CW: suicide
CLEOPATRA [drawing a dagger] Quick, quick, good hands!
PROCULEIUS [disarming Cleopatra] Hold, worthy lady, hold!
Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this
Relieved but not betrayed.
CLEOPATRA What, of death too,
That rids our dogs of languish?
PROCULEIUS Cleopatra,
Do not abuse my master’s bounty by
Th’undoing of yourself. Let the world see
His nobleness well acted, which your death
Will never let come forth.
CLEOPATRA Where art thou, death?
Come hither, come. Come, come, and take a queen
Worth many babes and beggars.
PROCULEIUS O temperance, lady! (5.2.38-47)
Cleopatra’s ready for this, and armed: quick, quick, good hands! do it now, she exhorts herself. Stab yourself, end this. Proculeius is too quick in his actions—hold, worthy lady, hold!—grabbing the dagger or her hands or both. But he’s also (at least initially) clever in what he goes on to say, paying her the compliment of reasoning with her, even if his reasoning has no effect. She is worthy lady, too, brave, virtuous even, and he suggests that to kill herself would be to do herself wrong, that he’s saving her from such a fate, relieving her, rather than betraying her in preventing her suicide, and taking her to Caesar. Cleopatra’s having none of this: what, of death too, am I cheated? Even dogs are allowed to die when they’re suffering unbearably; death rids our dogs of languish. But not me, apparently. Proculeius tries again, a different angle: Cleopatra (not worthy lady now), do not abuse my master’s bounty by th’undoing of yourself. Caesar’s made you a good and generous offer, or at least is prepared to do so, and if you kill yourself, you’re throwing that back in his face. Ungracious, churlish, rude. (Since when has that ever bothered Cleopatra?) But, as befits one of Caesar’s inner circle, Proculeius is politically savvy, he knows the value of appearances: let the world see his nobleness well acted, which your death will never let come forth. This is, it will transpire, what Cleopatra most fears, public humiliation, being put on show, being an object held up to make a point, to aggrandise someone else. Surely you don’t want to get in the way of that, do you? persists Proculeius. Magnificently, Cleopatra ignores him, or else is too distraught to engage: where art thou, death? Why can’t I just die? Come hither, come. Come, come, and take a queen worth many babes and beggars. There can be an erotic invitation as well as imperiousness in her tone. Come on, death! You take babes and beggars, the youngest, the poorest, the most insignificant; they die all the time. So come and take a queen this time, a real prize! O temperance, lady! In his cajoling admonition, Proculeius demonstrates that really he doesn’t get Cleopatra at all. She has never been temperate, she is always all about the extreme. And so reasoning with her, urging compromise, common sense, patience, simply isn’t going to work. It’s not a language she understands at all.