CLEOPATRA               That time—O times!—

I laughed him out of patience, and that night

I laughed him into patience, and next morn,

Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed,

Then put my tires and mantles on him whilst

I wore his sword Philippan.

Enter a Messenger

O, from Italy.

Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,

That long time have been barren.  (2.5.18-25)

Cleopatra well remembers that time—O times!—all those times, the revels and pranks and sheer whole-hearted, gleeful fun of her relationship with Antony. That time, she laughed him out of patience, maddened him with her mockery, and that night she laughed him into patience, made it all better again (and it’s entirely clear how; their love-making is joyous, FUN too), and next morn, the morning after, before the ninth hour (before 9am, one might as well imagine) she drunk him to his bed (he was insensible, she was fine)—and while he was snoring, she put her tires and mantles on him (tires here could specifically be head-tires, headdress, a veil, a diadem, or it could simply mean clothes, like mantles, and so an example of the rhetorical figure of hendiadys). And while she was dressing Antony up in her clothes—shrieking with laughter all the while, one imagines—she wore his sword Philippan, the sword he had at the battle of Philippi, where Brutus was defeated, a sign of Antony’s power and ruthlessness as a Roman general, his monumental and pivotal place in Roman history. The breathlessness here is wonderful, as Cleopatra pours it all out, this happy memory of her revels, her riotous living with Antony. She can’t help herself, it’s just too funny, and too much fun. It’s too easy to say, solemnly, that this is all about Antony’s emasculation at the (er) hands of this Egyptian temptress; her appropriation of his sword and his female attire is pretty low-hanging fruit in that respect. It’s the sense of utterly mutual joyous fluidity, game-playing, dressing up, theatricality which is every bit as important. Egypt is simply more fun than Rome and Antony and Cleopatra certainly have fun, sexy, sensual, all-licensed and grown-up fun which is very unlike the English reveling of Falstaff and Hal, or Toby Belch, or even the playful-yet-anxious cross-dressing of As You Like It, or Midsummer Night’s Dream’s fairy mischief.

It is very sexy, what Cleopatra’s remembering and conjuring, and that supplies the (not very sub-)text for her greeting of the messenger, from Italy. Even to hear news of Antony will be a kind of sex act, a penetration and an impregnation—bring it on, she says, ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears that long time have been barren. I’m ready and waiting…

Phew. Fans frequently needed in Egypt, obviously.