About this point, too, the historical fact fetters
Shakespeare and forces him to realize the other side of Cleopatra. After
Antony's death Cleopatra did kill herself. One can only motive and
explain this suicide by self-immolating love. It is natural that at
first Shakespeare will have it that Cleopatra's nobility of nature is
merely a reflection, a light borrowed from Antony. She will not open the
monument to let the dying man enter, but her sincerity and love enable
us to forgive this:
"I dare not, dear,--
Dear my lord, pardon,--I dare not,
Lest I be taken...."
Here occurs a fault of taste which I find inexplicable. While Cleopatra
and her women are drawing Antony up, he cries;
"O quick, or I am gone."
And Cleopatra answers:
"Here's sport, indeed!--How heavy weighs my lord!
Our strength has all gone into heaviness,
That makes the weight."
The "Here's sport, indeed"! seems to me a terrible fault, an inexcusable
lapse of taste. I should like to think it a misprint or misreading, but
it is unfortunately like Shakespeare in a certain mood, possible to him,
at least, here as elsewhere.
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