CW: suicidal ideation

CLEOPATRA               It were for me

To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods,

To tell them that this world did equal theirs

Till they had stol’n our jewel. All’s but naught.

Patience is sottish, and impatience does

Become a dog that’s mad. Then is it sin

To rush into the secret house of death

Ere death dare come to us?             (4.16.77-84)

Cleopatra is magnificent, petulant—and a combination of desperation, defiance, and resignation. It were for me to throw my sceptre at the injurious gods. That’s what I should do, that’s what would be appropriate in these circumstances, to shake my fist and defy heaven, berate the gods, who have done such harm in their actions, in allowing Antony’s death. I would tell them that this world did equal theirs, every bit as beautiful and valiant, every bit as great, till they had stol’n our jewel—until Antony’s death. It was he that made the world beautiful, valiant, and great, the jewel in the crown; it was he who made the world divine. Without him, this world is nothing. All’s but naught. Nothing’s left. Patience is sottish, stupid, pathetic, grotesque—why wait? Waiting is for fools. Impatience, on the other hand, does become a dog that’s mad; it’s bestial, crazed, less than human, to abandon reason and rush into things. But at the moment, Cleopatra implies, I am that mad dog. (Some in Shakespeare’s audience would be reminded of Ovid’s Hecuba, the Trojan queen, one of the classical archetypes of grief—especially suffering and grief beyond words—who is eventually transformed into a snarling dog by her many appalling losses.) Then is it sin, Cleopatra asks, to rush into the secret house of death ere death dare come to us? Is it wrong, in these circumstances, even if it’s at the same time irrational, a giving in to passion, to hasten our own deaths? Because I can’t see anything left to live for, she says, not in this world which no longer has Antony in it.