SELEUCUS      Madam, I had rather seal my lips

Than to my peril speak that which is not.

CLEOPATRA   What have I kept back?

SELEUCUS Enough to purchase what you have made known.

CAESAR          Nay, blush not, Cleopatra. I approve

Your wisdom in the deed.    (5.2.141-146)

A tiny little exchange—and in fact the whole Seleucus episode can probably be cut. But it’s nicely complex in both its significance and its effects. First, there’s potential for comedy, especially if Seleucus is being played by the same actor who’s already appeared as too many of the unfortunate messengers earlier in the play. Like them, he’s apparently not quite sure what he’s meant to be saying: madam, I had rather seal my lips than to my peril speak that which is not. (Seal can also be seel, to sew up.) There’s a twist here: he’s not quite saying that he’d rather stay silent than tell a lie, but instead that he’d rather not say anything if telling a lie will get him into trouble. (And if he’s only just emerged from a back room he’s not quite sure yet who’s ultimately in charge, Caesar or Cleopatra, and, if the former, how much power Cleopatra still has—and indeed how much power Caesar might have over him.) Cleopatra brazens it out: what have I kept back? In what way is this inventory of my goods inaccurate, what wealth have I concealed or reserved for myself? And poor Seleucus crumbles, perhaps ruefully, apologetically, or looking more at Caesar than at Cleopatra, judging that he’s the one to please now: you’ve kept back enough of your wealth and possessions to purchase what you have made known. Easily as much again. (Sorry! Sorry!) Fortunately Caesar thinks it’s understandable, even amusing, a sign of Cleopatra’s good sense and political nous: nay, blush not, Cleopatra. Don’t be embarrassed! I approve your wisdom in the deed: any sensible person would do the same.

But it’s more complicated. On one level, Cleopatra doesn’t want to be thought smart and sensible by Caesar, she wants to be thought compliant and magnanimous. She doesn’t want his patronising compliments, or to amuse him—clever girl! But in Plutarch at least—and it may not come out in performance—Cleopatra is playing a longer and more risky game. Seleucus is playing his part exactly as ordered, because concealing her wealth, keeping back some of her fabulous riches, suggests to Caesar that she plans to live, that she is thinking of the future. It might mean that he leaves her alone, that he takes his eye off her. This little subterfuge isn’t about money at all, or about tricking Caesar in those simplistic terms: it’s sleight of hand, buying time and space and control, so that Cleopatra can die on her own terms.