Act 2, Scene 6

Near Misenum.

[Flourish. Enter POMPEY and MENAS at one side, with drum and trumpet; at the other, CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, ENOBARBUS, MAECENAS, with Soldiers marching.]
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1130 Your hostages I have, so have you mine;
1131 And we shall talk before we fight.
Octavius Caesar
1132 Most meet
1133 That first we come to words; and therefore have we
1134 Our written purposes before us sent;
1135 Which, if thou hast consider'd, let us know
1136 If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword,
1137 And carry back to Sicily much tall youth
1138 That else must perish here.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1139 To you all three,
1140 The senators alone of this great world,
1141 Chief factors for the gods,—I do not know
1142 Wherefore my father should revengers want,
1143 Having a son and friends; since Julius Caesar,
1144 Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,
1145 There saw you labouring for him. What was't
1146 That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire; and what
1147 Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus,
1148 With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,
1149 To drench the Capitol, but that they would
1150 Have one man but a man? And that is it
1151 Hath made me rig my navy; at whose burden
1152 The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant
1153 To scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome
1154 Cast on my noble father.
Octavius Caesar
1155 Take your time.
Mark Antony
1156 Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;
1157 We'll speak with thee at sea: at land thou know'st
1158 How much we do o'er-count thee.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1159 At land, indeed,
1160 Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house:
1161 But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
1162 Remain in't as thou mayst.
Lepidus
1163 Be pleas'd to tell us,—
1164 For this is from the present,—how you take
1165 The offers we have sent you.
Octavius Caesar
1166 There's the point.
Mark Antony
1167 Which do not be entreated to, but weigh
1168 What it is worth embrac'd.
Octavius Caesar
1169 And what may follow,
1170 To try a larger fortune.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1171 You have made me offer
1172 Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must
1173 Rid all the sea of pirates; then to send
1174 Measures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon,
1175 To part with unhack'd edges and bear back
1176 Our targes undinted.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1177 CAESAR, ANTONY, and LEPIDUS.
1178 That's our offer.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1179 Know, then,
1180 I came before you here a man prepar'd
1181 To take this offer: but Mark Antony
1182 Put me to some impatience:—though I lose
1183 The praise of it by telling, you must know,
1184 When Caesar and your brother were at blows,
1185 Your mother came to Sicily, and did find
1186 Her welcome friendly.
Mark Antony
1187 I have heard it, Pompey,
1188 And am well studied for a liberal thanks
1189 Which I do owe you.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1190 Let me have your hand:
1191 I did not think, sir, to have met you here.
Mark Antony
1192 The beds i' the East are soft; and, thanks to you,
1193 That call'd me, timelier than my purpose, hither;
1194 For I have gained by it.
Octavius Caesar
1195 Since I saw you last
1196 There is a change upon you.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1197 Well, I know not
1198 What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;
1199 But in my bosom shall she never come
1200 To make my heart her vassal.
Lepidus
1201 Well met here.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1202 I hope so, Lepidus.—Thus we are agreed:
1203 I crave our composition may be written,
1204 And seal'd between us.
Octavius Caesar
1205 That's the next to do.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1206 We'll feast each other ere we part; and let's
1207 Draw lots who shall begin.
Mark Antony
1208 That will I, Pompey.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1209 No, Antony, take the lot: but, first
1210 Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery
1211 Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar
1212 Grew fat with feasting there.
Mark Antony
1213 You have heard much.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1214 I have fair meanings, sir.
Mark Antony
1215 And fair words to them.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1216 Then so much have I heard;
1217 And I have heard Apollodorus carried,—
Enobarbus
1218 No more of that:—he did so.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1219 What, I pray you?
Enobarbus
1220 A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1221 I know thee now: how far'st thou, soldier?
Enobarbus
1222 Well;
1223 And well am like to do; for I perceive
1224 Four feasts are toward.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1225 Let me shake thy hand;
1226 I never hated thee: I have seen thee fight,
1227 When I have envied thy behaviour.
Enobarbus
1228 Sir,
1229 I never lov'd you much; but I ha' prais'd ye
1230 When you have well deserv'd ten times as much
1231 As I have said you did.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1232 Enjoy thy plainness;
1233 It nothing ill becomes thee.—
1234 Aboard my galley I invite you all:
1235 Will you lead, lords?
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1236 CAESAR, ANTONY, and LEPIDUS.
1237 Show's the way, sir.
Pompey (Sextus Pompeius)
1238 Come.
[Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS.]
[Aside.]
Menas
1239 Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this treaty.—
1240 You and I have known, sir.
Enobarbus
1241 At sea, I think.
Menas
1242 We have, sir.
Enobarbus
1243 You have done well by water.
Menas
1244 And you by land.
Enobarbus
1245 I will praise any man that will praise me; though it cannot be
1246 denied what I have done by land.
Menas
1247 Nor what I have done by water.
Enobarbus
1248 Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you have been a
1249 great thief by sea.
Menas
1250 And you by land.
Enobarbus
1251 There I deny my land service. But give me your hand, Menas: if
1252 our eyes had authority, here they might take two thieves kissing.
Menas
1253 All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.
Enobarbus
1254 But there is never a fair woman has a true face.
Menas
1255 No slander; they steal hearts.
Enobarbus
1256 We came hither to fight with you.
Menas
1257 For my part, I am sorry it is turn'd to a drinking. Pompey doth
1258 this day laugh away his fortune.
Enobarbus
1259 If he do, sure he cannot weep it back again.
Menas
1260 You have said, sir. We look'd not for Mark Antony here: pray you,
1261 is he married to Cleopatra?
Enobarbus
1262 Caesar's sister is called Octavia.
Menas
1263 True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.
Enobarbus
1264 But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.
Menas
1265 Pray you, sir?
Enobarbus
1266 'Tis true.
Menas
1267 Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.
Enobarbus
1268 If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not prophesy so.
Menas
1269 I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage than
1270 the love of the parties.
Enobarbus
1271 I think so too. But you shall find the band that seems to tie
1272 their friendship together will be the very strangler of their
1273 amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.
Menas
1274 Who would not have his wife so?
Enobarbus
1275 Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony. He will to
1276 his Egyptian dish again: then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the
1277 fire up in Caesar; and, as I said before, that which is the
1278 strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of their
1279 variance. Antony will use his affection where it is: he married
1280 but his occasion here.
Menas
1281 And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a health
1282 for you.
Enobarbus
1283 I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.
Menas
1284 Come, let's away.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1130historical topical
“Your hostages I have, so have you mine”
Before armies met, commanders exchanged hostages — typically officers or relatives — to guarantee that a parley would be conducted honestly and that any agreement reached would be honored. If talks broke down into treachery, the hostages could be executed. The exchange here formalizes the Misenum negotiation between the triumvirs and Sextus Pompeius.
historical The Second Triumvirate
TLN 1137archaic vocab
“carry back to Sicily much tall youth”
'Tall' here means brave or valiant, not physically large. Octavius Caesar is telling Pompey that accepting the offer will let him bring his fine soldiers home alive instead of dying in battle. The usage was common in the period.
TLN 1140historical topical
“The senators alone of this great world, / Chief factors for the gods”
Pompey sarcastically hails the three triumvirs as the only senators of the world — that is, its sole rulers — and its chief agents ('factors') on behalf of the gods. 'Factor' means a deputy or agent who acts on another's behalf. The mock-flattery is edged: Pompey implies the three men have seized what should be shared authority. The 'great world' translates the Roman concept of the orbis terrarum, the entire known world that Rome claimed to govern.
historical The Second Triumvirate
TLN 1142historical topical
“Wherefore my father should revengers want”
Pompey here is Sextus Pompeius, the young Pompey — NOT Pompey the Great himself, who is dead. He argues that his father, Pompey the Great, should not lack avengers, since Sextus is alive and has friends. Pompey the Great was Julius Caesar's rival; Caesar defeated him at Pharsalus (48 BCE) and he was then murdered in Egypt. His sons fought on, and Sextus now commands a powerful fleet as his continuing act of vengeance.
historical Pompey the Great
TLN 1143historical topical
“Julius Caesar, / Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted”
'Ghosted' means 'appeared to as a ghost.' Pompey says that the spirit of Julius Caesar appeared to Brutus before the battle of Philippi (42 BCE) — where Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Antony and Octavius — and that the triumvirs were fighting on Caesar's behalf there. 'The good Brutus' is Pompey's way of acknowledging that Brutus's motives, whatever one thinks of them, were principled.
TLN 1148historical topical
“courtiers of beauteous freedom, / To drench the Capitol, but that they would / Have one man but a man”
Pompey calls Brutus, Cassius, and the other conspirators 'courtiers of beauteous freedom' — servants devoted to the ideal of republican liberty. 'To drench the Capitol' means to soak it in Caesar's blood. 'Have one man but a man' means to keep Caesar merely human, not a king above the law. Pompey is invoking republican ideology: the assassins killed Caesar to prevent one-man rule, and that is the same principle Pompey invokes now against the triumvirs.
TLN 1173historical topical
“Rid all the sea of pirates; then to send / Measures of wheat to Rome”
The peace terms Pompey describes are the actual conditions of the historical Treaty of Misenum (39 BCE). Sextus was to clear the Mediterranean of pirates in exchange for control of Sicily, Sardinia, and Achaea; Rome in turn depended on Sicily for its wheat supply, so reliable grain shipments were a central demand. 'Targes undinted' means shields with no dents — i.e., swords sheathed and shields untouched, the idiom for making peace without fighting.
historical The Second Triumvirate
TLN 1184historical topical
“your brother were at blows, / Your mother came to Sicily, and did find / Her welcome friendly”
Pompey reminds Antony that when Antony's brother Lucius and Octavius Caesar were at war (the Perusine War, 41-40 BCE), Antony's mother Julia fled to Pompey's protection in Sicily and was hospitably received. Pompey is fishing for a return of gratitude from Antony as justification for the treaty. Antony acknowledges the debt: 'I have heard it, Pompey, / And am well studied for a liberal thanks / Which I do owe you.'
TLN 1192cultural context
“The beds i' the East are soft”
Antony wryly acknowledges that he was comfortable in Egypt with Cleopatra — 'the beds i' the East are soft' is an understated admission of his luxurious life there — but thanks Pompey for forcing him home sooner than he planned, because the crisis here has given him gain (specifically, the marriage alliance with Octavia). The line is the play's first oblique hint that Antony has not given up his Egyptian life.
historical The Ptolemies and Egypt
TLN 1198classical allusion
“what counts harsh fortune casts upon my face; / But in my bosom shall she never come / To make my heart her vassal”
Pompey uses the image of Fortune as a woman who keeps accounts ('counts') tallied in wrinkles on his face, but insists she will never reach his heart. Fortune was personified in classical and medieval tradition as a goddess who arbitrarily raised and cast down the great; here Pompey accepts her visible damage — the wear of years of war and hardship — but refuses to let her break his spirit. The image of Fortune as an inner conqueror rather than an outer one is a Stoic commonplace.
classical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 1210historical topical
“your fine Egyptian cookery / Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar / Grew fat with feasting there”
Pompey's compliment about 'fine Egyptian cookery' is a barbed one: it associates Antony with Egypt's legendary luxury and the softening of Roman men who spend time there. 'I have heard that Julius Caesar / Grew fat with feasting there' brings in Julius Caesar — not the present Octavius, but the dead Julius — to make the comparison pointed. This Julius Caesar was Cleopatra's earlier Roman lover, so Pompey implies Antony is following a well-worn path of Roman generals undone by Egyptian pleasures.
historical The Ptolemies and Egypt
TLN 1239historical topical
“Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this treaty”
Once the leaders have gone, Pompey's pirate captain Menas says bluntly what many in the audience already sense: Pompey the Great — the dead father, one of Rome's greatest commanders — would never have settled for a peace when he had the power of the sea. Menas implies Sextus has traded real military advantage for the prestige of dining with the triumvirs. The aside is a direct judgment that Pompey is making a political mistake.
historical Pompey the Great
TLN 1257rhetorical device
“Pompey doth / this day laugh away his fortune”
Menas's phrase 'laugh away his fortune' is a tight oxymoron: laughter and festivity are the instruments of loss. By choosing a feast over pressing his military advantage, Pompey turns the gaiety of the occasion into the mechanism of his own ruin. Enobarbus caps it with equal compression: 'If he do, sure he cannot weep it back again.' The exchange is the play's sharpest commentary on the gap between pleasure and power.
TLN 1268archaic vocab
“If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not prophesy so”
'Divine' here means to foretell or prophesy, from the noun 'divination.' Enobarbus says that if he were asked to predict whether the marriage between Antony and Octavia would hold the triumvirs together, he would not predict it would. The sentence is understated: he is saying flatly that the marriage will fail as a political bond. 'Unity' means the alliance between Antony and Octavius Caesar sealed by the marriage.
TLN 1271rhetorical device
“the band that seems to tie / their friendship together will be the very strangler of their / amity”
Enobarbus predicts with geometric clarity that the very thing meant to bind Antony and Octavius — Octavia, Octavius's sister, now Antony's wife — will eventually destroy their alliance. When Antony abandons Octavia and returns to Cleopatra, her brother's wounded pride will turn the marriage bond into a strangling cord. The image of the bond as strangler is an oxymoron built around the double meaning of 'band' (tie / constraint).
TLN 1275cultural context
“He will to / his Egyptian dish again”
Enobarbus calls Cleopatra Antony's 'Egyptian dish' — food he will always return to. The metaphor reduces Cleopatra to an appetite Antony cannot forgo, while also nodding to the scene's running theme of Egyptian feasting. 'He married but his occasion here' — meaning Antony married Octavia only because political necessity required it, not for love or lasting commitment.
historical The Ptolemies and Egypt