ANTONY         I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards

To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone.

I have myself resolved upon a course

Which has no need of you. Be gone.

My treasure’s in the harbour. Take it. O,

I followed that I blush to look upon.

My very hairs do mutiny, for the white

Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them

For fear and doting.   (3.11.7-15)

Antony attempts to reassure his still-loyal attendants that really, yes, it would be fine if they were to flee and save themselves. I have fled myself, he points out, fled from the battle. And I have instructed cowards to run and show their shoulders, those who could not bear to fight any longer, who lost their nerve, to run away, turning their backs on the battle. So yes, honestly, friends—again, he’s humble, affectionate, grateful, and also pleading—be gone. Leave me alone now, it’s alright. I have myself resolved upon a course which has no need of you. Here they might well exchange looks with each other, because here Antony has all but announced that his intention is to kill himself. My mind’s made up, he says, and I don’t need your help any longer; I don’t want you to see me like this, to see me doing this. So, be gone. My treasure’s in the harbour, that ship laden with gold I’ve just instructed you to parcel out between you. Take it. Really.

Then he moves into more specific self-reproach. O, I followed that I blush to look upon. He is slowly, obliquely, coming around to blaming Cleopatra for what he’s done, describing her—her!—as that I blush to look upon. In front of these loyal Roman soldiers, he’s now, apparently, ashamed of his lover; he’s appalled by her, even disgusted, and what she has made him do, and become. My very hairs do mutiny, he suggests, in a complicated, odd conceit, and one which reminds his hearers that he’s middle-aged at least: the white (which suggest his maturity, the fact that he should know better) reprove the brown for rashness; the older man rebukes the younger for stupidity, for not thinking, acting out of instinct, not reason. But the brown hairs reprove the white, the younger man the older, for fear and doting. You lost your nerve, he tells himself, and all because of your infatuation with that—that—. You stupid old fool, lovestruck even to the point of your own destruction. Well, you’ve blown it now.