Act 1.2 !
Temple of Isis, goddess of fertility!
Enter CALPURNIA & PORTIA (with her sleeping 2 month old baby) to make an offering.
CALPURNIA
The goddess Isis would not deem deprive!
A fertile woman of her given right,!
In solidarity with certain guests!
Who pester us in Rome?
PORTIA
Not all Egyptians !
Desire to torment thee.
CALPURNIA
Can you be sure?
Perhaps I should have doubl'd sacrifice,
For I am Caesar’s wife; expectancy !
Around my offerings, may far exceed!
The paltry shows I bring.
PORTIA
Thy monthly gifts
Have grown in cost and size. The Nile o’erflows!
But once a year, her generosity
Enough to fill our Roman hoard of grain
‘til spring comes round again. I often fear,!
If thou conceiv’d the child that thou desire’st,
This temple would collapse.
CALPURNIA
Now Portia hush,
Thy skepticism may unfairly skew
The gift the Goddess of Fertility
Can manifest for one’s fidelity. !
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 3.2 Demetrius)
PORTIA
I simply seek to spare thee of more grief.
CALPURNIA
When forty winters shall beseige my brow,
And dig deep trenches in my beauty's field,
My youth's proud livery, so gaz’d on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask'd where all my beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of my youthful days,
To say, within mine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
