CLEOPATRA   Give me mine angle. We’ll to th’ river. There,

My music playing far off, I will betray

Tawny-finned fishes. My bended hook shall pierce

Their slimy jaws, and as I draw them up

I’ll think them every one an Antony,

And say ‘Ah ha, you’re caught!’

CHARMIAN                             ’Twas merry when

You wagered on your angling, when your diver

Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he

With fervency drew up.       (2.5.10-18)

It’s a wonderfully vivid pair of vignettes, as Cleopatra first imagines then Charmian remembers a fishing scene, an idyllic, innocent pastime surely, but also a sexy one, it seems. Give me my angle, my fishing rod, Cleopatra calls, we’ll to the river. Ah yes, the river, scene of Cleopatra’s great erotic triumph over Antony. (Not the same river, obviously, but, any river.) There, my music playing far off—there will be an appropriate soundtrack in the distance, Cleopatra will take her court musicians with her (but if Mardian’s going to sing, they won’t be allowed to get too close) and to that accompaniment, she will ensnare, betray tawny-finned fishes. (The orange, glowing fins flash before the eyes, like the darting fish themselves.) She describes the action accurately, gleefully, sensually—my bended hook shall pierce their slimy jaws, relishing the slime (a very Egyptian element, a word applied to the super-fertile mud of the Nile itself) and as I draw them up (she says) I’ll think them every one an Antony, and say ‘A ha, you’re caught!’ Much scope for flirtatious gesture in the performance, too. Triumphant, gleeful (again), not a little ridiculous, Antony caught, hook, line, and sinker. Well, yes, we know he’s coming back to her, even if he’s also marrying Octavia. Then Charmian recalls a previous fishing expedition (found in Plutarch): Cleopatra and Antony were fishing together and had laid bets as to their catch (who would catch the most, or first, perhaps), but Cleopatra, wily as ever, funny as ever, was prepared, with a lurking diver primed to hang a salt fish on Antony’s hook, which he with fervency, cries of triumph, smug satisfaction, duly drew up, landed. Again it’s a vivid picture, but this time a comic one, Cleopatra as prankster.

The salt fish is interesting for more than just its bathos, proverbial for its hardness and rigidity, as well as its cheapness, food for the poor; it’s phallic, so in some senses Antony performs his own emasculation here. A stockfish (the common English term) is foolish, mute, beaten, the butt of jokes, too. But, set against this bathos is the alluring idyll of Cleopatra’s imagining, and one might perhaps recall Donne’s gorgeous The Bait, which paints a delicious picture of a scene just such as the one she envisages, where the fish are simply begging to be caught…