Cleopatra pretends to be ill: "I am sick and sullen" and she asks Charmian to help her as she falls because "the sides of nature will not sustain it". She tries to keep control of their conversation by not allowing Antony to get a word in edge ways and she taunts him over his reaction to Fulvia's death, claiming that he should be in Rome not here with her, having moments before been complaining that he was leaving her. She says "O most false love!" "Now I see, I see in Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be" She turns everything on its head, leaving Antony dumbstruck, not knowing what to do or say. Antony remains her faithful lover telling her he will "go from hence they solider, servant, making war or peace as thou affects." Cleopatra refuses to accept Antony as what he says he is and draws on her play acting by claiming that Antony is play acting their love, "play one scene of excellent dissembling, and let it look like perfect honour." This also shows Cleopatra being manipulating, she is telling Antony that when he looks his most honourable she will know he is faking it. But when faced with the real prospect of Antony going, Cleopatra becomes more sincere and says: "O, my oblivion is a very Antony, and I am all forgotten." She is playing with the idea of them remembering each other in oblivion. Cleopatra goes on to tell him after he has told her that her "royalty holds idleness your subject" and that he should take her "for idleness itself" that for her to be horrible to him is like the pain of being in labour. And although the play-acting has subsided a little, she still cannot resist at being over the top and she ends with "Upon your sword sit laurel victory, and smooth success be strewed before your feet!".
Through Act 1 Scene 5 Cleopatra complains to Charmian that she misses Antony. She wonders what he is doing and whether he, in turn, is thinking of her. Alexas enters and presents her with a gift from Antony: a pearl.
