However, even while she is fawning on Thidias and giving him her hand to kiss, Antony enters. In the midst of his disgrace and defeat, he finds it only too easy to believe he is being betrayed. He orders Thidias to be whipped and rages at Cleopatra for her immorality and for the other men in her life (surely this is something he knew all about to begin with). He cries out in self-pity:

—Act III, scene xiii, lines 106-9

To those who know only as much of Antony and Cleopatra as they read in this play it would come as a surprise to know that Antony did indeed beget a lawful race (that is, legitimate children). He had two sons by Fulvia.

The "gem of women" must be a reference to Octavia, but there, too, Shakespeare is bending history. In the play Antony's connection with Octavia seems fleeting, but in actual history, he spent a couple of years with her in Athens and their relationship was long enough and real enough to produce two daughters.

Half mad with frustration, Antony taunts Cleopatra with her infidelities to him (in advance yet, for the examples he cites came about before they had met in Tarsus) until he makes himself a cuckold in his own eyes, crying out:

—Act III, scene xiii, lines 126-28

Basan is the biblical Bashan, an area of pasturage renowned for its fat cows and strong bulls. Thus, the psalmist describes his troubles metaphorically in this way: "Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round" (Psalms 22:12). Since bulls are homed, the reference to cuckoldry is clear (see page I-84).

But the reference is biblical. It is conceivable that a cultivated Roman of the times might have come across a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible and have read it out of curiosity or interest-but to suppose that the non-intellectual Antony would do so is out of the question.

Cleopatra manages to calm down Antony at last and bring him to what senses remain in him.

Octavius Caesar's army is now just outside Alexandria and Antony decides to meet him in one last land fight. In fact, he even-as a gesture-offers to meet Octavius in single combat.

Octavius meets this challenge with characteristic contempt. He says to Maecenas:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 2-6

Actually, though one could not guess it from the play, eleven months have passed since the Battle of Actium. Octavius Caesar did not swoop down on Egypt at once. That could wait, for Antony and Cleopatra were helplessly penned up there.

Octavius first founded the city of Nicopolis ("City of Victory") near the site of the battle. Then he had to spend time reorganizing the affairs of the Eastern provinces that had been Antony's domain and were now his. (Egypt, be it remembered, had never, till then, been a Roman province, but was in theory an independent kingdom.)

Then he had to return to Rome to take care of pressing matters there. It was only in July 30 b.c. that he could sail his army to Egypt itself. By that tune Cleopatra was thirty-nine.

Antony and Cleopatra had spent the eleven-month respite in luxury as though they knew their time was limited and were determined to make the most of what was left. But now Octavius Caesar had come and the time for the final battle was at hand.

The eve of the last battle is a strange one. The soldiers hear mysterious music in the air and underground, moving away into the distance. One soldier guesses at the meaning:

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 15-16

This eerie tale is told by Plutarch and is the kind of legend that arises after the fact.

It is, of course, rather late in the day for Hercules to leave poor Antony. Hercules had clearly abandoned him on the eve of Actium.

Nor is it only Hercules that abandons Antony. The common soldier who had advised a land battle at Actium now meets Antony again. If that land battle had been fought, he says:

—Act IV, scene v, lines 4-6

Thus it is that Antony discovers that the rough and faithful Enobarbus has at last deserted him and gone over to Octavius Caesar's camp. But Antony, in adversity, always rises to heights of strength and nobility he cannot possibly reach in prosperity. He realizes that not Enobarbus' wickedness but his own follies have driven the soldier away. He is thinking perhaps that after his own desertion at Actium, no soldier owes him loyalty, and he says:

—Act IV, scene v, lines 16-17

And, having learned that Enobarbus has crept away so secretly as to have been unable to take with him his personal belongings and the money he has earned in the course of his labors, Antony says to his aide-de-camp:

—Act IV, scene v, lines 12-13

Shakespeare found the tale of this princely gesture in Plutarch and it is believable in Antony. He was lost, anyway, and it was the kind of quixotic gesture a man noble by fits would make. If it had been Octavius Caesar, we might suppose it to have been done out of a desire to punish the deserter, for punishment it most certainly turns out to be.

Enobarbus is already suffering over his betrayal, and realizes that the tardy converts to Octavius Caesar's cause are not truly trusted and are certainly not honored, but live in a kind of contemptible twilight. In the midst of his misgivings, he hears his property has been sent after him. Stupefied, he bursts out in agony: