Didst mark that tigerish fop?
Well should I love to trap him! How soft he spoke! Ay, he purred like
a cat, and all the time he stretched his claws. Didst hear the letter,
too? it has an ugly sound. I know this Antony. When I was but a child,
budding into womanhood, I saw him; but my eyes were ever quick, and I
took his measure. Half Hercules and half a fool, with a dash of genius
veining his folly through. Easily led by those who enter at the gates of
his voluptuous sense; but if crossed, an iron foe. True to his friends,
if, indeed, he loves them; and ofttimes false to his own interest.
Generous, hardy, and in adversity a man of virtue; in prosperity a sot
and a slave to woman. That is Antony. How deal with such a man,
whom fate and opportunity, despite himself, have set on the crest of
fortune's wave? One day it will overwhelm him; but till that day he
sweeps across the world and laughs at those who drown."
"Antony is but a man," I answered, "and a man with many foes; and, being
but a man, he can be overthrown."
"Ay, he can be overthrown; but he is one of three, Harmachis. Now that
Cassius hath gone where all fools go, Rome has thrown out a hydra head.
Crush one, and another hisses in thy face. There's Lepidus, and with
him, that young Octavianus, whose cold eyes may yet with a smile of
triumph look on the murdered forms of empty, worthless Lepidus, of
Antony, and of Cleopatra.
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