(iV. xiii. 8.)
It is not the most candid nor dignified expedient, but probably it is the most effective one; for violent ills need violent cures; and perhaps there was nothing that could allay Antony’s storm of distrust but as fierce a storm of regret. At any rate it has the result at which Cleopatra aims; but she knows him well, and presently foresees that the antidote may have a further working than she intends. Diomedes seems to state the mere truth when he says that her prophesying fear dispatched him to proclaim the truth.
But it is too late; and there only remains the lofty parting scene, when if she still fears to open the gates lest Caesar should enter, she draws her lover up to the monument, and lightens his last moments no less with her queenliness than with her love. She feels the fitness and the pathos in his ending, that none but Antony should conquer Antony: she not obscurely hints that she will take the same path. When he bids her:
Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety;
(iV. xv. 47.)
she answers well, “They do not go together.” Her passionate ejaculation ere she faints above his corpse, her appeal to her frightened women,
what’s brave, what’s noble,
Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion,
(V. xv. 87.)
have a whole-heartedness and intensity that first reveal the greatness of her nature.