DOLABELLA   Most noble Empress, you have heard of me.

CLEOPATRA   I cannot tell.

DOLABELLA                           Assuredly you know me.

CLEOPATRA No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.

You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;

Is’t not your trick?

DOLABELLA   I understand not, madam.

CLEOPATRA I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony.

O, such another sleep, that I might see

But such another man!

DOLABELLA   If it might please ye—          (5.2.70-77)

 

Another Roman man, smooth, assured, come to flatter and cajole and to remind Cleopatra that she is (as they think) utterly powerless. Kind, though, in fact. Most noble Empress—points for the title, minus for the fact that she’s never been an empress—you have heard of me. You know who I am. I’m someone who matters, perhaps is the subtext. Not like Proculeius. Also: you can trust me. Cleopatra’s magnificently unconcerned. I cannot tell; no, don’t know who the hell you are, and don’t care. (Or there’s always the option to be flirtatious. I cannot tell, yet, so try me.) Assuredly you know me. Of course you do! Come on! Let’s be friends. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known. It doesn’t make any difference, does it, whether I’ve heard of you or not, whether I know anything about you at all. Cut to the chase, get on with it.

 

But then she changes tack, suggesting that she has, in fact, heard of Dolabella. You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams; is’t not your trick? Isn’t that a thing that you do, that you’re known for? It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, or whether Cleopatra’s just making it up; Dolabella’s baffled. I understand not, madam. What are you getting at? (He’s still polite.) And then, in anguish, she soars. I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony. Partly she’s picking up on Dolabella addressing her as empress, but mostly it’s about invoking Antony as all-powerful, godlike, absolute. A dream. O, such another sleep, that I might see but such another man! I want my dream back! I want my Antony back! And also, I want to die, to sleep, so that I can see him again, the man that can only exist in my dreams… (Caliban,* crying to sleep again, so that he can dream again, and hear the sound and sweet airs of his island.) Yet she’s also saying, I want to sleep; I’m so tired. It’s the end. (And she’s also saying, indirectly, to Dolabella: you’re not a patch on Antony. Now that was a man.)

 

Dolabella tries, fruitlessly, to interrupt this impassioned aria, still very polite. If it might please ye—could you just, would you mind? But no, Cleopatra’s only just getting going.

 

*I wrote this blog entry about Caliban in #Stormtossed, my #SlowShakespeare Tempest blog, not long after the first lockdown in 2020. It was about not being afraid…