CLEOPATRA              Ah, dear, if I be so,

From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,

And poison it in the source, and the first stone

Drop in my neck: as it determines, so

Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite,

Till by degrees the memory of my womb,

Together with my brave Egyptians all,

By the discandying of this pelleted storm

Lie graveless till the flies and gnats of Nile

Have buried them for prey!

ANTONY                                 I am satisfied.            (3.13.160-169)

And now is the moment and Cleopatra knows it, her literal endearment perfectly timed to reassure, and as a homely, humble prelude to the extraordinary conceit she is about to lay out. Ah, dear, if I be so—cold-hearted—towards you, then from my cold heart let heaven engender hail, make my heart so very cold that it produces ice, and poison it, and let the very first stone drop in my neck, the first hailstone fall on me, in my mouth, down my throat and, as it determines, as it melts away, let it in that way dissolve my life, kill me with that poison. It’s an extraordinary image of a kind of willed death in a shower of poisoned ice, being swallowed, melting, sweet, hot and cold, multi-sensory. An extraordinary way of saying, no, of course I’m not cold hearted towards you. Of course I love you really. And, then, if I’m still cold hearted towards you, the next Caesarion smite, kill my first born child, my son, till by degrees, one by one, the memory of my womb, all my children, together with my brave Egyptians all—with all my wonderful people (and she might gesture at her women, who must be watching, fascinated and relieved, as Cleopatra once again works her magic)—until all of those people, my children, my subjects are, by the discandying of this pelleted storm, the melting of these poisoned hailstones, all slaughtered, so suddenly and catastrophically that they lie graveless, unburied, till the flies and gnats of Nile have buried them for prey—until they’ve been eaten by insects! Mad, extraordinary, bravura, baroque. Cleopatra’s back on song, and where Antony has imagined a kind of apocalypse, his conceits of falling stars and the abyss of hell recalling the book of Revelation, Cleopatra invokes the biblical plagues of Egypt. If ever I’m cold hearted to you, my dear, she says—well, bring it on. Destroy me, and everyone else too.

I am satisfied, replies Antony. OK, enough. At least for now, in this play in which nothing is ever enough, when excess is piled on excess—enough.