A noise within

CLEOPATRA               Wherefore’s this noise?

Enter a Guardsman

GUARDSMAN Here is a rural fellow

That will not be denied your highness’ presence.

He brings you figs.

CLEOPATRA   Let him come in.

Exit Guardsman

What poor an instrument

May do a noble deed! He brings me liberty.

My resolution’s placed, and I have nothing

Of woman in me. Now from head to foot

I am marble-constant. Now the fleeting moon

No planet is of mine.             (5.2.229-237)

There can be comedy in the noises off, and the fussy, frustrated, pompous guardsman, but also a moment of panic: wherefore’s this noise? what’s going on? Cleopatra thinks she knows what’s happening, and that she’s in control of it—but what if it’s the Romans come back, Dolabella perhaps, off-message again. (Or she could simply be expressing characteristically haughty disapproval of any clamour not caused by her.) The guard explains: here is a rural fellow(such disdain! fellow is decidedly pejorative; here’s an absolute peasant, a yokel, a country bumpkin) that will not be denied your highness’ presence. He won’t take no for answer; he absolutely insists on seeing you. He brings you figs. That’s the crucial bit; Cleopatra might relax, slightly, even as the guard wearily enunciates the bathos of it: figs, I ask you! at a time like this! how trivial! Let him come in. Whatever, madam, you know best (what caprice is this? if he’s an Egyptian, the guard is probably used to it—if it’s a Roman guard, he’s puzzled entirely by the ways of these Egyptians). And Cleopatra explains, and soars: what poor an instrument may do a noble deed! Those figs, byword for the trivial, and even the obscene—that’s my way out. Those figs have given me back control: he brings me liberty, not just figs. He brings me the means of my death. A swallow; a clench of the fist, of the jaw? She reassures herself, emboldens herself; she’s speaking it so that she can be it: my resolution’s placed, and I have nothing of woman in me. I can do this, I’ve made my mind up, I’m determined, I can do this, I will do this. I am no longer an inconstant, weak, and wavering woman. No: now from head to foot I am marble-constant, solid and unmoveable, but also already cold, already a monument to my own purpose and my own fate. And now the fleeting moon no planet is of mine: I’m no longer changeable, either as a woman or as my avatar Isis, moon-goddess. No more waxing or waning; no more rising and falling as the waters of the Nile: constancy. Eternity.