CAESAR                      No, sweet Octavia,

You shall hear from me still. The time shall not

Outgo my thinking on you.

ANTONY                     Come, sir, come,

I’ll wrestle with you in my strength of love.

Look, here I have you [embracing Caesar]; thus I let you go,

And give you to the gods.

CAESAR                      Adieu, be happy.

LEPIDUS         Let all the number of the stars give light

To thy fair way.

CAESAR                      Farewell, farewell.

[He kisses Octavia]

ANTONY                                             Farewell.

Trumpets sound. Exeunt [Antony, Octavia, and Enobarbus at one door, Caesar, Lepidus, and Agrippa at another]                   (3.2.60-67)

Even Caesar is perhaps getting the message that it’s really time to part now, as he reassures his sister that you shall hear from me still; I’ll write regularly! (This is, one recalls, a play full of messengers and letters.) The time shall not outgo my thinking on you; you’ll be in my thoughts constantly, all the time, he promises. Antony is, as ever, alert to questions of power and control; he needs to assert his primacy over Caesar in Octavia’s affections, at least in theory, and he also needs to dominate the way this encounter ends, which he does by using a kind of coercive humour. Come, sir, come, I’ll wrestle with you in my strength of love. Wrestle introduces a jocular physicality as well as male rivalry, and he might as well be saying to Caesar, drop! as he goes in for a big manly hug. I’m her husband and her first loyalty is now to me (this is a sentiment that a seventeenth-century audience would recognize): Antony’s saying I love her more than you do, but really he’s saying, she has to love me more than she loves you. Look, here I have you—crushing embrace—thus I let you go, and give you to the gods. Caesar cannot enjoy this, and must look supremely awkward; Octavia, sidelined again, might look embarrassed or resigned. Caesar’s adieu, be happy can be addressed either to his sister or to Antony or both; it’s sometimes played for laughs as he says it with a sob and a sniffle, although there can surely be a darker undercurrent if he realises anew what he’s doing, sacrificing the happiness of an apparently beloved sister to political expediency. Or it can take an admonitory, defiant note, if directed to Antony: watch yourself, look after her, keep her happiness in view. In his only line in the scene, the much mocked Lepidus makes an extravagant compliment to Octavia, at odds with the tensions of the rest of the exchange: let all the number of the stars give light to thy fair way. It makes the generation gap between Lepidus and the rest all the more apparent, that flowery old-fashioned courtesy. Oh hell, don’t let him start, might be the subtext of Caesar’s farewell, farewell and Antony’s farewell in response—or else that might be all Caesar can manage through his tears, Antony’s reply amused, or brusque, for heaven’s sake, let’s just get out of here. Octavia might weep throughout, although it diminishes her power and complexity to make her so pathetic—but it’s notable that she says nothing as the scene ends. And off they go in their different directions, with or without backward glances, and speaking looks from Enobarbus and Agrippa. (Enobarbus is perhaps whistling ‘Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye’.)