MAECENAS    [to Enobarbus] Welcome from Egypt, sir.

ENOBARBUS  Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa!

AGRIPPA         Good Enobarbus!

MAECENAS    We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. You stayed well by’t in Egypt.

ENOBARBUS  Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.

MAECENAS    Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast and but twelve persons there—is this true?

ENOBARBUS  This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.                      (2.2.172-183)

With the bosses gone, the others relax, and it quickly becomes apparent that they all know each other or at least know of each other—of course they do, they’re all Romans, they’ve campaigned together, fought together. Maecenas starts off relatively formal—welcome from Egypt, sir (although he could play it ironically—sir? when mate would be more natural to them) but Enobarbus is characteristically more effusive, and he also demonstrates his political acumen, for instance that he recognises that Maecenas is half the heart of Caesar, very close to him, as well as Agrippa being his honourable friend. The stage is set for gossip and the swapping of inside information, and (initially at least) in familiar prose. It quickly becomes apparent that Antony and his stay in Egypt, and Egypt more generally, and Cleopatra especially, are the subjects of endless rumour and fascination. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested, suggests Maecenas; well, it’s a relief that that’s all over, and pretty well concluded, yes? (The culinary metaphor will return in a moment.) When he continues, you stayed well by’t in Egypt, he’s apparently speaking with approval: you’ve been successful, done well there? (Egypt, Egypt, the Romans say, that exotic, fascinating place.) Enobarbus is characteristically bathetic: well, you could say that, in that we did sleep day out of countenance (we slept all day, treating it as if it were night, making it change its appearance) and made the night light with drinking: night became light as day, light-headed, light-hearted, and morally light as well as physically bright. (A flashback to the partying scenes of the previous act.) Maecenas has certainly heard those rumours, and he’s after clarification and corroboration: eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast and but twelve persons there—is this true? I love this, in part anachronistically, because it immediately makes me think of Asterix and Obelix, but also because of the specificity and the way it forces calculation: eight between twelve, so, that’s how many legs each?? And roast pork was associated with feasting and festival in early modern England, perhaps most enduringly a few years after Antony and Cleopatra in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, where the roast hogs of the fair are at the heart of the play’s carnival and licence. The numbers don’t really matter, and Enobarbus neither confirms nor denies the specifics, but rather dismisses: pah, this was but as a fly by an eagle. That’s nothing (eagles don’t stoop so low as to bother with catching things as small as flies). We had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting. The food, the feasting, everything was amazing, exotic, over the top. Once again Egypt is the place of excess and strangeness; there’s a glance, too, at Caesar’s earlier lament for warrior Antony, the tough, fearless soldier who’d eat and drink anything in times of necessity on campaign (1.4: On the Alps it is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,which some did die to look on).