ENOBARBUS  Your presence needs must puzzle Antony,

Take from his heart, take from his brain, from’s time

What should not then be spared. He is already

Traduced for levity, and ’tis said in Rome

That Photinus, an eunuch, and your maids

Manage this war.

CLEOPATRA   Sink Rome, and their tongues rot

That speak against us! A charge we bear i’th’ war,

And as the president of my kingdom will

Appear there for a man. Speak not against it.

I will not stay behind.                       (3.7.10-19)

Enobarbus has to spell it out again, Cleopatra not having been persuaded by—or indeed responded directly to—his vivid, albeit indirect and somewhat indelicate comparison of her to a mare in season. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony, and puzzle is wonderful here: Cleopatra doesn’t just distract him, she fascinates him, baffles him, obsesses him. If she’s there he won’t be able to think of anything else, and that will take from his heart, take from his brain, from his time what should not then be spared. He can’t afford to pay you that sort of attention, to focus all his thinking and feeling on you, to be so wholly given over to you. It’s war! He simply won’t have time! Moreover, he is already traduced for levity; people are already saying, critically, dismissively, insultingly, that he’s a lightweight, that he’s more interested in the high life and the pleasures of the flesh than in the serious business of politics and war. He’s not up to being a general or a leader any more, that’s what they’re saying—and in Rome, the story’s getting around that Antony’s not in charge at all, that Photinus, an eunuch (implying that Antony too is emasculated, impotent, perhaps even more than literal eunuchs) and your maids manage this war. Antony’s now such a loser, so completely in thrall to you, that his job’s being done by waitingwomen and weak degenerates. (There are two eunuchs here, although the punctuation’s ambiguous, explicitly Photinus the eunuch and implicitly Mardian the eunuch, who’s already appeared.)

Cleopatra is not having this. Sink Rome—screw Rome, she might as well say, Rome can go hang. And their tongues rot that speak against us. All the naysayers can do one too. A charge we bear i’th’ war—I’m funding it! I’ve paid for the ships—and, moreover, as the president of my kingdom will appear there for a man. I’m Egypt’s sovereign; of course I’ve got to be there. There’s more than a touch of Gloriana, in the promise that she will appear there for a man, and that she won’t be told what to do by any man. Speak not against it. I will not stay behind. Cleopatra doesn’t respond at all to Enobarbus’s bluntly expressed reservations about her effect on Antony, the damage that she could do to him, and to the campaign, by being there; she couches her objections and her determination purely in terms of her rank and status, and her financial interest. But the refusal to stay behind while Antony goes is, perhaps, more personal although, as ever, Cleopatra shies away from acknowledging the vulnerability of her love for him, her own obsession.