She wants to know the features of Octavia, her years, her inclination, the colour of her hair, her height—everything.
A most veracious full-length portrait, with the minute finish of a miniature; it shows how Shakespeare had studied every fold and foible of Mary Fitton's soul. In the third act Cleopatra takes up again the theme of Octavia's appearance, only to run down her rival, and so salve her wounded vanity and cheat her heart to hope. The messenger, too, who lends himself to her humour now becomes a proper man. Shakespeare seizes every opportunity to add another touch to the wonderful picture.
Cleopatra appears next in Antony's camp at Actium talking with Enobarbus:
“Cleo. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.
Eno. But why, why, why?
Cleo. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,
And say'st it is not fit.”
Each phrase of the dialogue reveals her soul, dark fold on fold.
She is the only person who strengthens Antony in his quixotic-foolish resolve to fight at sea.
“Cleo. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.”
And then the shameful flight.
I have pursued this bald analysis thus far, not for pleasure merely, but to show the miracle of that portraiture the traits of which can bear examination one by one. So far Cleopatra is, as Enobarbus calls her, “a wonderful piece of work,” a woman of women, inscrutable, cunning, deceitful, prodigal, with a good memory for injuries, yet as quick to forgiveness as to anger, a minion of the moon, fleeting as water yet loving-true withal, a sumptuous bubble, whose perpetual vagaries are but perfect obedience to every breath of passion. But now Shakespeare without reason makes her faithless to Antony and to love. In the second scene of the third act Thyreus comes to her with Caesar's message:
“Thyr. He knows that you embrace not Antony
As you did love but as you feared him.
Cleo. O!
Thyr. The scars upon your honour therefore he
Does pity as constrained blemishes,
Not as deserved.
Cleo. He is a god, and knows
What is most right. Mine honour was not yielded,
But conquered merely.
Eno. {Aside.} To be sure of that
I will ask Antony.—Sir, sir, thou'rt so leaky
That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for
Thy dearest quit thee.”