ENOBARBUS  Now he’ll outstare the lightning. To be furious

Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood

The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still

A diminution in our captain’s brain

Restores his heart. When valour preys on reason,

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek

Some way to leave him.

Exit      (3.13.196-202)

Initially it might seem as if Enobarbus is as fired up as Antony: now he’ll outstare the lightning! listen to Antony and his valour, as if he can both stare at the brightest of bright lights, making it blink first, and as if his eyes are flashier, brighter, more alarming than the lightning flash itself. (In the play’s very first lines, Philo described Antony’s eyes as having glowed like plated Mars in his glory days as a warrior.) Or—more likely, depending on his tone—is Enobarbus simply being his mocking, downbeat self? hark at that bravado. But it’s more than that; he can’t believe Antony’s hubris and his wilful self-deception any longer. To be furious is to be frighted out of fear: this is a kind of madness, a frenzy, which means that Antony’s no longer afraid of Caesar, he’s not thinking straight—and that’s really mad, and ridiculous. In that mood the dove will peck the estridge, utter folly, the small and mild bird, a near byword for prey, having a go not at the ostrich (although that would be ridiculous too, on the basis of size) but at the goshawk, a fearsome hunter. That the dove is brave and valiant makes not the slightest difference in such a fight: so it is with Antony and Caesar. Even more bitter, and more realistic, perhaps: I see still a diminution in our captain’s brain restores his heart. Yet again Antony’s not thinking straight, and as his ability to reason decreases, so he becomes more courageous, and more passionate. What’s notable is that, yet again, Enobarbus doesn’t name Cleopatra at all, either directly or indirectly. But this is her fault, he’s suggesting, at least in part; it’s she who makes Antony make such bad choices, be so hubristic and irrational. When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with. You can be as brave as you like, but if you don’t have a decent plan, if the odds are patently against you, if you lack all sense of policy and pragmatism—it’s just self-sabotage. You may die on your feet, in a glorious last stand, but you’ll die all the same.

I will seek some way to leave him. And that’s one of the play’s great turning points, a downbeat thud. Enobarbus, loyal and laidback to a fault, apparently giving up.