ANTONY         Fall not a tear, I say. One of them rates

All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss.

[He kisses her]

Even this repays me. We sent our schoolmaster;

Is a come back? Love, I am full of lead.

Some wine within there, and our viands! Fortune knows

We scorn her most when most she offers blows.

Exeunt (3.11.69-74)

There’s not going to be an explosion of recrimination and blame: Antony has rallied and is ready to regroup. Cleopatra is all that matters to him: fall not a tear, I say. Don’t cry (and also, perhaps, incredibly, don’t worry). One of them—a single tear you shed—rates all that is won and lost; it outweighs everything, good and bad. You’re the only thing that matters, your happiness. (Let Rome in Tiber melt.) Give me a kiss—and even this repays me. You’re enough; you’re everything. One kiss is all I need. (The hubris, the magnificent unconcern, the obsession, the utter solipsism and folly of this grand passion is compelling and wonderful, even as it’s faintly appalling.) A brief pause for business: we sent our schoolmaster, as an ambassador to Caesar; is a come back? (The detail’s in Plutarch; it suggests Antony’s need to improvise by sending someone, anyone responsible and half-way competent from the household rather than a practised diplomat and negotiator, perhaps because they’ve been abandoned by their followers, or that their followers are in such disarray.) What’s the news, is there an update? (The play’s perennial question.) Love—back to Cleopatra—I am full of lead. Feeling pretty low, to be honest. Heavy, melancholy. But—some wine within there, and our viands! What we need is a drink and something to eat. And a final note of defiance: fortune know we scorn her most when most she offers blows. We may be down, but we’re not out; we’ll ride this out, and laugh (and drink, and love) in the face of disaster and despair.

Eros, Iras and Charmian would be forgiven for exchanging very long, eye-rolling looks.