Professor Zielinski’s next argument is singularly unconvincing. He says: “The situation (i.e. in the Epistle and in the Play) is parallel even in details, as everyone will tell himself: moreover the poet himself confesses it:
Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand,
And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:
Dido and her Æneas shall want troops
And all the haunt be ours.”
(IV. xiv. 51.)
But in the first place this has reference not to the separation but to the reunion: and in the second place, of the reunion there is no word in the Epistle. I cannot therefore see how Shakespeare’s lines can be taken as a confession of indebtedness to Ovid. But these analogies, real or imaginary, lead up to Professor Zielinski’s main point. He quotes as what he calls the “Motiv des Kindes” and considers the distinctive feature of Ovid’s treatment, Dido’s reproach:
Forsitan et gravidam Didon, scelerate, relinquas,
Parsque tui lateat corpore clausa meo. (line 131.)
He admits that it is not easy to find this “Motiv” in the play, but argues that Shakespeare was always very reticent in such regards. Then he proceeds: “Hier nun war Kleopatra tatsächlich schwanger, als Antonius sie verliess: Plutarch setzt es c. 36 voraus, und Shakespeare wird es gewusst haben, da er Act III. die Kinder erwähnt. Sollte er in der grossen Abschieds-scene das dankbare Motiv haben entgehen lassen? Sehn wir zu. Kleopatra spielt die nervöse, ihr ist bald gut, bald schlecht: ‘schnür mich auf ... nein, lass es sein.’ Ihre ungerechten Vorwürfe bringen den Antonius endlich auf; er will gehn. Sie hält ihn zurück: courteous lord, one word. Wir erwarten eine wichtige Erklärung; was wird das ‘eine Wort’ sein?