CW: suicide
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras.
CLEOPATRA My desolation does begin to make
A better life. ’Tis paltry to be Caesar.
Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave,
A minister of her will. And it is great
To do that thing that ends all other deeds,
Which shackles accidents and bolts up change,
Which sleeps and never palates more the dung,
The beggar’s nurse, and Caesar’s. (5.2.1-8)
Cleopatra is defiant, contrary, and resolute: she’s made up her mind what to do, and she’s going to make the most of it. My desolation does begin to make a better life: I’m at rock bottom, utterly bereft, utterly destroyed—and so the only way is up. Things can only get better, and I’m going to make the best of it. Pah! ’Tis paltry to be Caesar, he’s a nobody. What’s the point in being him? Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave, a minister of her will. He’s still mortal, he has no control over fate—he’s subject to chance, he’s a servant of fortune, at her beck and call every bit as much as the next man. As much as I am. It is great, however, to do that thing that ends all other deeds—to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. It is great to take one’s fate into one’s own hands, to take the ultimate control over one’s own life, by ending it, by making the active choice to die at one’s own hand, in the manner and time of one’s own choosing. To put an end to it all on one’s own terms. To do that thing, to die by suicide—it shackles accidents and bolts up change. It puts an end to all these uncertainties, all the vagaries and whims of this chancy world. It’s definite, reliable—done, finished, the end. To die thus is to sleep; to do that thing which never palates more the dung, which never again has to put up with the mire and muck of human existence, to eat the absolute shit of life—which is common both to the beggar and to Caesar. No escaping that, whether you’re the lowliest or the highest, the great victor, triumphant Caesar. You still have to take whatever life throws at you. Not me though, not any more, says Cleopatra, bitterly, defiantly, maliciously, in this little Hamlet echo—I’m out of here.