[Enter a second Messenger]

SECOND MESSENGER           Caesar, I bring thee word

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,

Makes the sea serve them, which they ear and wound

With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads

They make in Italy. The borders maritime

Lack blood to think on’t, and flush youth revolt.

No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon

Taken as seen; for Pompey’s name strikes more

Than could his war resisted.                        (1.4.47-55)

More wordy newsy stuff, and again directed solely at Caesar, rather than at both him and Lepidus. Caesar’s newsgathering and reporting systems are working well, but the news isn’t good: pirates! actual pirates! and it turns out that these two, the unhelpfully interchangeable Menecrates and Menas, are on Pompey’s side, and doing rather well. The dynamism of their description is a vivid contrast not just to the floaty, drifty way in which Caesar has just dismissed the fickle Roman people but also to Antony’s wallowing in apparent inaction. These two famous pirates (notorious, but the edge of camp is not unwelcome here, a bit of imagined moustache-twirling) make the sea serve them, dominating it utterly. They ear and wound it, plough it up (an image not just of strength and violence but of a kind of sexual power too, a particular threat to the bloodless Caesar) with keels of every kind, carving through the waves with all kinds of ships. Many hot inroads they make in Italy, again it’s an image of penetration, energy, passion—the momentum is with them—they’re raiding all along the coast—and the borders maritime lack blood to think on’t. Coastal territories are terrified, pale with fear. (Italy here is a body, blenching with terror at these incursions and these threats; the land’s bodily integrity is being violated.) Even more, flush youth revolt; the gallants, the young men, the adventurers, rather than defending their territory, are going over to Pompey too, taking a chance, having a go. (Or, alternatively, even the young men are afraid and run away.) The defences are failing, and no vessel can peep forth, no sooner is a ship launched against these attacks than it’s taken, boarded and lost—for Pompey’s name strikes more than could his war resisted. Even his name, even the threat of him is enough; it creates more trouble than open war, actual direct attacks which would have to be resisted. The mere idea and threat of Pompey is already causing enough chaos, drawing more and more men to his side.