Enter Alexas
ALEXAS Sovereign of Egypt, hail!
CLEOPATRA How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!
Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath
With his tinct gilded thee. How goes it
With my brave Mark Antony?
ALEXAS Last thing he did, dear Queen,
He kissed—the last of many doubled kisses—
This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.
CLEOPATRA Mine ear must pluck it thence. (1.5.34-41)
Alexas, one of Cleopatra’s own people, already encountered in an earlier scene—not an anonymous interchangeable Roman messenger, for once. A formal greeting, and a useful reminder that Cleopatra the great lover and the lover of great men is herself a prince, the ruler of a kingdom. Poor Alexas is always the butt of jokes, however, here bathetically interrupting Cleopatra’s reveries of Antony’s greatness. How much unlike art thou Mark Antony! Comparisons are odious, but it gets a good laugh. Cleopatra does at least concede—allowing Alexas back some little dignity—that coming from him, that great medicine hath with his tinct gilded thee. Some of Antony’s glory has rubbed off on Alexas by association; the great medicine is an alchemical conceit, as if Antony is the philosopher’s stone, turning all he touches to gold. How goes it with my brave Mark Antony? Alexas knows Cleopatra well: no mention of troop movements or political negotiations, but rather putting Cleopatra herself first, because for all her much-boasted passion for Antony, she also wants (also needs) to know first and foremost that he’s thinking of her, that he still loves her. Last thing he did, dear Queen, he kissed—and a pause to digress that’s also a pause on the kiss, enabling Cleopatra to remember other kisses—the last of many doubled kisses (he kisses everything twice? Egyptian excess, unable to stop himself, unable to tear himself away) he kissed this orient pearl, rich and lustrous, tactile, rounded, a fitting tribute to an exotic queen. Cynically, Antony (like Alexas) is demonstrating how well he knows Cleopatra and how to communicate with her, in this instance: a valuable gift! Jewellery! Dramatically, unless the pearl is enormous, it’ll be largely invisible to the audience and even on stage, and so it appears already magnified in the mind’s eye by Antony’s double kiss and Alexas’s vivid evocation of that moment. His speech sticks in my heart, though, continues Alexas, it was so poignant, so beautiful, so full of matter and import? Whatever (and mostly Alexas is drawing out the moment, whetting the appetite, stroking the ego, arousing interest, enjoying—he is Cleopatra’s servant, after all—being the centre of attention, having the power) Cleopatra will have it out of him quick smart. Gimme gimme, mine ear must pluck it thence. Tell me everything NOW.