SHAKESPEARE / #Antony_And_Cleopatra

#SHAKESPEARE / 

#Antony_And_Cleopatra/ Act 4 Scene 15

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Antony’s defeat at the hands of Octavius Caesar (on 1 August 30 BCE) is devastating to his pride. He takes his own life in preference to being captured – this is how warriors should die, he things. Only, his suicide, triggered by false news to the effect that Cleopatra is dead, is among the clumsiest in drama – first he asks Eros to kill him, who baulks his master; then he stabs himself but accidentally survives into a whole other scene in which he is reunited with Cleopatra one last time. These are the last of many intended last words.

ANTONY:

The miserable change now at my end

Lament nor sorrow at, but please your thoughts

In feeding them with those my former fortunes

Wherein lived; the greatest prince o’th’world,

The noblest; and do now not basely die,

Not cowardly put off my helmet to

My countryman; a Roman, by a Roman

Valiantly vanquished. Now my spirit is going;

I can no more.