CLEOPATRA Noblest of men, woot die?
Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty? O see, my women,
The crown o’th’ earth doth melt. My lord!
O, withered is the garland of the war.
The soldier’s pole is fall’n. Young boys and girls
Are level now with men. The odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon. (4.16.61-70)
Antony falls into silence, or death (editors have to supply a stage direction for his death and it’s in many ways the actor’s choice: before Cleopatra speaks? after? during?) but Cleopatra soars, in one of her most beautiful speeches, which is at the same time a speech of utter desolation, a crash into a kind of acute depression. She can’t believe it: noblest of men, woot die? will you, really? is such a thing possible? He is the noblest of men, but he’s also hers, and her first thought is the one common to so many not just bereaved, but bereft: how can you leave me? how can you do this to me? hast thou no care of me? it’s not just, do you not love me, that you’re leaving me like this (grief is solipsistic, even in those not as wholly given to solipsism as Cleopatra) but also, who will care for me, look after me, now? what am I going to do? Do I really have to carry on alone; shall I abide in this dull world (dull as both boring and lacking colour and sheen; a dull surface, as opposed to a shining or glittering one, lead not gold) which in thy absence is no better than a sty? without you, there’s no fun, no life at all, and I’m barely human. The world is squalid, bestial, utterly reduced. An acknowledgement, the first for some time, that there are others present: o see, my women (there, always, at her side) the crown o’th’ earth doth melt. The best thing in all the world, its emperor, is leaving us, dissolving, losing shape and form. (Just as Antony’s great speech to Eros on clouds and identity had anticipated.) My lord! Anguish. My husband, as much as my leader, my sovereign—this spoken by a queen. O, withered is the garland of the war, its prize, its wreaths of victorious laurels, its hero; he was greater, more verdant and triumphant and vital, a finer thing than any of those. The soldiers’ pole is fallen, the guiding star of his troops, the pole star, or else their measure, the example against which they judged everything else. He’s down, and irretrievably, and they’re lost without him. Young boys and girls are level now with men: without Antony, what’s the point in any distinction, of any kind? Because the odds is gone: everything is flat, featureless, incapable of distinction. There is nothing left remarkable, nothing amazing, or worthy of notice, nothing worth caring about, nothing at all to make life worth living, beneath the visiting moon. Time will pass, the moon will wax and wane, and without Antony, the world will be colourless, purposeless, pointless. An absence only.