I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead
Dercetus
I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.
Caesar
The breaking of so great a thing should make
A greater crack. The round world
Should have shook lions into civil streets
And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in the name lay
A moiety of the world.
Dercetus
He is dead, Caesar,
Not by a public minister of justice,
Nor by a hirèd knife, but that self hand
Which writ his honor in the acts it did
Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
Splitted the heart. This is his sword.
I robbed his wound of it. Behold it stained
With his most noble blood.
Caesar
Look you sad, friends?
The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings
To wash the eyes of kings.
Agrippa
And strange it is
That nature must compel us to lament
Our most persisted deeds.
Maecenas
His taints and honors
Waged equal with him.
Agrippa
A rarer spirit never
Did steer humanity, but you gods will give us
Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touched.
Maecenas
When such a spacious mirror's set before him,
He needs must see himself.
Caesar
O Antony,
I have followed thee to this, but we do lance
Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce
Have shown to thee such a declining day
Or look on thine. We could not stall together
In the whole world. But yet let me lament
With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts
That thou my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
Friend and companion in the front of war,
The arm of mine own body, and the heart
Where mine his thoughts did kindle—that our stars
Unreconciliable should divide
Our equalness to this.