Enter Cleopatra

ANTONY         [To Scarus]     Give me thy hand.

To this great fairy I’ll commend thy acts,

Make her thanks bless thee.

[To Cleopatra]                        O thou day o’th’ world,

Chain mine armed neck; leap thou, attire and all,

Through proof of harness to my heart, and there

Ride on the pants triumphing.

CLEOPATRA              Lord of lords!

O infinite virtue, com’st thou smiling from

The world’s great snare uncaught?             (4.9.11-18)

 

Suddenly Cleopatra’s there, and Antony’s focus switches—almost—immediately to her. He does still show particular favour to Scarus—give me thy hand—but that favour is now to be channelled through Cleopatra. To this great fairy, this goddess, this beguiling enchantress I’ll commend thy acts—that’s even better, an even more magical, wonderful thing than praises coming direct from me—make her thanks bless thee. She will praise you! And that’s even better, a heavenly blessing.

 

Then it’s all about Cleopatra (who, notably, doesn’t say anything at all to Scarus) and Antony’s a lover before all else, even if his—wildly sexy—conceit is still vaguely military, or at least chivalric. O thou day o’th’ world. My sun, my light; the world’s light, clearer away of darkness. Chain my armed neck. Embrace me, encircle my neck, my body, as if you were one more layer of armour, that close, that tight—and, even more, take me prisoner. Leap thou, attire and all—fully clothed, just as you are, right here, right now—through proof of harness to my heart, burst through my breastplate, hard and proved in battle. Come here, you. And when you’ve penetrated my armour, when you’ve reached my heart, ride on the pants triumphing—and the image is of Cleopatra, smiling, revelling, astride Antony’s chest, rising and falling as his great heart beats, as he pants with desire. (It’s the fulfilment, in reverse, of Cleopatra’s fantasy of being Antony’s happy horse; it’s also another version of the triumphal procession which Antony is, sort of, performing here, and which, in its Roman version, will soon come to trouble the thinking of both lovers.)

 

Lord of lords! A tinge of blasphemy, Antony, a god, the king of kings? But he’s everything to her in this moment; he is her lord also in the sense that he is, in effect, her husband. O infinite virtue, you amazing, amazing man, so brave: com’st thou smiling from the world’s great snare uncaught? Have you actually done this, did you really get away with it, against all the odds? You haven’t just escaped, got away with your lives—you’ve won?

 

As ever, the interactions between the lovers shrinks the stage like a crash zoom. No one else exists or matters in this moment, and the baroque complexity and the sensual, sexual intensity of their language draws the audience into their intimacy.