I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service
as a partizan I could not heave.
as a partizan I could not heave.
Shakespeare
On board POMPEY'S galley, off Misenum
Music plays. Enter two or three SERVANTS with a banquet
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.
SECOND SERVANT. Lepidus is high-colour'd.
FIRST SERVANT. They have made him drink alms-drink.
SECOND SERVANT. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he
cries out 'No more! '; reconciles them to his entreaty and himself
to th' drink.
FIRST SERVANT. But it raises the greater war between him and his
discretion.
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 partizan I could not heave.
FIRST SERVANT. 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, LEPIDUS,
POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS, ENOBARBUS, MENAS,
with other CAPTAINS
ANTONY. [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. Y'have strange serpents there.
ANTONY. Ay, Lepidus.
LEPIDUS. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
operation of your sun; so is your crocodile.
ANTONY. They are so.
POMPEY.