ENOBARBUS
, , all ! I can behold no longer.
Th’ Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,
With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder.
To see ’t mine eyes are blasted.
Early modern literature
Drama, gender & the body
Modern spelling. Stage directions omitted.
ENOBARBUS
, , all ! I can behold no longer.
Th’ Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,
With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder.
To see ’t mine eyes are blasted.
SCARUS
Gods and goddesses,
All the whole synod of them!
ENOBARBUS
What’s passion?
SCARUS
The greater cantle of the world is lost
With very ignorance. We have kissed away
Kingdoms and provinces.
ENOBARBUS
How appears the fight?
SCARUS
On our side, like the tokened pestilence,
Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,
Whom leprosy o’ertake, i’ th’ midst o’ th’ fight,
When vantage like a pair of twins appeared,
Both as the same—or, rather, ours the elder—
The breeze upon her, like a cow in June,
Hoists sails and flies.
ENOBARBUS
That I beheld.
Mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not
Endure a further view.
SCARUS
She once being loofed,
The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,
Claps on his sea-wing and, like a doting mallard,
Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.
I never saw an action of such shame.
Experience, manhood, honour, before
Did violate so itself.
ENOBARBUS
, !
CANIDIUS
Our fortune on the sea is out of breath
And sinks most lamentably. Had our general
Been what he knew himself, it had gone well.
O, he has given example for our flight
Most grossly by his own!
ENOBARBUS
Ay, are you thereabouts?
Why, then, good night indeed.
CANIDIUS
Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.
SCARUS
easy to’t, and there I will attend
What further comes.
CANIDIUS
To Caesar will I render
My legions and my horse. Six kings already
Show me the way of yielding.
ENOBARBUS
I’ll yet follow
The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason
Sits in the wind against me.
Open Antony and Cleopatra in the 1623 First Folio. See its words in the cloud.
Modern spelling for reading. The edition is public domain in the United States. Edition source.