needs her "crown and all." Already to all intents and purposes she has resolved on her death, as is shown by her frequent assurances. She has also resolved on the means of it; for scarcely has Caesar left, than she tells Charmian :

I have spoke already, and it is provided. (v. ii. 195.) Will she not also have resolved on the manner of it; and both in the self-consciousness of her beauty and in memory of her first meeting with Antony, does she not desire to depart life for the next meeting with due pomp and state? If we imagine she was keeping back her regalia for this last display, we can understand why Shakespeare inserted the "nobler token" in addition to the unconsidered trifles which she was quite ready to own she had reserved, and of which indeed in Shakespeare though not in Plutarch she had already made express mention as uninventoried.1 We can understand her consternation and resentment at the disclosure; for just in regard to the "nobler token" she could not explain her real motives without ruining her plan. And we can admire her "cunning past man's thought" in turning the whole incident to account as proof that she was willing to live on sufferance as protégée of Caesar.

No doubt this suggestion is open to the criticism that it is nowhere established by a direct statement; but that also applies to the most probable explanation of some other matters in the play. And meanwhile I think that it, better than the two previous theories

1 It is a rather striking coincidence that Jodelle, too, heightens Plutarch's account of the treasures. she has retained, and includes among them the crown jewels and royal robes. Seleucus finishes a panegyric on her wealth:

Croy, Cesar, croy qu'elle a de tout son or

Et autres biens tout le meilleur caché.

And she says in her defence:

Hé! si j'avois retenu les joyaux

Et quelque part de mes habits royaux,
L'aurois-je fait pour moy, las! malheureuse !

we have discussed, satisfies the conditions, by conforming with the data of the play, the treatment of the sources, and the feelings of the reader. On the one hand it fully admits the reality of Cleopatra's fraud and of her indignation at Seleucus. On the other it removes the discrepancy between her dissimulation, and the loftiness of temper and readiness for death, which she now generally and but for the usual interpretation of this incident invariably displays. It tallies with what we may surmise from Shakespeare's other omissions and interpolations; and if it goes beyond Plutarch's account of Caesar's deception by Cleopatra, it does not contradict it, and therefore would not demand so full and definite a statement as a new story entirely different from the original.

Be that as it may, there is at least no trace of hesitation or compliance in the Queen from the moment when she perceives that Octavius is merely "wording" her. Her self-respect is a stronger or, at any rate, a more conspicuous motive than her love. Antony, when he believed her false had said to her :

Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving,

And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee,
And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians :
Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot

Of all thy sex ; most monster-like be shown
For poor'st diminutives, for doits: and let
Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
With her prepared nails.

(IV. xii. 32.)

These words of wrath have lingered in her memory and she echoes them in his dying ears:

Not the imperious show

Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall

Be brooch'd with me; if knife, drugs, serpents have
Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe:

Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes

And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour
Demuring upon me.

(IV. XV. 23.)

The loathsomeness of the prospect grows in her imagination, and compared with it the most loathsome fate is desirable. She tells Proculeius :

Know, sir, that I

Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court;
Nor once be chastised with the sober eye
Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up
And show me to the shouting varletry

Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring! rather make

My country's high pyramides my gibbet,
And hang me up in chains.

(v. ii. 52.)

And now in the full realisation of the scene, she brings it home to her women:

Cle.
Now, Iras, what think'st thou ?
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
In Rome, as well as I: mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
And forced to drink their vapour.

Iras.
The gods forbid !
Cle. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors

Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out of tune.

(v. ii. 207.)

Such thoughts expel once for all her mutability and flightiness:

My resolution's placed and I have nothing
Of woman in me: now from head to foot

I am marble constant; now the fleeting moon
No planet is of mine.

(v. ii. 238.)

And the scene that follows with the banalities and trivialities of the clown who supplies the aspics among the figs, brings into relief the loneliness of a queenly nature and a great sorrow. Yet not merely the loneliness, but the potency as well. Who would have given the frivolous waiting-women

of the earlier scenes credit for devotion and heroism? Yet inspired by her example they learn their lesson and are ready to die as nobly as she. Iras has spoken for them all:

Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,
And we are for the dark.

(v. ii. 193.) Now she brings the robe and crown Cleopatra wore at Cydnus, and then, like Eros, ushers the way. Charmian stays but to close the eyes and arrange the diadem of her dead mistress :

Downy windows, close;

And golden Phoebus never be beheld

Of eyes again so royal. Your crown's awry ;
I'll mend it, and then play.

(v. ii. 319.)

Thereupon she too applies the asp and provokes its fang.

O, come apace, dispatch.

(v. ii. 325.)

Even in the last solemn moment there is vanity, artifice, and voluptuousness in Cleopatra. She is careful of her looks, of her state, of her splendour, even in death; and doubtless would have smiled if she could have heard Caesar's tardy praise :

She looks like sleep,

As she would catch another Antony

In her strong toil of grace.

(v. ii. 349.)

And she does not depart quite in the high Roman fashion. She has studied to make her passage easy, and has taken all measures that may enable her to liken the stroke of death to a lover's pinch and the biting of the asp to the suckling of a babe, and to

say:

As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle. (v. ii. 314.) None the less her exit in its serene grace and dignity is imperial, and deserves the praise of the dying Charmian and the reluctant Octavius.

CHAPTER VII

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

HITHERTO this discussion of Antony and Cleopatra has so far as possible passed over the most distinctive thing in the history of the hero and heroine, the fatal passion that binds them together, gives significance to their lives, and makes their memories famous. Knowing their environment and their nature we are in a better position to see in some measure what it meant.

We have noted how in that generation all ties of customary morality are loosed, how the individual is a law to himself, and how selfishness runs riot in its quest of gratification, acquisition, material ambition. Among the children of that day those make the most sympathetic impression who import into the somewhat casual and indefinite personal relations that remain—the relation of the legionary to his commander, of the freedman to his patron, of the waiting-woman to her mistress-something of universal validity and worth. But obviously no connection in a period like this at once arises so naturally from the conditions, and has the possibilities of such abiding authority, as the love of the sexes. On the one hand it is the most personal bond of all. Love is free and not to be compelled. It results from the spontaneous motion of the individual. Were we to conceive the whole social