“Young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.”
When Cleopatra comes to herself after swooning, her anger is characteristic because wholly unexpected; it is one sign more that Shakespeare had a living model in his mind:
“It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
To tell them that this world did equal theirs
Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but naught.”
Her resolve to kill herself is borrowed:
“We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make death proud to take us.”
But the resolution holds:
“It is great
To do that thing that ends all other deeds,
Which shackles accidents and bolts up change.”
It is this greatness of soul in Cleopatra which Shakespeare has now to portray. Caesar's messenger, Proculeius, whom Antony has told her to trust, promises her everything in return for her “sweet dependency.” On being surprised she tries to kill herself, and when disarmed shows again that characteristic petulant anger:
“Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir;
. . . . . This mortal house I'll ruin,
Do Caesar what he can.”
And her reasons are all of pride and hatred of disgrace. She'll not be “chastised with the sober eye of dull Octavia,” nor shown “to the shouting varletry of censuring Rome.” Her imagination is at work now, that quick forecast of the mind that steels her desperate resolve: