Act 3, Scene 5

Athens. Another Room in ANTONY'S House.

[Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting.]
Enobarbus
1665 How now, friend Eros!
Eros
1666 There's strange news come, sir.
Enobarbus
1667 What, man?
Eros
1668 Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.
Enobarbus
1669 This is old: what is the success?
Eros
1670 Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey,
1671 presently denied him rivality; would not let him partake in the
1672 glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters
1673 he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him:
1674 so the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.
Enobarbus
1675 Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more;
1676 And throw between them all the food thou hast,
1677 They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?
Eros
1678 He's walking in the garden—thus; and spurns
1679 The rush that lies before him; cries 'Fool Lepidus!'
1680 And threats the throat of that his officer
1681 That murder'd Pompey.
Enobarbus
1682 Our great navy's rigg'd.
Eros
1683 For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius;
1684 My lord desires you presently: my news
1685 I might have told hereafter.
Enobarbus
1686 'Twill be naught;
1687 But let it be.—Bring me to Antony.
Eros
1688 Come, sir.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1669archaic vocab
“what is the success”
'Success' here means outcome or result, not a favorable one — Enobarbus is asking what happened next, not whether anyone succeeded. The word kept this neutral sense ('the success of the venture') well into the eighteenth century.
TLN 1671historical topical
“denied him rivality; would not let him partake in the glory”
'Rivality' means partnership or equal share — Octavius Caesar, having used Lepidus to fight Sextus Pompeius, then refused him any credit and arrested him on charges of treasonous letters to Pompey. 'The poor third is up' means imprisoned ('up' = locked up, confined). This is the historical end of the Second Triumvirate: with Lepidus deposed around 36 BCE, only Antony and Octavius remained to fight for sole mastery of Rome.
historical The Second Triumvirate
TLN 1675rhetorical device
“world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou hast, They'll grind the one the other”
'Chaps' (also spelled 'chops') are jaws — specifically the jaw-bones of an animal. Enobarbus pictures the world as a mouth with only two jaws left, Antony and Octavius Caesar; whatever the world feeds them, those jaws will end by grinding each other to pieces. It is a metaphor for a zero-sum struggle in which the former triumvirate's collapse leaves only two rivals, and compromise is impossible.
TLN 1678archaic vocab
“spurns The rush that lies before him”
'Spurns' means kicks — Antony is furiously pacing the garden, kicking aside the rushes strewn on the path. Rushes (dried hollow grass stems) were routinely scattered on the floors of houses and garden paths in the period; they were cheap, easily swept out, and served as a soft, fragrant surface. Eros is painting a picture of Antony in barely-contained rage, kicking at something utterly beneath him.