ENOBARBUS  O, sovereign mistress of true melancholy,

The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,

That life, a very rebel to my will,

May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart

Against the flint and hardness of my fault,

Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,

And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,

Nobler than my revolt is infamous,

Forgive me in thine own particular,

But let the world rank me in register

A master-leaver and a fugitive.

O, Antony! O, Antony!           (4.10.11-22)

The previous scene repeatedly invoked the sun, gold, daylight; here, Enobarbus addresses the moon, who is at the least indifferent towards him, and perhaps actively malign; chilly, dead, not beamily romantic, not sunnily warm. O, sovereign mistress of true melancholy—because the moon causes madness, lunacy—the poisonous damp of night disponge upon me. Soak me with dew, again not romantically; he’s not imagining dew drops, but something squeezed out, a cold shower, creeping, chilling to the bones. That Enobarbus must address the moon as mistress, a personification not a person, is even sadder in comparison with Antony’s addresses to Cleopatra: she has been daylight, sun, and a nightingale, sources of beauty and comfort. Here, that’s more than inverted. Enobarbus calls down upon himself the indifferent moon’s disgust, its poison, that life, a very rebel to my will—I want to die, he says, how is it that I am still alive, that life is rebelling against my wishes?—may hang no longer on me. Life itself is a burden to him, dragging him down, weighing heavily. Another terrible conceit: throw my heart against the flint and hardness of my fault, which, being dried with grief, will break to powder, and finish all foul thoughts. My heart is so dried up with grief, so desiccated with sorrow and guilt, that if it were to be thrown against the awful thing I’ve done, the adamantine, unyielding fact of my betrayal of my friend and captain, then my heart would simply crumble into dust, burst in ashes. Powder, dust—penance, and obliteration. That would finish all foul thoughts. I wouldn’t have to think about what I’ve done any longer. Enobarbus almost echoes Hamlet here, in his nihilism, his self-disgust. O Antony, nobler than my revolt is infamous: I’ve done a terrible thing, notorious treachery—but you’re greater and more virtuous than I am vicious, worthless. Forgive me in thine own particular—can you forgive me, as the person I am, your friend, who loves you and has been loved by you? Can you forgive me so far as this concerns just the two of us? But I freely accept that, more generally, let the world rank me in register a master-leaver and a fugitive. As far as everyone else is concerned, as far as gossip and history account, I’m the lowest of the low, a traitor, an ingrate, a disloyal deserter. O, Antony! O, Antony!