William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra

ACT II. 2. SCENE II. Rome. A Room in the House of LEPIDUS. (continued)

[Flourish. Exeunt CAESAR, ANTONY, and LEPIDUS.]

MAECENAS.
Welcome from Egypt, sir.

ENOBARBUS.
Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas!--my honourable friend,
Agrippa!--

AGRIPPA.
Good Enobarbus!

MAECENAS.
We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You
stay'd well by it in Egypt.

ENOBARBUS.
Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night
light with drinking.

MAECENAS.
Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve
persons there. Is this true?

ENOBARBUS.
This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more monstrous
matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

MAECENAS.
She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.

ENOBARBUS.
When she first met Mark Antony she pursed up his heart, upon the
river of Cydnus.

AGRIPPA.
There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised well for her.

ENOBARBUS.
I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion,--cloth-of-gold of tissue,--
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy out-work nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

AGRIPPA.
O, rare for Antony!