CLEOPATRA   His face was as the heav’ns, and therein stuck

A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted

The little O o’th’ earth.

DOLABELLA               Most sovereign creature—

CLEOPATRA His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm

Crested the world. His voice was propertied

As all the tunèd spheres, and that to friends;

But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,

He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,

There was no winter in’t; an autumn it was,

That grew the more by reaping. His delights

Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above

The element they lived in. In his livery

Walked crowns and crownets. Realms and islands were

As plates dropped from his pocket.            (5.2.78-91)

 

Is this Cleopatra’s greatest aria? It is lyrical, passionate, ecstatic; dream-like in its effects and in the aching sadness of its delusion. His face was as the heav’ns, and therein stuck a sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted the little O o’th’ earth. Antony’s face was heavenly, yes, but it was also all-encompassing, all that Cleopatra saw, filling and defining her world. His eyes were like the sun and the moon, orderly, keeping their course—the heavens in harmony—and giving light to the world, the little O, the tiny globe, tiny as a piece of type, or a gasp. (There’s a pattern of mostly golden circles in motion which cascades through this speech.) Antony was everything, sun and moon, east and west.

 

Dolabella tries again, kindly, politely: most sovereign creature—what? You’ve got to come now? You’ve got to accept this and come with me, no more time for talking? No chance. Completely ignored; Cleopatra’s getting higher and higher on her own grief and her own song.

 

His legs bestrid the ocean: Antony was a colossus of a man, powerful, monumental, striding over the world, or standing firm. (The Colossus: the gigantic bronze Apollo; another way in which Antony was godlike, glowing. Cleopatra the ocean, too.) And his reared arm crested the world, raised in triumph above it, like the fist on a helmet or a coat of arms. Definitive. Antony’s body is imagined as solid, powerful—and protective. His voice was propertied as the tuned spheres, beautiful, harmonious (again, Antony is the whole world, the whole universe, in the sound he makes)—and that to friends. That was what he sounded like when he spoke to his friends, and to me, so beautiful. But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, he was as rattling thunder. If he was angry though, if he shouted, it was earth-shaking, terrifying, thunderous. (Godlike: Jove, the thunderer.) For his bounty, there was no winter in’t. He was generous to a fault, never parsimonious, giving, giving all the time. An autumn it was, that grew the more by reaping: his giving nature was like his personality, the more he gave, the more he had to give. Perpetual harvest plenitude. (Impossible, of course, but then everything that Cleopatra says is impossible, a painful, consoling fantasy.)

 

And his delights? His pleasures? They were dolphin-like; they showed his back above the element they lived in. He rose above his pleasures, even as they were his element, even as he revelled in them; he didn’t wallow, he wasn’t just a creature of excess. It’s a sensual, erotic image, if Antony is to be imagined as the dolphin itself, sleek and shining, rising and falling in an endless, plunging rhythm. (Cleopatra his element, his sea.) In his livery walked crowns and crownets: kings and princes were his servants, wearing his uniforms, answering to him. (But in the mind’s eye, it’s a procession of golden circles, Antony followed by a train of coronets.) He was generous with them too: realms and islands were as plates dropped from his pockets. He rewarded those who were loyal to him, with land and titles, as if he were scattering realms like gold and silver behind him—another agricultural image, Antony the sower.

 

It’s a love-song, a love-letter—did Cleopatra ever tell Antony all this when he lived? Of course she didn’t.