act 2, scene 1
Messina. A Room in POMPEY'S house.

[Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS.]

POMPEY.
If the great gods be just, they shall assist
The deeds of justest men.

MENECRATES.
Know, worthy Pompey,
That what they do delay they not deny.

POMPEY.
Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays
The thing we sue for.

MENECRATES.
We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.

POMPEY.
I shall do well;
The people love me, and the sea is mine;
My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
Says it will come to the full. Mark Antony
In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make
No wars without doors: Caesar gets money where
He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,
Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves
Nor either cares for him.

MENAS.
Caesar and Lepidus
Are in the field: a mighty strength they carry.

POMPEY.
Where have you this? 'tis false.

MENAS.
From Silvius, sir.

POMPEY.
He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,
Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,
Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan'd lip!
Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!
Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks
Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite;
That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
Even till a Lethe'd dullness.

[Enter VARRIUS.]

How now, Varrius!

VARRIUS.
This is most certain that I shall deliver:--
Mark Antony is every hour in Rome
Expected: since he went from Egypt 'tis
A space for further travel.

POMPEY.
I could have given less matter
A better ear.--Menas, I did not think
This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm
For such a petty war; his soldiership
Is twice the other twain: but let us rear
The higher our opinion, that our stirring
Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck
The ne'er lust-wearied Antony.

MENAS.
I cannot hope
Caesar and Antony shall well greet together:
His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;
His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,
Not mov'd by Antony.

POMPEY.
I know not, Menas,
How lesser enmities may give way to greater.
Were't not that we stand up against them all,
'Twere pregnant they should square between themselves;
For they have entertained cause enough
To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
May cement their divisions, and bind up
The petty difference, we yet not know.
Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands
Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.
Come, Menas.

[Exeunt.]
gradesaver
Messina. Pompey's house. Pompey discusses strategy with his men, Menas and Menecrates, confidently assessing his fortunes. When Menas reports that Lepidus and Octavius Caesar are in the field against him, Pompey dismisses it: they wait in Rome, helpless without Antony. Pompey is counting on Antony to stay in Egypt with Cleopatra. Varrius enters with bad news: Antony has returned. Pompey is distressed, as Antony is by far the best soldier of the triumvirate. Menas hopes that Antony and Octavius will not be able to work together, due to the fact that Antony's brother and late wife warred against Octavius, but Pompey points out that natural enemies may band together against a common threat
cliffnotes
In this scene, set in the insurrectionists' camp, Pompey , a rival general of the Triumvirate, plans his strategy with two of his officers, the sea pirates Menas and Menecrates. Pompey brags that he shall do well. Menas, however, is cautious and tells Pompey not to be overconfident, for Caesar and Lepidus are in the field and are prepared to fight and defend the empire. Pompey, however, rejects this news; he says, "I know they are in Rome together, / Looking for Antony." Furthermore, he says that Cleopatra's wiles and her "Epicurean cooks sauce appetite" that Antony will be completely seduced by luxury that he will either forget about politics altogether or else he will be unable to defeat his enemies -- if he finally does remember where his duty lies. Varrius, an officer, enters bearing a message: Antony is expected to arrive in Rome momentarily, and, in fact, he has probably already arrived. This news disturbs Pompey, who now realizes that Antony may indeed be a threat. However, Pompey is not easily discouraged, and so he makes new plans. Menas suggests to Pompey that there is a weak link in the chain that forms the Triumvirate; a rumor persists that there is an enmity between Antony and Caesar. He also tells Pompey that Lucius Antony and Fulvia joined forces against Caesar not long ago. Although it is doubted that Antony had anything to do with the attack, as he apparently didn't, perhaps there is some truth to the rumor that there are hard feelings within the Triumvirate. Pompey, of course, hopes that these alleged quarrels between Antony and Caesar will cause a sufficient rift, and that the Triumvirate will be weakened as a fighting force. Pompey can thus easily overwhelm them. However, Pompey is also aware of the possibility that the threat of an invasion from the outside will cause the Triumvirate to set aside their personal differences for the time being in order to meet with and oppose a common enemy. This is, in fact, what happens, at least for a while.
Pompey, an enemy of the Triumvirate which currently rules Rome, believes that his hold over that portion of the Mediterranean that he controls is increasing. He believes, moreover, that he is now in a position to challenge the empire with little threat from Antony, who appears to have forsaken politics for love. Pompey is convinced that Antony, an experienced soldier, is the only real obstacle in his quest for power, and now with Antony diverted by Cleopatra, Pompey can accomplish a decisive victory. To Pompey, young Caesar is not much more than a whelp, an upstart who has little support from the masses. As for Lepidus, Pompey simply discounts him as being no more than an ineffectual figurehead. This scene, then, gives us a view of the unstable political arena that such men as Pompey and Caesar move in. It is not a particularly attractive place. We also see how the struggles between Antony and Caesar are viewed by an outsider, a somewhat more objective viewer than either of the two triumvirs themselves. Unlike Caesar, though, Pompey does not underestimate Antony's ability. However, like Caesar, Pompey feels that Antony has gone to extremes in his total absorption in sensual pleasure to the exclusion of the real world. But if Antony has been lured so completely by love that he has forgotten his place as ruler of one-third of the empire, then perhaps he may be discounted, after all, as an enemy worth worrying about. At this point, Pompey seems fairly confident that he could win a war against the other two-thirds of the world -- against Caesar and Lepidus -- and thus place himself in a position to rule all of the empire.
sparknotes
Pompey discusses the military situation with his lieutenants, Menecrates and Menas. He feels confident of victory against the triumvirs not only because he controls the sea and is popular with the Roman people, but also because he believes that Antony, the greatest threat to his power, is still in Egypt. Menas reports that Caesar and Lepidus have raised an army, and another soldier, Varrius, arrives to tell them that Antony has come to Rome. Menas expresses his hope that Caesar and Antony's mutual enmity will give rise to a battle between the two triumvirs, but Pompey predicts that the two will come together in order to fend off a common enemy
Act I, scenes iv-v; Act II, scenes i-ii  Unlike Shakespeare's other great tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra is not confined to a single geographical location. Whereas Macbeth unfolds in Scotland and Hamlet in Denmark's Elsinore castle, Antony and Cleopatra takes the audience from one end of the Mediterranean Sea to the other in the course of a scene change. This technique is noteworthy for several reasons. First, it shows the global concerns of the play: traveling from Alexandria to Athens to Rome to Syria demonstrates the scope of the empire for which Antony, Cleopatra, and Caesar struggle. Second, the use of rapidly shifting locales shows that Shakespeare has become less interested in the deep psychological recesses that he examines in his greatest tragedies and is now addressing more public concerns. A stylistic result of Shakespeare's interest in the broader world is that Antony and Cleopatra lacks soliloquies, a device that Shakespeare elsewhere uses to reveal his characters' hidden thoughts to the audience. As he shuttles the audience from Egypt to Rome, Shakespeare introduces the other members of the triumvirate who, with Antony, have ruled the Roman Empire since Julius Caesar's death. Octavius Caesar, Julius's nephew, stands in stark contrast to Antony. His first lines establish him as a man ruled by reason rather than passion, duty rather than desire. He complains that Antony neglects affairs of state in order to fish, drink, and waste the night away in revelry. Even though he lacks the military prowess that he praises in Antony, Caesar is, politically speaking, ever practical and efficient. That he disapproves so strongly of Antony's relationship with Cleopatra foreshadows the collapse of the triumvirate and forecasts Caesar's role as a worthy adversary. Although he speaks little in Act I, scene iv, Lepidus emerges as the weakest of the three Roman leaders. Neither heroic like Antony nor politically astute like Caesar, Lepidus lacks the power and command of his fellow triumvirs. Ledipus works desperately to maintain a balance of power by keeping Caesar and Antony on amiable terms. When Caesar criticizes Antony, Lepidus urges him not to condemn their fellow triumvir so harshly, and later entreats Antony to speak gently when speaking to Caesar. The triumvirate is a triangular form of government, and it is little wonder, given the extreme weakness of one of its sides, that it soon collapses. The focus on Roman politics and the rising threat of war in Act I, scene iv and Act II, scene i threatens to overshadow the romantic interests of the title characters. To prevent this eclipse, Shakespeare returns the audience to Egypt, in the brief interlude of Act I, scene v. This interlude reminds the audience of Cleopatra's passion and the threat it poses to the stability of the empire. Enobarbus's lengthy description of Cleopatra in Act II, scene ii testifies to Cleopatra's power. Her beauty is so incomparable, her charms so strong that the "vilest things / Become themselves in her, that the holy priests / Bless her when she is riggish " . Her talent for transforming the "vilest things" into things of beauty, and for overturning entire systems of morality so that priests alter their understanding of what is holy and what is sinful, is Cleopatra's greatest strength.