ANTONY Dead, then?
MARDIAN Dead.
ANTONY Unarm, Eros. The long day’s task is done,
And we must sleep. [To Mardian] That thou depart’st hence safe
Does pay thy labour richly. Go.
Exit Mardian
Off, pluck off.
The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep
The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!
Heart, once be stronger than thy continent;
Crack thy frail case. Apace, Eros, apace.
No more a soldier. Bruisèd pieces, go;
You have been nobly borne.—From me awhile.
Exit Eros (4.15.34-43)
Antony seeks simple confirmation, no ambiguity, no room for doubt or hope: dead, then? Dead, comes the reply. That’s Antony’s cue for decisive action: unarm, Eros, by which he means, unarm me. It’s time, time to cast off my identity as general, as soldier, for good. Because the long day’s task is done, and we must sleep. It’s over, Antony says, it’s finished—consummatum est—and it’s time to rest, for ever. I’ve had enough, I can’t do this any more. I’m so, so tired. After his needling of Mardian, his fury, a final, almost token, threat: that thou depart’st hence safe does pay thy labour richly. Your reward for bringing me this message, which is more than you deserve, is that you get safe passage away from here, is that I’m not punishing you, killing you on the spot. Go. Leave us.
Once Mardian’s gone, there’s no delay, no point in taking any longer over this. Off, pluck off. Get me out of this gear. There’s no point in wearing any of this anymore, either, because even the seven-fold shield of Ajax, thick, impregnable (bronze, seven layers of oxhide, in the Iliad—and classical precedents too are now insufficient) cannot keep the battery from my heart. Nothing can stop this wounding assault—all of it, Cleopatra’s death included. Antony is now wholly vulnerable and, even more, he doesn’t care; bring it on, he says, o, cleave my sides! Burst! Break! He wants his body to destroy itself; he wants not to be. Heart, once be stronger than thy continent; crack thy frail case. For once, just once, he says, may my heart beat more strongly than the thing that contains it, my body, so that my body is destroyed by that final, cataclysmic beat. Antony wants to die of a broken heart, in effect; he wants his heart to explode, to blow his body apart. Apace, Eros, apace: hurry up! As fast as you can! (Eros is unarming Antony; there’s a visual, physical counterpart to Antony’s language of undoing, especially vivid if he’s wearing a Roman breastplate, a bronze or leather moulded torso.) And once the armour’s gone—bruised pieces, go; all the scarred, bruised, battered marks of Antony’s military career—then he will be no more a soldier. Yet he can still concede, of his armour, you have been nobly borne. I was good at all of that, he says, ruefully.
From me awhile, he says to Eros; go now—and Eros presumably takes the armour with him, leaving Antony, stripped, alone.