Act 3, Scene 11

Alexandria. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter ANTONY and attendants.]
Mark Antony
1956 Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;—
1957 It is asham'd to bear me.—Friends, come hither:
1958 I am so lated in the world that I
1959 Have lost my way for ever:—I have a ship
1960 Laden with gold; take that; divide it; fly,
1961 And make your peace with Caesar.
All
1962 Fly! Not we.
Mark Antony
1963 I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards
1964 To run and show their shoulders.—Friends, be gone;
1965 I have myself resolv'd upon a course
1966 Which has no need of you; be gone;
1967 My treasure's in the harbour, take it.—O,
1968 I follow'd that I blush to look upon:
1969 My very hairs do mutiny; for the white
1970 Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them
1971 For fear and doting.—Friends, be gone: you shall
1972 Have letters from me to some friends that will
1973 Sweep your way for you. Pray you, look not sad,
1974 Nor make replies of loathness: take the hint
1975 Which my despair proclaims; let that be left
1976 Which leaves itself: to the sea-side straightway:
1977 I will possess you of that ship and treasure.
1978 Leave me, I pray, a little: pray you now:—
1979 Nay, do so; for indeed I have lost command,
1980 Therefore I pray you:—I'll see you by and by.
[Sits down.]
[Enter CLEOPATRA, led by CHARMIAN and IRAS, EROS following.]
Eros
1981 Nay, gentle madam, to him!—comfort him.
Iras
1982 Do, most dear queen.
Charmian
1983 Do! why, what else?
Cleopatra
1984 Let me sit down. O Juno!
Mark Antony
1985 No, no, no, no, no.
Eros
1986 See you here, sir?
Mark Antony
1987 O, fie, fie, fie!
Charmian
1988 Madam,—
Iras
1989 Madam, O good empress,—
Eros
1990 Sir, sir,—
Mark Antony
1991 Yes, my lord, yes;—he at Philippi kept
1992 His sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck
1993 The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I
1994 That the mad Brutus ended; he alone
1995 Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had
1996 In the brave squares of war: yet now—no matter.
Cleopatra
1997 Ah, stand by.
Eros
1998 The queen, my lord, the queen!
Iras
1999 Go to him, madam, speak to him:
2000 He is unqualitied with very shame.
Cleopatra
2001 Well then,—sustain me.—O!
Eros
2002 Most noble sir, arise; the queen approaches:
2003 Her head's declin'd, and death will seize her, but
2004 Your comfort makes the rescue.
Mark Antony
2005 I have offended reputation,—
2006 A most unnoble swerving.
Eros
2007 Sir, the queen.
Mark Antony
2008 O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See
2009 How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
2010 By looking back, what I have left behind
2011 'Stroy'd in dishonour.
Cleopatra
2012 O my lord, my lord,
2013 Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
2014 You would have follow'd.
Mark Antony
2015 Egypt, thou knew'st too well
2016 My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
2017 And thou shouldst tow me after: o'er my spirit
2018 Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that
2019 Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
2020 Command me.
Cleopatra
2021 O, my pardon!
Mark Antony
2022 Now I must
2023 To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
2024 And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
2025 With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleas'd,
2026 Making and marring fortunes. You did know
2027 How much you were my conqueror; and that
2028 My sword, made weak by my affection, would
2029 Obey it on all cause.
Cleopatra
2030 Pardon, pardon!
Mark Antony
2031 Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
2032 All that is won and lost: give me a kiss;
2033 Even this repays me.—We sent our schoolmaster;
2034 Is he come back?—Love, I am full of lead.—
2035 Some wine, within there, and our viands!—Fortune knows
2036 We scorn her most when most she offers blows.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1958archaic vocab
“so lated in the world that I / Have lost my way”
'Lated' means belated, overtaken by darkness — as a traveller caught out after nightfall. Antony is saying he has been left behind by time and circumstance, so utterly lost that he can never find his way back.
TLN 1963historical topical
“I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards / To run and show their shoulders”
Antony is confessing that he fled the sea-battle at Actium — and that by doing so he gave his own soldiers a lesson in cowardice. 'Fled myself' is the sharpest possible self-accusation from Rome's greatest soldier: he did not merely lose a battle, he abandoned who he was.
historical The Battle of Actium
TLN 1969rhetorical device
“my very hairs do mutiny; for the white / Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them / For fear and doting”
Antony imagines his own grey and brown hairs accusing each other: the white hairs (marking old age) rebuke the brown hairs for the rashness of following Cleopatra to disaster, while the brown hairs rebuke the white for the fear and infatuation that made him flee. His inner conflict is so complete that even his body is at war with itself.
TLN 1991historical topical
“he at Philippi kept / His sword e'en like a dancer”
Antony is raging that Octavius Caesar — 'the young man' — won the battle of Philippi (42 BCE) without doing any real fighting, keeping his sword in its scabbard 'like a dancer' (a dancer wore a decorative sword, not a weapon for actual use). Antony himself killed Cassius and defeated Brutus in the same battle. Now this ceremonial soldier has beaten him.
classical Plutarch's Lives (North's Translation)
TLN 2000archaic vocab
“unqualitied with very shame”
'Unqualitied' means stripped of all his qualities — his courage, authority, and composure — as if shame has emptied him of everything that makes him who he is. Iras is saying Antony is so overwhelmed by humiliation that he has lost himself entirely.
TLN 2016rhetorical device
“My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings, / And thou shouldst tow me after”
Antony is addressing Cleopatra as 'Egypt' — his name for her throughout the play — and using a ship metaphor: his heart was tied to her rudder like a line behind a vessel, so she could tow him wherever she steered. He knew she controlled him completely, yet he followed her anyway when she fled Actium.
historical The Battle of Actium
TLN 2023historical topical
“To the young man send humble treaties, dodge / And palter in the shifts of lowness”
'The young man' is Octavius Caesar — Antony's fellow triumvir and now his conqueror, about 32 years old to Antony's 51 at this point in the play. Antony must now beg terms from a man he despises. 'Palter' means to haggle or shift evasively; 'shifts of lowness' are the tricks and compromises of someone begging from a position of weakness.
historical The Second Triumvirate
TLN 2031rhetorical device
“Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates / All that is won and lost”
'Rates' here means 'is worth' or 'counts for as much as.' Antony is telling Cleopatra not to cry: a single tear of hers, he says, is worth more to him than everything won and lost at Actium. It is simultaneously a tribute to her power over him and an acknowledgment that no military calculation matters against her.
TLN 2033historical topical
“We sent our schoolmaster”
The 'schoolmaster' is Euphronius, a tutor in Antony and Cleopatra's household, sent as Antony's ambassador to Octavius Caesar after the defeat. Using a schoolmaster — not a senator, general, or trained envoy — as one's ambassador measures how completely Antony has been stripped of status and suitable men. Plutarch records this detail as a mark of Antony's desperation.
classical Plutarch's Lives (North's Translation)
TLN 2035classical allusion
“Fortune knows / We scorn her most when most she offers blows”
Antony invokes Fortune — the classical goddess of luck who turns her wheel, raising men up and casting them down — and defiantly claims that real courage is shown precisely at the lowest point: when Fortune strikes hardest is when one scorns her most. It is a Stoic response to catastrophe: the scene ends not with surrender but with a show of contempt for misfortune.
classical Fortune and her wheel