ANTONY         The business she hath broachèd in the state

Cannot endure my absence.

ENOBARBUS  And the business you have broached here cannot be without you, especially that of Cleopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.

ANTONY         No more light answers. Let our officers

Have notice what we purpose. I shall break

The cause of our expedience to the Queen,

And get her leave to part; for not alone

The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,

Do strongly speak to us, but the letters too

Of many our contriving friends in Rome

Petition us at home.  (1.2.147-159)

What Fulvia has set in motion in Rome and in the empire, the business she hath broached in the state cannot endure my absence—I’ve got to go and sort it out, finish, or at least resolve, what she started. Enobarbus makes a last-ditch attempt at a bit of bawdy word play: the business you have broached here, what you’ve opened up and thrust into (sorry…)—that business can’t be without you either, especially that of Cleopatra’s (he doesn’t know where to stop, leave it implicit, Enobarbus) which wholly depends on your abode. She needs you, here, all the time. Insatiable, she is. No more light answers, that’s enough mucking around with words and the rest, retorts Antony, and he’s definitively back in blank verse, in contrast to Enobarbus’s lazy prose—he also switches to the first person plural, re-asserting his Roman power and authority as triumvir, and as general of the army. He’s giving orders now, not inviting comment. Let our officers have notice what we purpose; tell them that we must be ready to leave at once. I—however—shall break the cause of our expedience to the Queen. I’d better do that, at least, take responsibility, try to explain why this has happened so suddenly, so that she doesn’t hear it from anyone else but me. (The Queen, transforming Cleopatra to rank and title, not lover and name.) And I shall get her leave to part, get her permission—or at least make a formal leave-taking. (Good luck with that, Antony.) Now he’s over-explaining and justifying, as if he’s already rehearsing what he’ll try to say to Cleopatra, and anticipating how badly she’ll take it. It’s not alone the death of Fulvia, not just that, no, absolutely not—it was all the other circumstances surrounding it, even more urgent touches—and there are these letters, lots of letters, from many our contriving friends at Rome, they all know what they’re talking about, they’re smart and cunning, they know how to push my buttons, pull my strings. And they’re saying, begging us, come home. The near rhyming of Rome with home is interesting. That’s where Antony’s friends are, his family and closest allies. His compass is shifting; for all his dread of his next encounter with Cleopatra, he’s already making the break, the switch into Roman mode.