And when Charmian, her woman, declares that the way to keep a man is to “cross him in nothing,” she replies scornfully:
“Thou teachest, like a fool, the way to lose him.”
She uses a dozen taunts to prevent her lover from leaving her; but when she sees him resolved, she wishes him victory and success. And so through a myriad changes of mood and of cunning wiles we discover that love for Antony which is the anchor to her unstable nature.
The scene with the eunuch Mardian is a little gem. She asks:
“Hast thou affections?
Mar. Yes, gracious madam.
Cleo. Indeed?
Mar. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing.
But what indeed is honest to be done;
Yet have I fierce affections, and think
What Venus did with Mars.
Cleo. O, Charmian!
Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?”
She is with her lover again, and recalls his phrase for her, “my serpent of old Nile,” and feeds herself with love's “delicious poison.”
No sooner does she win our sympathy by her passion for Antony than Shakespeare chills our admiration by showing her as the courtesan:
“Cleo. Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Caesar so?
Char. O, that brave Caesar!
Cleo. Be choked with such another emphasis!
Say, the brave Antony.
Char. The valiant Caesar!
Cleo. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth
If thou with Caesar paragon again
My man of men.
Char. By your most gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.
Cleo. My salad days,
When I was green in judgement: cold in blood,
To say as I said then!”
Already we see and know her, her wiles, her passion, her quick temper, her chameleon-like changes, her subtle charms of person and of word, and yet we have not reached the end of the first act. Next to Falstaff and to Hamlet, Cleopatra is the most astonishing piece of portraiture in all Shakespeare. Enobarbus gives the soul of her:
“Ant. She is cunning past man's thought.
Eno. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing
but the finest part of pure love....
Ant. Would I had never seen her!
Eno. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful
piece of work; which not to have been blest withal would
have discredited your travel.”