I’ll have: but how, when Antony is gone
Through whom I might command it?
(iII. iii. 4.)
Or, if other motives supervene, they belong to wanton whim and splendid coquetry. Her deliberate allurements, her conscious wiles, her calculated tenderness, are all employed merely to retain her command of the serviceable instrument, and at the same time minister to her vanity, since Antony would accept such a rôle only from her.
If both or either of these theories were adopted, the whole interest and dignity of the theme would be gone. If Antony were not genuinely in love, his follies and delinquencies would cast him beyond the pale of our tolerance. If Cleopatra were not genuinely in love, she would at best deserve the description of Ten Brink, “a courtesan of genius.” If the love were not mutual, Antony would be merely the toy of the courtesan, Cleopatra merely the toy of the sensualist.
But in point of fact, it is mutual and sincere. Antony’s feeling has to do with much more than the senses. It goes deeper and higher; and even when he doubts Cleopatra’s affection, he never doubts his own:
(Her) heart I thought I had, for she had mine.
(iV. xiv. 16.)
Cleopatra’s feeling may have originated in self-interest and may make use of craft. But in catching Antony she has been caught herself; and though interest and vanity are not expelled, they are swallowed up in vehement admiration for the man she has ensnared. Her artifices are successful, because they are the means made use of by a heart that is deeply engaged; and it is no paradox to say that they are evidence of her sincerity. So often as she refers to her lover seriously, it is with something like adoration. After the first separation, he is her “man of men.” In her first bitterness at his marriage, she cannot let him go, for
Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,