CAESAR                      You praise yourself

By laying to me defects of judgement, but

You patched up your excuses.

ANTONY                                 Not so, not so.

I know you could not lack, I am certain on’t,

Very necessity of this thought, that I,

Your partner in the cause ’gainst which he fought,

Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars

Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,

I would you had her spirit in such another.

The third o’th’ world is yours, which with a snaffle

You may pace easy, but not such a wife.    (2.2.54-64)

Caesar’s stung, but he takes the fight back to Antony: you’re trying to exonerate yourself, make yourself look good, by telling me I’ve got it all wrong, that I’ve misinterpreted the evidence—defects of judgement—but you patched up your excuses. This is special pleading, a whitewash, a bodge job, threadbare camouflage after the fact. Not so, not so, protests Antony. I know you could not lack, I am certain on’t, very necessity of this thought—I’m positive that you must have known the truth, all along (Antony baffles and defuses with circumlocution, knotty syntax)—that I, your partner in the cause ’gainst which he (that is, Antony’s brother) fought, could not with graceful eyes attend those wars which fronted mine own peace. I was on your side when my brother was waging war on you; there’s no way I’d have looked favourably on such an affront, such a challenge to my own peace—both actual peace and peace of mind. I wouldn’t have stood for it! How can you even think it? As for my wife—well (and here Antony smoothly swerves from performative wounded pride and a bit of gaslighting (how could you ever even think such a thing?) into a bit of all-boys-together banter)—I would you had her spirit in such another. You should be so lucky to have a wife like that, so full of get up and go. You rule over a third of the world, and yet you could rule it as easily as you could ride a horse with a snaffle, rather than a curb bit, gently, light touch, light hands—but you just try telling a wife like mine what to do! (Implication: I know how to master a headstrong woman; you, Caesar, beardless boy, don’t have a hope.)