His practical shrewdness enables him, though of a very different nature from Cassius, to look, like Cassius, quite through the deeds of men. He always lays his finger on the inmost nerve of a situation or complication. Thus when Mecaenas urges the need of amity on the Triumvirs, Enobarbus’ disconcerting frankness goes straight to the point that the smooth propriety of the other evades:
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.
(II. ii. 103.)
Antony silences him, saying he wrongs this presence; but Octavius sees he has hit the nail on the head though in a somewhat indecorous way:
I do not much dislike the matter, but
The manner of his speech.
(II. ii. 113.)
Just in the same way he takes the measure of the arts and wiles and affectations of Cleopatra and her ladies, and admits no cant into the consolations which he offers Antony on Fulvia’s death:
Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice.... Your old smock brings forth a new petticoat; and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.
(I. ii. 167.)