Read a translation of
Act IV, scene xiv →
Summary: Act IV, scene xv
Antony arms himself to kill his lover, telling Eros that
he no longer knows who he is now that Cleopatra’s love has proven
false. Mardian arrives with his false report of the queen’s death,
adding that her last words were “‘Antony! most noble Antony!’” (IV.xv.30).
Antony tells Eros to unarm. Overcome with remorse, he declares that
he will join Cleopatra in death and beg her forgiveness for thinking
him false. He asks Eros to kill him. Horrified, Eros refuses, but
Antony reminds him of the pledge he made long ago to follow even
Antony’s most extreme wishes. Eros relents. He prepares to stab
Antony but stabs himself instead. Antony praises his soldier’s honor
and says he must learn from this example. He falls on his own sword
but fails to kill himself. A group of guardsmen refuses to finish
the task, and Diomedes, a servant of Cleopatra, reports that the
queen is alive and well. It is too late, however, to save Antony’s
life. Dying, Antony commands his guards to bear his body to Cleopatra.
Read a translation of
Act IV, scene xv →
Analysis: Act IV, scenes ix–xv
In Act IV, scene xv, Antony, who has been betrayed by
his lover and has lost the war to Caesar, offers one of the play’s
most profound reflections on the connection between character and
circumstance: “Here I am Antony, / Yet cannot hold this visible
shape, my knave” (IV.xv.13–14). As his fortune
changes from good to bad, so, he believes, his character slips from
honorable to dishonorable. He likens himself to a cloud that shifts
from one shape into another. Given the play’s investment in spectacle—neither
love nor war truly matters unless one has something to show for
them—Antony’s disturbance at being unable to hold a “visible shape”
is particularly interesting. His honor, it seems, is primarily a
function of whether the world sees him as honorable. When it fails
to do so, Antony no longer fits into it. His rigid definition of
himself as a victorious general and as Cleopatra’s lover betrays
his Roman sensibilities, which cannot and will not allow him to
assume the contradictory roles of the conqueror and the conquered.
He will, he decides, either be the hero or cease to exist at all
by killing himself. His statement “Here I am Antony” reflects his
search for a glimpse of his former, simpler self: the indomitable
hero who will put an end to his life. Thus, he thankfully notes
to Eros, all that remains to him is suicide.
Once the second sea battle is lost, the play belongs
to Antony until his death—Cleopatra recedes, as does Caesar. In
the scenes leading up to his death, Antony’s feelings of betrayal,
regret, and, ultimately, love give way to some of the finest language
in the play.
Oh, sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
Fortune
and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake
hands. All come to this? The hearts
That
spanieled me at heels, to whom I gave
Their
wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On
blossoming Caesar, and this pine is barked
That
over topped them all.
(IV.xiii.18–24)
Here, as Antony bids goodbye to “Fortune,” he comes to
an important realization from which he cannot recover. Comparing
himself to a tree that once towered above all others, he now feels
that Cleopatra’s inconstant love, which once “spanieled” at his
heels, has stripped him of his bark. This metaphor expresses that
he feels raw, unprotected, and doomed to die. Cleopatra enters soon
after Antony delivers these lines, and he scares her away with vicious
threats. More than anger, however, Antony feels a keen sense of
loss. He laments, “I made these wars for . . . the Queen— / Whose
heart I thought I had, for she had mine, / Which . . . had annexed
unto’t / A million more, now lost” (IV.xv.15–18).
This utterance of regret confirms Antony’s lost sense of self: he
no longer possesses either of the identities—military giant or lover
of Cleopatra—that have defined him so well.
The news of Cleopatra’s suicide suffices to cool Antony’s
temper and returns him to thoughts of reconciliation. By killing
himself, Antony envisions joining his love in the afterlife: “I
come, my queen . . . / Where souls do couch on flowers we’ll hand
in hand, / And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze” (IV.xv.50–52). This
consummation in death of their love moves the couple toward its
ultimate victory over Caesar and the Roman Empire.
