Enter Enobarbus and Lepidus

LEPIDUS         Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,

And shall become you well, to entreat your captain

To soft and gentle speech.

ENOBARBUS              I shall entreat him

To answer like himself. If Caesar move him,

Let Antony look over Caesar’s head

And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,

Were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard

I would not shave’t today.    (2.2.1-8)

So things are very much starting to move: here’s Enobarbus with Lepidus, apparently in Rome, Antony’s wingman being treated respectfully by Lepidus, who thinks that Enobarbus may have some particular influence over Antony in the negotiations which are clearly about to commence. He flatters him: good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed, and shall become you well, to entreat your captain to soft and gentle speech. It’d be really, really great, admirable, noble, and it’d make you look good too—perhaps even lead to appropriate recognition and reward?—if you were to ask Antony to bloody well behave himself, not fly off the handle, speak and listen politely. Any chance? Enobarbus knows he’s being played, and also that there’s slim chance of Antony either speaking emolliently, politely if he doesn’t feel like it (or think it warranted) let alone being persuaded to do so by him. I shall entreat him to answer like himself. That’s Antony–interestingly, perhaps, the old Antony, the bluff, plain-speaking soldier, rather than the effusive Egyptian lover, as well as the general and triumvir, Caesar’s equal. But, be warned, Enobarbus continues, if Caesar move him, if that young upstart pisses him off, gets under his skin, then be prepared for Antony to look over his head, talk over him, look past him, and speak as loud as Mars, shout at him and shout him down. That’s just how it goes. By Jupiter (Enobarbus is perhaps continuing, provocatively, to assert his own Romanness in his oaths, Marsand Jupiter in the space of two lines, the god of war and the king of the gods, attesting to Antony’s status in Rome too) were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard I would not shave today. It’s a round-about, brash way of saying, bring it on: if Antony doesn’t shave, then he’s inviting Caesar’s insults, to be plucked or grabbed by the beard—but he’s also perhaps setting Antony the mature leader (appropriately bearded in the finely calibrated hierarchy of early modern facial hair) against the scant or non-existent beard worn by Caesar, who might even be a beardless boy. There’s an image of stubborn jutting jaws, as the two men go (as it were) chin to chin. Enobarbus, is seems, is quite looking forward to it, and he’s not going to do Lepidus’s bidding by trying to defuse any confrontation or urging Antony to play nicely.