O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,—
Whose eye beck’d forth my wars and call’d them home;
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,—
Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.
(iV. xii. 24.)
These terrors and suspicions are inevitable in such love as theirs.
Or is their feeling for each other to be called love at all? The question has been asked even in regard to Antony. From first to last he is aware not only of her harmfulness but of her pravity. He is under no illusions about her cunning, her boggling, her falsity. And can this insight co-exist with devotion?
Much more frequently it has been asked in regard to Cleopatra. She frankly avows even in retrospect her policy of making him her prey. Thus does she mimic fact in her pastime:
Give me mine angle: we’ll to the river; there,