ANTONY                                 My more particular,

And that which most with you should safe my going,

Is Fulvia’s death.

CLEOPATRA   Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?

ANTONY         She’s dead, my queen.

[He offers letters]

Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read

The garboils she awaked. At the last, best—

See when, and where she died.

CLEOPATRA               O most false love!

Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill

With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,

In Fulvia’s death how mine received shall be.       (1.3.54-65)

Antony carries on, doggedly (or perhaps apprehensively, or perhaps confident that he’s got a strong finish) finally arriving at the most salient point and the one is, as he says, his more particular, the one which most relates to him alone. It’s also that which most with you should safe my going—he knows Cleopatra so well, he knows her jealousy and insecurity. But she’s got even less to worry about now, he says, even fewer causes to be suspicious if she lets him out of her sight, if she’s assuming that he’s going to go back to his wife, because he’s just had news of Fulvia’s death. You’d think that might stop Cleopatra in her tracks, but no, she carries straight on, ever more outrageous. She doesn’t just respond, really? or, I don’t believe you? rather she says, I know I’m sometimes foolish, but still, I’m far too old to be taken in by that sort of thing—but she’s not suggesting that Antony would lie to her (itself somewhat insulting, that he’d be capable of a believable falsehood), but rather, wonderfully (and always getting a laugh in the theatre) can Fulvia die? I thought she was a kind of iron woman, going on and on, incidentally giving you an excuse never to commit entirely to me. Is she actually flesh and blood, a mortal, susceptible to death? Cleopatra will give no outward sign of weakness, in responding with relief, or even sympathy. She’s dead, my queen—Antony reinforces the title again; Cleopatra’s now not simply queen of Egypt, but his queen too, the only woman who commands him. Look, you can see the evidence, it’s all written here—at thy sovereign leisure read the garboils she awaked. I’m not keeping anything from you, you can read all about it, the whole thing, and not least the trouble Fulvia’s been causing, the commotion and unrest. And at the last, best (and best here could be an endearment, my best, reinforcing Cleopatra’s supremacy—or it could be Antony being brutal, saving the best news until last)—you can read about her death, all the details, when, and where she died.

Cleopatra’s still not having any of it, not conceding an inch; instead, she changes tack. O most false love! That’s your wife you’re talking about, you callous creature! Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill with sorrowful water? Why aren’t you even shedding a tear, you hard-hearted, disloyal, cruel man? (She imagines that he should be filling little crystal vials with his tears, which the Romans were imagined to do by early moderns, in a gesture of sentimental sorrow.) Now I see, I see, in Fulvia’s death how mine received shall be. The couplet neatly emphasises the absurdity of her sentiment and her complete change in direction here. If this is how you respond to your wife’s death, complete unconcern, making excuses, just telling me to read about it in some letter—well, I can only imagine what your response would be were I to die, me, not even your wife. MEN!