SECOND SERVANT    Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan I could not heave.

FIRST SERVANT         To be called into a huge sphere and not to be seen to move in’t, are the holes where eyes should be which pitifully disaster the cheeks.     (2.7.10-15)

Wise words from these anonymous servants, as they contemplate the vagaries and illusions of power and reputation. Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship. Here’s old Lepidus, named as one of the triumvirs, on paper one of the three most powerful men in the world. And what good does it do him? He hasn’t got a hope of living up to that title, of fulfilling that responsibility, wielding that power. For myself, continues the servant, I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan I could not heave. I’d rather have no power at all, or as near as, flimsy and weak as a reed, good for nothing, useless in a fight, as a partisan I could not heave, a spear too heavy and cumbersome for me even to lift. You’ve got to be able to act the part, he says, no good if you can’t manage it, if you’re constantly tripping over the shoes you’re meant to fill. And his colleague agrees: to be called into a huge sphere—to have greatness thrust upon you (in Malvolio’s terms), to be given that big promotion or elected into the highest office—if you can’t be seen to move in’t, if you can’t cope, if you can’t perform and live up to it, play the part—and especially if you’re overlooked, if it’s all too clear that (like Lepidus) you’re not being consulted by your peers, the power you have is yours in name only—well, you’re like eye-sockets without eyes, merely the holes where eyes should be. You’re marring the whole enterprise—here, the institution of the triumvirate—disfiguring its face, pitifully disastering the cheeks. (Lepidus can be a pathetic figure here.) Not just weak but damaging, an impairment which influences everything, here including the functioning and the reputation of the triumvirate, and so the empire itself. Wise words indeed: Lepidus is the butt of the joke in this scene, but it’s been established already that his weakness affects everything, and it also draws attention to the vulnerability of the triumvirate as a whole, and the problem of reputation, of not being able to perform or live up to a name, a legend, a promise in general—which is one of the play’s central concerns.