MAECENAS                If it might please you to enforce no further

The griefs between ye; to forget them quite

Were to remember that the present need

Speaks to atone you.

LEPIDUS                     Worthily spoke, Maecenas.

ENOBARBUS  Or if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

ANTONY         Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.     (2.2.100-107)

Maecenas speaks for the first time, seeing a gap opened up by Lepidus’s interruption and a chance to shift the direction of what’s become a closely personal argument between Caesar and Antony. If it might please you to enforce no further the griefs between ye, he says, very polite, but, in effect: can you both just get off your high horses and stop taking lumps out of each other? There’s a bigger picture here, and to forget them quite—the grievances, the grudges, the slights, real and imagined—were to remember that the present need speaks to atone you. The current situation, that is, the threat posed by Pompey, is urgent and also it’s giving you the chance to bury the hatchet, to put aside your differences, start again, and make amends. Lepidus approves of this intervention—this is, after all, a political summit, a council of war, and the situation is pressing: Worthily spoke, Maecenas. But Enobarbus can’t resist lowering the tone again and derailing the promising turn that the encounter could take, with a bit of cynical prose. Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. Just fake it now, for the sake of political expedience. Make nice with each other, swear loyalty and service, if not friendship—and then when Pompey’s dealt with, you can get back to hating each other and being bitter rivals. You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do; you can pursue your personal feud when there’s no proper wars on offer.

Antony’s not impressed: thou art a soldier only, speak no more. It’s a put down—shut up, for goodness’ sake, no one actually asked you, this isn’t quite the moment for banter—but it’s also an assertion of his own identity. Antony himself is a soldier, formerly at least a feared and renowned warrior, but he is also (as he’s just been demonstrating) a formidable orator and a wily politician. Enobarbus can never quite deal with that side of his character; he’s still in Alexandria, whereas Antony, as the rest of the scene will show, is now very much in Rome.