In the brief Scene 14, Cleopatra realizes that Antony is exceedingly angry and perhaps slightly mad. She runs to her monument, a secure place of safety, to hide. But she first tells Mardian, one of her servants, to find Antony and tell him that Cleopatra has committed suicide. Cleopatra wants Antony to regret his harsh words and come to apologize to her.
However, her trick this time will not work.
In the following scene, Mardian tells the still angry Antony that Cleopatra is dead (Scene 15: lines 27-29). Immediately, Antony’s anger disappears. His emotions were just too wild, too uncontrollable. He does not really want Cleopatra dead. Yet, although his anger leaves, his despair does not. The emotional Antony now feels regret and guilt. He says to himself, “I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and weep for my pardon” (44-45). Antony means that he will kill himself in the hope of seeing Cleopatra in the afterlife, and then he will ask her for forgiveness. The theme regarding honor also is raised in this scene. Antony notes how he has lived in such dishonor that he now does not even have honor enough to kill himself, which is something that even a woman (namely, Cleopatra) could do (lines 56-60). So, Antony calls his young servant, named Eros, to stab him (Antony) with his sword.
Eros, however, has such great feeling and affection for his lord that he cannot bring himself to kill him. Eros tells Antony to turn his head away before he stabs him. When Antony looks away, Eros instead stabs himself (after line 93). Antony learns a lesson in honor from the young Eros. So, he takes the sword himself and plunges it into his body. Antony receives a fatal wound, but he does not die immediately. His death, rather, will be a slow one. As Antony is lying on the ground, another of Cleopatra’s servants enters and tells Antony that Cleopatra is still alive. Cleopatra, shortly after sending Mardian with the false news of her death, realized that Antony might then do something drastic. But Cleopatra is too late. The dying Antony, though, asks the servant and some guards to carry him to Cleopatra.
The last scene of Act IV takes place at
Cleopatra’s monument. Cleopatra brings Antony into the monument. Before he dies, Antony warns Cleopatra to trust none of Octavius Caesar’s men except for one named Proculeius. When Antony does die, Cleopatra faints. When she recovers, she feels that life is over. She tells her women, “Our lamp is spent, it’s out” (87). In this metaphor, the lamp or light is Antony. He was Cleopatra’s sun. Without him, life is dark and meaningless for her. So, like Antony, Cleopatra plans to commit suicide.