And ably does Octavius play his role: he “extenuates rather than enforces,” gilds his covert threats with promises, and dismisses the episode of the unscheduled treasure with Olympian serenity. His only fault is that he rather overacts the part. His excess of magnanimity, when by nature he is far from magnanimous, tells Cleopatra all she needs to know, and leaves little for the definite disclosures of Dolabella:
He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
Be noble to myself.
(V. ii. 191.)
But, though not magnanimous, he is intelligent: and his intelligence enables and enjoins him to recognise greatness when it is no longer opposed to his own interest, and when the recognition redounds to his own credit, by implying that the conqueror is greater still. His panegyrics on Antony, and afterwards on Cleopatra, are very nearly the right things to say and are very nearly said in the right way. When he hears of his rival’s suicide, his first exclamation does not ill befit the occasion:
The breaking of so great a thing should make
A greater crack: ... the death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in the name lay
A moiety of the world.
(V. i. 14.)