Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Alexas
CLEOPATRA Give me some music—music, moody food
Of us that trade in love.
CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS The music, ho!
Enter Mardian, the eunuch
CLEOPATRA Let it alone. Let’s to billiards. Come, Charmian.
CHARMIAN My arm is sore. Best play with Mardian.
CLEOPATRA As well a woman with an eunuch played
As with a woman. Come, you’ll play with me, sir?
MARDIAN As well as I can, madam.
CLEOPATRA And when good will is showed, though’t come too short
The actor may plead pardon. I’ll none now. (2.5.1-9)
Contrast contrast contrast: after a considerable gap (four Roman or Rome-adjacent scenes, most of them substantial) the Cleopatra show is back. She’s got a gang, the four of them implicitly entering together, not two by two like the orderly, rivalrous Romans, and she’s making demands already: give me some music, already upping the scene’s sensual engagement, and even more when she describes music as the moody food (the assonance is perfect) of us that trade in love. Egypt is the place of appetite, and music feeds love, as Orsino observes at the beginning of Twelfth Night, and love melancholy especially. Cleopatra is settling in for a good self-indulgent wallow. Her companions are well primed, perhaps eye-rollingly so, this is a regular occurrence—the music, ho!—and it may even start up as Mardian enters, or he may be the music, expecting to sing as eunuchs often were. There’s a cheap laugh here for Cleopatra in her response, on seeing him: let it alone. Not you again, I don’t want to hear you. (He might even start singing as he arrives on stage, or playing an instrument—a lute—expectantly. He might sound terrible.) Poor Mardian, immediately snubbed and rejected in favour of another pastime: let’s to billiards. (Anachronistic, obviously, but a familiar sport for a Jacobean audience.) Charmian is her usual slightly grumpy self: my arm is sore—but this is mostly to set up a joke, again at Mardian’s expense. Best play with Mardian. Ho ho, and Cleopatra can’t fail to pick it up: as well a woman with an eunuch played (in the sexual sense, as editors have to point out, ho ho) as with a woman—although a production might supply a homoerotic subtext here, between Charmian and Cleopatra, emphasizing Egypt’s polymorphous pleasures. But the main focus (again) is mocking Mardian, and he knows what to do, in response to Cleopatra’s come, you’ll play with me, sir? As well as I can, madam. Given that I’m a eunuch. (Hilarious.) And when good will is showed, though’t come too short, the actor may plead pardon. 10/10 for effort, at least, Cleopatra replies, thank you for showing willing—because that means that even though you might come (ahem—sexual sense just emerging at this moment in time, although only just) too short (definitely a joke there, though, about Mardian’s physical deficiencies as a eunuch) you can at least plead pardon, beg forgiveness. Although I’ll none now, I don’t want to play billiards with you or anyone anymore anyway.