"
This scene deepens and darkens the impression made by her unmotived
faithlessness to Antony. It is, however, splendidly characteristic and I
think needful; but it renders that previous avowal of faithlessness to
Antony altogether superfluous, the sole fault in an almost perfect
portrait. For, as I have said already, Shakespeare's mistakes in
characterization nearly always spring from his desire to idealize; but
here his personal vindictiveness comes to help his art. The historical
fact compels him now to give his harlot, Cleopatra, heroic attributes;
in spite of Caesar's threats to treat her sons severely if she dares to
take her own life and thus deprive his triumph of its glory, she outwits
him and dies a queen, a worthy descendant, as Charmian says, of "many
royal kings." Nothing but personal bitterness could have prevented
Shakespeare from idealizing such a woman out of likeness to humanity.
But in this solitary and singular case his personal suffering bound him
to realism though the history justified idealization.
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