Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick’—
seems to prepare the way for, and almost to justify the subsequent infatuation of Antony when in the sea-fight at Actium, he leaves the battle, and ‘like a doating mallard’ follows her flying sails.
Few things in Shakespear (and we know of nothing in any other author like them) have more of that local truth of imagination and character than the passage in which Cleopatra is represented conjecturing what were the employments of Antony in his absence—‘He’s speaking now, or murmuring—Where’s my serpent of old Nile?’ Or again, when she says to Antony, after the defeat at Actium, and his summoning up resolution to risk another fight—‘It is my birthday; I had thought to have held it poor; but since my lord is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.’ Perhaps the finest burst of all is Antony’s rage after his final defeat when he comes in, and surprises the messenger of Cæsar kissing her hand—
‘To let a fellow that will take rewards,
And say God quit you, be familiar with,
My play-fellow, your hand; this kingly seal,
And plighter of high hearts.’
It is no wonder that he orders him to be whipped; but his low condition is not the true reason: there is another feeling which lies deeper, though Antony’s pride would not let him shew it, except by his rage; he suspects the fellow to be Cæsar’s proxy.