ENOBARBUS  That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

ANTONY         You wrong this presence, therefore speak no more.

ENOBARBUS  Go to then; your considerate stone.

CAESAR          I do not much dislike the matter, but

The manner of his speech, for’t cannot be

We shall remain in friendship, our conditions

So diff’ring in their acts. Yet if I knew

What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge

O’th’ world I would pursue it.         (2.2.108-116)

Enobarbus is undaunted by Antony’s censure, and he seems to have had enough of this politicking and barbed exchange of insults: that truth should be silent I had almost forgot, heavily ironic, well, if you don’t want to listen to reason then, I’m only telling it like it is, what everyone’s really thinking, the only possible course of action. Antony pushes back, annoyed that Enobarbus is being so obtuse: you wrong this presence, therefore speak no more. Please, just shut up for once; read the room, you’re totally speaking out of turn and you’re disrespecting everyone here. There’s a time and a place and here and now is not it; know your place and shut up, in effect—but even that doesn’t seem to wound Enobarbus in his reply: well, go to then, get on with it; your considerate stone, I’ll be as silent as a statue—but I can still think and have my own opinions as to what’s going on here (considerate doesn’t mean polite and respectful here but rather suggests the process of consideration, thought). Perhaps an accompanying gesture as he zips his lips, clasps a hand over his mouth. Now it’s Caesar’s turn to take the opportunity afforded by the drift of the conversation, as he concedes that Enobarbus has a point, even if he laments his lack of diplomatic courtesy and due humility: it’s just the manner of his speech that I dislike, he says, the way he said it, but as for the matter of it, the substance of the suggestion he was making—well, yes, quite. It cannot be we shall remain in friendship: whatever solution we manage to patch up here to meet this current threat of Pompey, it’s not going to be a lasting one, and we’re going to fall out again. We’re too different in our personalities, our conditions and characters, and in how we go about things, how we manifest our characters in our acts. But still—and here Caesar both shows willing and demonstrates his pragmatism, despite his tendency to take the moral high ground—if I knew what hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge o’th’ world I would pursue it. It’s a wonderful and rather unexpected image for Caesar to produce at this point in the play, and at all: he imagines his relationship with Antony, and perhaps the state of the empire as a whole as a barrel, which must remain watertight, its staves held together by a metal hoop enabling the barrel in turn to hold water. It’s an image of tension and force, not just in the containing of water but in the bringing together of multiple parts into the whole, constantly pushing back against the hoop which holds it together, and being pushed by its contents in turn. Liquidity in the play more generally is associated with Egypt, especially when it is overflowing and abundant; Caesar says, in effect, we’ve got to work with that, we’ve got to find—to be—the means of containing that excess, that overwhelming force, even if only temporarily. I’d go to the ends of the earth, from edge to edge of the world (Caesar the bureaucrat sees the world as a map) I would pursue it, that strong bond, that powerfully cohering force. We’ve simply got to find a way of working together.