Antony and Cleopatra

Eros, can you still see me?

Yes, noble lord.

Sometimes we see a cloud that looks like a dragon. Sometimes there’s a cloud like a bear or a lion, a castle, a floating rock, a craggy mountain. Or it might look like a blue cliff with trees on it that bow to the ground. These things fool our eyes by seeming solid, when they are actually only air. You’ve seen these illusions. They’re spectacles that appear at sunset.

Yes, my lord.

What looks like a horse is quick as thought disfigured by the wind, made as difficult to distinguish as water poured into water.

That’s true, my lord.

Eros, my young friend, your captain is now just like that cloud. Here and now I seem like Antony, but I can’t keep myself in this form, my boy. I went to war to save Cleopatra, whose love I thought I had, since she had mine—and mine carried with it a million others, those of my soldiers, now lost. The Queen conspired with Caesar to undermine my success and assure his victory. No, don’t cry, kind Eros. We still have the option of killing ourselves.