Enter Antony and Eros
ANTONY Eros, thou yet behold’st me?
EROS Ay, noble lord.
ANTONY Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock,
A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;
They are black vesper’s pageants.
EROS Ay, my lord.
(4.15.1-8)
Just the two of them, Antony and Eros—and Antony’s even deeper in his existential despair. Eros, thou yet behold’st me? He means, can you still see me? which in part, obliquely, sets up the rest of the speech, but it’s also, in a way, are you still there? And, do I still exist? Ay, noble lord. Eros is reassuring, and still deferential; Antony is still noble, at least to him. Then Antony launches, properly, into one of the strangest and most extraordinary speeches in the play: sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish… What? A cloud? That looks like a dragon? OK. (The –ish is brilliant; vague, uncertain, blurring the edges.) He continues: a vapour sometime like a bear or lion (that it’s bear or lionspeeds up the shape-shifting and makes it even more uncertain; like a dragon, like a bear, like a lion, morphing mistily)—then it’s not creatures but landscapes, zooming out, wide angle: a towered citadel, a fortress soaring into the sky; a pendent rock, an overhanging crag; a forked mountain, double peaked, or a blue promontory, a cliff so shadowed, so high, that it seems distant blue—but made even higher by the trees upon’t that nod unto the world and mock our eyes with air. Suddenly a reminder that these aren’t mountains, cliffs and rocks, but towering clouds; that’s why they’re blue—and they’re air, they melt, dissipate, shape-shift, vanish. Thou hast seen these signs, yes? You know what I’m talking about? They are black vesper’s pageants, the great spectacles which herald darkest night. Ay, my lord; yes, says the faithful Eros. Of course I know what you’re talking about.