Atia quotes from Rome

Atia

A large penis is always welcome.

Atia

The man has tears in his eyes. Tears!

Octavia

He loves me.

Atia

A womanish husband is no use to anyone. And your servants! What a fuss! I think you feed them too much.

Atia

By the Five Furies, if I were not a genteel woman, I'd have you flayed and hung from a bracket at the door! Castor!

Yes, domina?

Atia

Fetch the dogs!

Vorenus?

Is that it? Not the sullen Catonian one, I don't like him. The cheerful, brutish one.

[turning to go] Pullo.

Atia

What extraordinary names these plebs have. Pullo.

Atia

Octavian, have you penetrated anyone yet? Titus Pullo, didn't I tell you to get that sorted? What else?

Octavia

Perhaps you could arrange he kill someone.

Atia

That will happen in due course. We Julii always have the needful enemies.

Atia

Well this last news from Greece cannot have improved your appetite.

Mark Antony

Hardly.

Atia

And is it really so bad? Caesar always finds a way to win.

Mark Antony

Pompey's gathered ten men for every one of Caesar's. Arithmetic has no mercy.

Atia

Why would she want to see me? She hates me!

Mark Antony

So do I; that's no bar to friendship.

Antony

I've never fucked a woman in a funeral dress before.

Atia

Nor shall you now.

Antony

That's a shame. It'll have to be Merula then. [Atia's slave Merula stares in shock] Come here, old girl, jump on!

Atia

She'd eat you alive! Come on, this is no morning for foolery. Just get up.

Antony

[grabs Atia and tries to pull her into bed] Aw, come here.

Atia

Stop fooling around and get up!

Antony

I'm not rising from this bed until I fuck someone.

Atia

Fine, fine. Merula, fetch that German slut from the kitchen. [turns to her other slaves] And get it right or you'll be next for the King of Goats there.

Mark Antony

So what? What if it is true, huh? What are you going to do about it? There is nothing you can do about it.

I shall send my women to their house... [Antony scoffs] ...where they shall remain, in seclusion, under guard until I say otherwise.

Atia

I'll do no such thing--!

Silence. [to Antony] You. You shall leave this city.

Mark Antony

"Leave this city"?!

You shall go east to your provinces, and you shall not come back.

Mark Antony

[scoffs] Or else what, boy?

You shall leave this city or I shall declare that our alliance is broken. I shall have this sad story told in the Forum, I shall have it posted in every city in Italy, and you know the people are not so liberal with their wives as you are. They will say you wear cuckold's horns. They will say your wife betrayed you with a low-born pleb on my staff. You will be a figure of fun. The proles will laugh at you in the street. Your soldiers will mock you behind your back.

[whispers] Go on, strike me. See what happens.

Octavia

Today is your triumph as much as his. Mother to the First Citizen, you should be happy.

Atia

[softly] Hooray.

Octavia

All my life, I've watched you strive for this moment. Look at you... it's amusing, isn't it? I don't know what i shall do if you give up.

Excuse me?

Atia

Yes?

Oh, I don't mind really, but it is really I who should go first. If you consult the priests, I'll think you'll find the wife takes precedence.

Atia

I don't give a fuck what the priests say. I'll not let a vicious little trollop like you walk ahead of me. I go first.

I take no offense, of course. You are not yourself.

Atia

I know who you are. I can see you. You're swearing now that, someday, you'll destroy me. Remember that far better women than you have sworn to do the same. Go look for them now.