Antony is well, but he hesitates and the Queen senses that something is wrong. Yet he does not seem sufficiently distraught to be bringing news of death at that. She says to him, concerning his news:
// not well,
Thou shouldst come like a
Fury crowned with snakes,
- Act II, scene v, lines 39-40
The Greeks included in their myths three terrible goddesses, the Erinyes ("angry ones"), whose task it was to pursue and madden those who were guilty of particularly terrible crimes, such as the slaying of close kinsmen. They were depicted and described as so ferocious in appearance that the mere sight was maddening. They carried snakes in their hands, or else their hair was made up of living, writhing snakes. (Perhaps they symbolized the raging of conscience.)
To avoid offending them, the Greeks sometimes spoke of them by the euphemistic term "Eumenides" ("the kindly ones"). Aeschylus wrote a powerful play by that name, dealing with part of the Agamemnon myth. Agamemnon (see page I-89) is killed by his wife Clytemnestra on his return from Troy. To avenge his father, Agamemnon's son, Orestes, kills his mother and is pursued by the Erinyes in consequence.
The Romans called these fell goddesses "Furiae," from their word for raging madness, and the word is "Furies" in English.
... the feature of Octavia ...
The Messenger finally blurts out the news of Antony's marriage to Octavia. Cleopatra falls into a towering rage and beats the Messenger, shouting horrible imprecations upon him:
Hence,
Horrible villain! Or I'll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me: I'll unhair thy head,
Thou shalt be whipped with wire and stewed in brine,
Smarting in ling'ring pickle.
- Act II, scene v, lines 62-66
The whole scene, properly done, shows Cleopatra in a spitting, fantastic fury, and one can only feel that such rage would make Cleopatra the more attractive to Antony ("vilest things become themselves in her"). Compared with that, the gentle and modest Octavia must have seemed utterly pallid and insipid to Antony, in bed as well as out.
(I cannot resist repeating the story of the two respectable English matrons who were viewing a showing of Antony and Cleopatra a century ago, in the reign of Queen Victoria. When this scene passed its shattering course upon the stage, one of the matrons turned to the other and whispered in a most shocked manner: "How different from the home life of our own dear Queen!")
But Cleopatra's rage does not entirely wipe out her shrewdness. She questions the trembling Messenger yet again to make sure there is no possibility of mistake and says to him bitterly when the news is confirmed again and yet again:
Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
Thou wouldst appear most ugly.
- Act II, scene v, lines 96-97
Narcissus is, of course, the lovely youth, irresistible to women, who fell in love with his own reflection (see page I-10).
With that settled, and the Messenger retiring, Cleopatra ponders her next step. She orders a courtier to go after the Messenger and question him further:
Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
Report the feature of Octavia; her years,
Her inclination, let him not leave out
The color of her hair.
- Act II, scene v, lines 111-14
Thou dost o'ercount me...
The scene shifts to Misenum, where the triumvirs meet with Sextus. There is an exchange of hostages, threats, harsh language from either side.
Mark Antony tells Sextus that on land the triumvirs "o'ercount" (outnumber) him. Sextus responds sardonically:
At land indeed
Thou dost o'ercount me of my father's house:
- Act II, scene vi, lines 26-27
Here the word "o'ercount" is used in an alternate sense, meaning "cheat." The reference is to a house Antony had bought of Pompey the Great once and had then never paid for, since the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar intervened. Civil wars always end in enrichment for the victors at the expense of the losers.
... wheat to Rome
Octavius Caesar, however, coldly keeps his temper, and his steady urging of the real point causes Sextus Pompeius to bring up a suggested compromise. Sextus says:
You have made me offer
Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must
Rid all the sea of pirates; then, to send
Measures of wheat to Rome;
- Act II, scene vi, lines 34-37
In actual fact, the offer was rather more generous than that. Sextus Pompeius already had Sicily, but to it was added not only Sardinia, but Corsica also, and these three large islands half encircle Italy. In addition, since all these were taken from Octavius Caesar's share of the realm, Sextus was to have Greece as well, so that Antony had to pocket a share