - 143- O Antony,
- You have my father’s house—But what, we are friends?
- Come down into the boat.
Domitius Enobarbus
144 - 145- Take heed you fall not.
- Exeunt all but Enobarbus and Menas.
- Menas, I’ll not on shore.
Menas
146 - 149- No, to my cabin.
- These drums, these trumpets, flutes! What!
- Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
- To these great fellows. Sound and be hang’d, sound out!
- Sound a flourish, with drums.
Domitius Enobarbus
150- Hoo, says ’a. There’s my cap.
Menas
151- Ho, noble captain, come.
- Exeunt.
Come, thou monarch of the vine
From: Shakespeare's songs
Henry Ospovat, 1901