Act 4, Scene 14

Alexandria. Another Room.

[Enter ANTONY and EROS.]
Mark Antony
2731 Eros, thou yet behold'st me?
Eros
2732 Ay, noble lord.
Mark Antony
2733 Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;
2734 A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
2735 A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,
2736 A forked mountain, or blue promontory
2737 With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,
2738 And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen these signs;
2739 They are black vesper's pageants.
Eros
2740 Ay, my lord.
Mark Antony
2741 That which is now a horse, even with a thought
2742 The rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct,
2743 As water is in water.
Eros
2744 It does, my lord.
Mark Antony
2745 My good knave Eros, now thy captain is
2746 Even such a body: here I am Antony;
2747 Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
2748 I made these wars for Egypt; and the queen,—
2749 Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine;
2750 Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't
2751 A million moe, now lost,—she, Eros, has
2752 Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory
2753 Unto an enemy's triumph.—
2754 Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us
2755 Ourselves to end ourselves.—
[Enter MARDIAN.]
Mark Antony
2756 O, thy vile lady!
2757 She has robb'd me of my sword.
Mardian
2758 No, Antony;
2759 My mistress lov'd thee, and her fortunes mingled
2760 With thine entirely.
Mark Antony
2761 Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!
2762 She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death.
Mardian
2763 Death of one person can be paid but once,
2764 And that she has discharg'd: what thou wouldst do
2765 Is done unto thy hand: the last she spake
2766 Was 'Antony! most noble Antony!'
2767 Then in the midst a tearing groan did break
2768 The name of Antony; it was divided
2769 Between her heart and lips: she render'd life,
2770 Thy name so buried in her.
Mark Antony
2771 Dead then?
Mardian
2772 Dead.
Mark Antony
2773 Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,
2774 And we must sleep.—That thou depart'st hence safe
2775 Does pay thy labour richly; go.
[Exit MARDIAN.]
Mark Antony
2776 Off, pluck off;—
2777 The sevenfold shield of Ajax cannot keep
2778 The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!
2779 Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,
2780 Crack thy frail case!—Apace, Eros, apace.—
2781 No more a soldier.—Bruised pieces, go;
2782 You have been nobly borne.—From me awhile.—
[Exit EROS.]
Mark Antony
2783 I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
2784 Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now
2785 All length is torture.—Since the torch is out,
2786 Lie down, and stray no further:—now all labour
2787 Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles
2788 Itself with strength: seal then, and all is done.—
2789 Eros!—I come, my queen.—Eros!—stay for me:
2790 Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,
2791 And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:
2792 Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,
2793 And all the haunt be ours.—Come, Eros, Eros!
[Re-enter EROS.]
Eros
2794 What would my lord?
Mark Antony
2795 Since Cleopatra died,
2796 I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods
2797 Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword
2798 Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back
2799 With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack
2800 The courage of a woman; less noble mind
2801 Than she which by her death our Caesar tells
2802 'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,
2803 That, when the exigent should come,—which now
2804 Is come indeed—when I should see behind me
2805 The inevitable prosecution of
2806 Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,
2807 Thou then wouldst kill me: do't; the time is come:
2808 Thou strik'st not me; 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.
2809 Put colour in thy cheek.
Eros
2810 The gods withhold me!
2811 Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,
2812 Though enemy, lost aim and could not?
Mark Antony
2813 Eros,
2814 Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see
2815 Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down
2816 His corrigible neck, his face subdu'd
2817 To penetrative shame; whilst the wheel'd seat
2818 Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded
2819 His baseness that ensued?
Eros
2820 I would not see't.
Mark Antony
2821 Come, then; for with a wound I must be cur'd.
2822 Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn
2823 Most useful for thy country.
Eros
2824 O, sir, pardon me!
Mark Antony
2825 When I did make thee free, swor'st thou not then
2826 To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once;
2827 Or thy precedent services are all
2828 But accidents unpurpos'd. Draw, and come.
Eros
2829 Turn from me then that noble countenance,
2830 Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.
Mark Antony
2831 Lo thee!
[Turning from him.]
Eros
2832 My sword is drawn.
Mark Antony
2833 Then let it do at once
2834 The thing why thou hast drawn it.
Eros
2835 My dear master,
2836 My captain and my emperor, let me say,
2837 Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.
Mark Antony
2838 'Tis said, man;—and farewell.
Eros
2839 Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?
Mark Antony
2840 Now, Eros.
Eros
2841 Why, there then
[falls on his sword]
Eros
2842 !—thus do I escape the
2843 sorrow
2844 Of Antony's death.
[Dies.]
Mark Antony
2845 Thrice nobler than myself!
2846 Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what
2847 I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros
2848 Have, by their brave instruction, got upon me
2849 A nobleness in record: but I will be
2850 A bridegroom in my death, and run into't
2851 As to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,
2852 Thy master dies thy scholar: to do thus
[Falling on his sword.]
Mark Antony
2853 I learn'd of thee. How? not dead? not dead?—
2854 The guard, ho!—O, despatch me!
[Enter DERCETAS and a guard.]
First Guard
2855 What's the noise?
Mark Antony
2856 I have done my work ill, friends: O, make an end
2857 Of what I have begun.
Second Guard
2858 The star is fallen.
First Guard
2859 And time is at his period.
All
2860 Alas, and woe!
Mark Antony
2861 Let him that loves me, strike me dead.
First Guard
2862 Not I.
Second Guard
2863 Nor I.
Third Guard
2864 Nor any one.
[Exeunt guard.]
Dercetas
2865 Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.
2866 This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,
2867 Shall enter me with him.
[Enter DIOMEDES.]
Diomedes
2868 Where's Antony?
Dercetas
2869 There, Diomed, there.
Diomedes
2870 Lives he?
2871 Wilt thou not answer, man?
[Exit DERCETAS.]
Mark Antony
2872 Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword and give me
2873 Sufficing strokes for death.
Diomedes
2874 Most absolute lord,
2875 My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.
Mark Antony
2876 When did she send thee?
Diomedes
2877 Now, my lord.
Mark Antony
2878 Where is she?
Diomedes
2879 Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear
2880 Of what hath come to pass: for when she saw,—
2881 Which never shall be found,—you did suspect
2882 She had dispos'd with Caesar, and that your rage
2883 Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead;
2884 But, fearing since how it might work, hath sent
2885 Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come,
2886 I dread, too late.
Mark Antony
2887 Too late, good Diomed.—Call my guard, I pr'ythee.
Diomedes
2888 What, ho! the emperor's guard! The guard, what ho!
2889 Come, your lord calls!
[Enter some of the Guard.]
Mark Antony
2890 Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;
2891 'Tis the last service that I shall command you.
First Guard
2892 Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear
2893 All your true followers out.
All
2894 Most heavy day!
Mark Antony
2895 Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate
2896 To grace it with your sorrows: bid that welcome
2897 Which comes to punish us, and we punish it,
2898 Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up:
2899 I have led you oft: carry me now, good friends,
2900 And have my thanks for all.
[Exeunt, bearing ANTONY.]

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Notes

TLN 2739archaic vocab
“black vesper's pageants”
A 'pageant' was a theatrical spectacle or display; 'black vesper' is the darkening hour of evening. Antony means: the shifting, illusory cloud-shapes he has just described are evening's own theatrical show — gorgeous, convincing, and gone in an instant. He is comparing his own dissolving identity to these transient images.
TLN 2742archaic vocab
“The rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct”
'Rack' here means a mass of drifting clouds (not a torture device). 'Dislimns' means to erase or unportray — to remove the limning (painting or drawing) of a shape. Antony is saying that the cloud-horse is dissolved by the shifting cloud-mass until it is as formless as water mixed with water.
TLN 2752wordplay
“Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory”
Antony accuses Cleopatra of cheating at cards with his rival Octavius Caesar (his fellow triumvir, later the emperor Augustus): to 'pack cards' meant to arrange a deck dishonestly before play. 'False-play'd' extends the gambling metaphor — she has wagered away Antony's glory by playing a rigged game. 'Triumph' in the next line doubles as the name of a card game (an ancestor of modern Trumps) and as the Roman triumphal procession Antony fears.
TLN 2755historical topical
“Ourselves to end ourselves”
Antony means that suicide is left to them as the only honourable exit. The Roman Stoic ideal held that a great man defeated in war should die by his own hand rather than be led in chains through his enemy's city. This is the 'high Roman fashion' of suicide that recurs across the play.
historical The antique Roman: honourable suicide
TLN 2777classical allusion
“sevenfold shield of Ajax cannot keep / The battery from my heart”
Ajax was the mightiest defensive warrior of the Trojan War, famous for his enormous shield made of seven layers of ox-hide topped with bronze — the sturdiest in the Greek army. Antony says that even Ajax's seven-ply shield could not protect his heart against grief: the emotional blow is greater than any weapon.
TLN 2785rhetorical device
“the torch is out, / Lie down, and stray no further”
Antony addresses himself in the second person, ordering his own body to stop moving: without Cleopatra, the torch that lit his way is extinguished. The torch was the standard classical image for the soul or guiding spirit of a person; its going out means death. Antony is telling himself to die.
TLN 2790classical allusion
“Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand, / And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze: / Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops”
Antony imagines Elysium — the blessed fields of the classical afterlife where the virtuous dead rest — as a place of flowered meadows. He imagines himself and Cleopatra walking there with such energy ('sprightly port' = lively bearing) that the ordinary shades will stop and stare. Dido and Aeneas, the most famous tragic lovers of the classical world, will lose their audience to Antony and Cleopatra.
classical Dido, queen of Carthage ('widow Dido')
TLN 2797rhetorical device
“I, that with my sword / Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back / With ships made cities”
Antony looks back on his military career with a pair of hyperboles: his sword 'quartered' (divided, dominated) the world, and his fleets were so vast that his warships moving on the sea ('green Neptune's back') looked like a floating city. Neptune is the Roman god of the sea. Both images measure how far he has fallen.
historical The Battle of Actium
TLN 2801historical topical
“she which by her death our Caesar tells / 'I am conqueror of myself'”
Antony means that Cleopatra's supposed suicide has sent a message to Octavius Caesar — his rival and fellow triumvir (the future emperor Augustus) — that she conquered herself, dying by her own choice rather than surrendering. This is the Stoic ideal: defeating the enemy that truly matters (one's own fear of death) even when defeated on the battlefield. Antony feels she has shown more nobility than he has.
historical The antique Roman: honourable suicidehistorical The Second Triumvirate
TLN 2803archaic vocab
“when the exigent should come,—which now / Is come indeed”
'Exigent' means an extreme emergency, a pressing crisis — specifically here: the moment when there is no way out and death becomes the only option. Antony had earlier bound Eros by an oath to kill him if this moment ever arrived.
TLN 2814historical topical
“Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see / Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down / His corrigible neck”
Antony describes the humiliation of a Roman triumph: Octavius Caesar would parade him through Rome as a captive, and crowds would watch from windows. 'Pleach'd arms' means arms folded tightly across the chest — the bound posture of a prisoner. 'Corrigible' means submissive, yielding to correction. 'The wheel'd seat of fortunate Caesar' is Octavius's triumphal chariot rolling before the chained captive.
historical The Roman Triumph
TLN 2842historical topical
“thus do I escape the / sorrow / Of Antony's death”
Eros, ordered to kill his master, kills himself instead — escaping the grief of watching Antony die while also fulfilling his own Roman duty: he will not be the one to strike down a man he loves. Antony immediately recognizes this as the nobler act ('Thrice nobler than myself!'). The suicide of a devoted freedman to spare his master is drawn from Plutarch.
historical The antique Roman: honourable suicide
TLN 2849rhetorical device
“I will be / A bridegroom in my death, and run into't / As to a lover's bed”
Antony figures his approaching death as a marriage, running to it as eagerly as a bridegroom to bed on his wedding night. The conceit fuses love and death — the two great extremes — and recasts what could be a shameful defeat as a passionate, willing act. It also points forward to the reunion he imagines with Cleopatra in the afterlife (the Elysian flowers speech, a few lines above).
TLN 2858rhetorical device
“The star is fallen. / And time is at his period”
Two guards respond to the sight of the dying Antony with brief, cosmic elegies. 'The star is fallen' casts Antony as a heavenly body whose fall marks a new, diminished age. 'Time is at his period' means 'time has reached its full stop' — 'period' meant end or full stop, as in punctuation. The two lines together are the soldiers' way of saying an era has ended.
TLN 2879historical topical
“Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear / Of what hath come to pass”
Diomedes explains that Cleopatra retreated to her royal mausoleum — the monument she had built for herself — and barricaded herself inside. The Ptolemaic queens of Egypt built elaborate tombs during their own lifetimes. Fearing Antony's rage if he thought she had defected to Octavius Caesar, she sent a false report of her death, which is what drove Antony to his suicide attempt.
historical The Ptolemies and Egypt