DOLABELLA.

Gentle madam, no.

CLEOPATRA.

You lie,--up to the hearing of the gods!

There was no room left in this amazing picture for the display of that
passionate maternal tenderness, which was a strong and redeeming feature
in Cleopatra's historical character; but it is not left untouched, for
when she is imprecating mischiefs on herself, she wishes, as the last
and worst of possible evils, that "thunder may smite Caesarion!"

In representing the mutual passion of Antony and Cleopatra as real and
fervent, Shakspeare has adhered to the truth of history as well as to
general nature. On Antony's side it is a species of infatuation, a
single and engrossing feeling: it is, in short, the love of a man
declined in years for a woman very much younger than himself, and who
has subjected him to every species of female enchantment. In Cleopatra
the passion is of a mixed nature, made up of real attachment, combined
with the love of pleasure, the love of power, and the love of self. Not
only is the character most complicated, but no one sentiment could have
existed pure and unvarying in such a mind as hers; her passion in itself
is true, fixed to one centre; but like the pennon streaming from the
mast, it flutters and veers with every breath of her variable temper:
yet in the midst of all her caprices, follies, and even vices, womanly
feeling is still predominant in Cleopatra: and the change which takes
place in her deportment towards Antony, when their evil fortune darkens
round them, is as beautiful and interesting in itself as it is striking
and natural. Instead of the airy caprice and provoking petulance she
displays in the first scenes, we have a mixture of tenderness, and
artifice, and fear, and submissive blandishment. Her behavior, for
instance, after the battle of Actium, when she quails before the noble
and tender rebuke of her lover, is partly female subtlety and partly
natural feeling.

CLEOPATRA.

O my lord, my lord,
Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
You would have follow'd.

ANTONY.

Egypt, thou know'st too well
My heart was to the rudder tied by the strings,
And thou should'st tow me after. O'er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou know'st; and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me.

CLEOPA