Part 62

DOLABELLA.

I understand not, madam.

CLEOPATRA.

I dream'd there was an emperor Antony; O such another sleep, that I might see But such another man!

DOLABELLA.

If it might please you--

CLEOPATRA.

His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck A sun and moon; which kept their course, and lighted The little O, the earth.

DOLABELLA.

Most sovereign creature--

CLEOPATRA.

His legs bestrid the ocean: his reared arm Crested the world; his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; But when he meant to quail or shake the orb He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, That grew the more by reaping. His delights Were dolphin like; they show'd his back above The element they liv'd in. In his livery Walk'd crowns and coronets; realms and islands were As plates dropp'd from his pocket.

DOLABELLA.

Cleopatra!

CLEOPATRA.

Think you there was, or might be, such a man As this I dream'd of?

DOLABELLA.

Gentle madam, no.

CLEOPATRA.

You lie,--up to the hearing of the gods!

There was no room left in this amazing picture for the display of that passionate maternal tenderness, which was a strong and redeeming feature in Cleopatra's historical character; but it is not left untouched, for when she is imprecating mischiefs on herself, she wishes, as the last and worst of possible evils, that "thunder may smite Cæsarion!"

In representing the mutual passion of Antony and Cleopatra as real and fervent, Shakspeare has adhered to the truth of history as well as to general nature. On Antony's side it is a species of infatuation, a single and engrossing feeling: it is, in short, the love of a man declined in years for a woman very much younger than himself, and who has subjected him to every species of female enchantment. In Cleopatra the passion is of a mixed nature, made up of real attachment, combined with the love of pleasure, the love of power, and the love of self. Not only is the character most complicated, but no one sentiment could have existed pure and unvarying in such a mind as hers; her passion in itself is true, fixed to one centre; but like the pennon streaming from the mast, it flutters and veers with every breath of her variable temper: yet in the midst of all her caprices, follies, and even vices, womanly feeling is still predominant in Cleopatra: and the change which takes place in her deportment towards Antony, when their evil fortune darkens round them, is as beautiful and interesting in itself as it is striking and natural. Instead of the airy caprice and provoking petulance she displays in the first scenes, we have a mixture of tenderness, and artifice, and fear, and submissive blandishment. Her behavior, for instance, after the battle of Actium, when she quails before the noble and tender rebuke of her lover, is partly female subtlety and partly natural feeling.

CLEOPATRA.

O my lord, my lord, Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought You would have follow'd.

ANTONY.

Egypt, thou know'st too well My heart was to the rudder tied by the strings, And thou should'st tow me after. O'er my spirit Thy full supremacy thou know'st; and that Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods Command me.

CLEOPATRA.

O, my pardon?