Enter Mardian

ANTONY                     O thy vile lady,

She has robbed me of my sword!

MARDIAN                   No, Antony,

My mistress loved thee, and her fortunes mingled

With thine entirely.

ANTONY                     Hence, saucy eunuch, peace!

She hath betrayed me, and shall die the death.

MARDIAN       Death of one person can be paid but once,

And that she has discharged. What thou wouldst do

Is done unto thy hand. The last she spoke

Was ‘Antony, most noble Antony!’

Then in the midst a tearing groan did break

The name of Antony. It was divided

Between her heart and lips. She rendered life,

Thy name so buried in her.             (4.15.22-34)

 

Finally, a target for Antony’s anger: Mardian, whom the audience knows has a false message to deliver. O thy vile lady, your despicable, common mistress, says Antony; she has robbed me of my sword! She’s destroyed me as a soldier, ensured my defeat; she’s also emasculated me. (Antony is, of course, addressing a eunuch. Earlier in the play, Cleopatra did indeed brag of wearing the sword with which Antony had fought at Philippi.) Mardian stands up for Cleopatra: no, Antony, my mistress loved thee (true), and her fortunes mingled with thine entirely. She never abandoned you; she was always bound to you, for good and ill. (A slightly more dubious claim, in the circumstances.) Antony’s not having any of it: hence, saucy eunuch, peace! And you can shut up; the cheek of it! Mardian’s too much a reminder of that other life of Alexandrian revels, banter, practical jokes. He’s also yet another messenger, being abused and belittled. She has betrayed me, and shall die the death. Cleopatra’s a traitor, and she’ll pay for it with her life.

 

And that’s Mardian’s cue, allowing him to regain the upper hand, emotionally if not morally. Death of one person can be paid but once, and that she has discharged. Cleopatra can only die once, and she’s done it. (It’s proverbial, but it’s also, perhaps, a particular echo of Julius Caesar, when Caesar himself says that ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once’; that has a particular ironic and proleptic resonance for Antony here.) What thou wouldst do is done unto thy hand: what you want to do to her, she’s already done to herself. (Although it’s left implicit that Cleopatra has ‘died’ by suicide.) Then Mardian turns the knife, with Antony perhaps already visibly taken aback, faltering, bereft: the last she spoke was ‘Antony, most noble Antony!’ She died with your name on her lips! She called you noble in her very last moments! (not vile, as you’ve just called her). And a final, heart-rending detail (literally): then in the midst a tearing groan did break the name of Antony. Her last agonised breath was exhaled in the middle of speaking that name; she couldn’t finish it. It was divided between her heart—the sound she couldn’t quite make, still held within her body—and lips—the last half word she spoke. She rendered life, thy name so buried in her. That was how Cleopatra died, in the middle of speaking Antony’s name, says Mardian—and where Antony has accused Cleopatra of emasculating him, stealing his sword, Mardian portrays her death as a kind of erotic act, Antony’s name buried deep within her, in her heart, and on her lips.