Yet he is by no means indifferent to real charm, to the spell of refinement, grace and beauty. Like many who profess cynicism, and even in a way are really cynical, he is all the more susceptible to what in any kind will stand his exacting tests, especially if it contrast with his own rough jostling life of the barracks and of the field. It is in his mouth that Shakespeare places that incomparable description of Cleopatra on the Cydnus, and there could be no more fitting celebrant of her witchery. Of course the poetry of the passage is supposed in part to be due to the theme, and is a tribute to Cleopatra’s fascinations; but Enobarbus has the soul to feel them and the imagination to portray them. Indeed she has no such enraptured eulogist as he. He may object to her presence in the camp and to her interference in the counsels of war; but that is only because, like Bacon, he believes that “they do best, who if they cannot but admit love, make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life”; it is not because he underrates her enchantment or would advise Antony to forego it. On the contrary, he seems to reproach his general when, in a passing movement of remorse, Antony regrets having ever seen her:
O, sir, you then had left unseen a wonderful piece of work; which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.
(I. ii. 159.)
And he not only sees that Antony, despite the most sacred of ties, the most urgent of interests, will inevitably return to her: the enthusiasm of his words shows that their predestinate union has his full sympathy and approval.
Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly.
Eno. Never; he will not;
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.