MENAS [aside] For this, I’ll never follow thy palled fortunes more.
Who seeks and will not take when once ’tis offered,
Shall never find it more.
POMPEY This health to Lepidus!
ANTONY Bear him ashore.—I’ll pledge it for him, Pompey.
ENOBARBUS Here’s to thee, Menas!
MENAS Enobarbus, welcome.
POMPEY Fill till the cup be hid.
[One lifts up Lepidus, drunk, and carries him off]
ENOBARBUS There’s a strong fellow, Menas.
MENAS Why?
ENOBARBUS A bears the third part of the world, man; seest not?
MENAS The third part then is drunk. Would it were all,
That it might go on wheels.
ENOBARBUS Drink thou, increase the reels.
MENAS Come. (2.7.76-86)
Menas is over this, annoyed with Pompey, but also frustrated and disillusioned: after all the fighting talk, here they are, all the officers (in effect) getting drunk together, their differences forgotten, the fighting men cheated of their battle and just having to go along with it. There can be a class dimension here, bitterness and anger at the kind of privilege that allows such compromises to prevail, such deals to be brokered. For this, I’ll never follow thy palled fortunes more: Pompey’s fortunes are palled because they’re diminished and weakened; he’s lost his promise by selling out, he’s over, and Menas is done with it. Because who seeks and will not take when once ’tis offered shall never find it more. Nothing ventured nothing gained: Pompey had his opportunity, he turned it down, and that’s it. No second chances, so far as Menas is concerned.
Pompey’s either oblivious or determinedly not listening, and not catching Menas’s eye, allying himself firmly with the triumvirate as he joins in the sport of baiting Lepidus: this health to Lepidus! and Lepidus is finally gone, completely incapable, so that Antony has to intervene: bear him ashore, take him away and let him sleep it off, he says, and in the meantime, I’ll pledge it for him, Pompey. I’ll drink on his behalf. (Antony is being carefully conciliatory, keeping Pompey onside; he’s also making the point, perhaps, that he has no problem keeping up with the drinking.)
It’s Enobarbus who has noticed that something’s up with Menas, and who takes care to bring him into the party. An eye for the outsider, partly, but also he’s in many ways the most politically savvy character on stage. Here’s to thee, Menas! Enobarbus, welcome. By the courtesies and rituals of the feast, Menas can, perhaps, be kept on side; he is, after all, a dangerous man. Pompey’s continuing to throw himself into the drinking, no going back now: fill till the cup be hid, he says, right to the brim. (A meniscus for Pompey.) Enobarbus can get Menas even more on side by being cynical about those in power, noting that—as the insensible Lepidus is carried off—that the servant or soldier (presumably) who carries him is a strong fellow, because a bears the third part of the world. One of the triumvirs, dead to the world; how are the mighty fallen (and how mighty are they really, therefore). For Enobarbus, everyone (except Cleopatra?) has feet of clay, he can’t be disillusioned. The third part then is drunk, responds Menas, bitterly and redundantly. (There’s just a hint of, I thought this was going to be a really classy party, you know, high level? But these are just drunken little men, getting drunker.) I wish the whole world were drunk, he continues, so that it could go on wheels, whirl faster and faster (or, perhaps, run smoothly). Well, you’d better drink more to help it along, suggests Enobarbus: drink thou, increase the reels. Nothing for it, mate, join in; help it to stagger along. And Menas seems, finally, to concede that, for the moment at least, drink is the only possible solution. Come. OK then.