Soldiers on guard duty before Alexandria's palace discuss the coming battle. As they keep watch through the night, they hear mysterious music—ethereal, otherworldly—emanating from beneath the earth. The soldiers interpret this as a sign that Hercules, the god whom Antony loved, is abandoning him. They follow the strange music, mystified and troubled by its meaning.
This brief scene functions as a supernatural threshold moment. The mysterious music represents the play's turn toward tragedy: Antony's divine favor is literally departing. Shakespeare uses the soldiers as witnesses to cosmic disruption—ordinary men perceiving forces beyond comprehension. The music itself is ambiguous: is it divine, demonic, or purely natural? The soldiers' fearful interpretation—that Hercules leaves Antony—suggests that even the gods acknowledge his impending fall. This moment suspends us between the rational world of military duty and the irrational world of fate.
The scene's power lies in what it withholds. We never learn the music's source or true meaning; the soldiers themselves are confused witnesses. This uncertainty mirrors Antony's own spiritual disorientation. By placing this scene immediately before Antony's suicide attempt, Shakespeare creates dread through absence rather than action. The soldiers' simple confusion—'What should this mean?'—echoes the audience's own bewilderment. The scene transforms a palace courtyard into a liminal space where earthly power becomes meaningless and the invisible world dominates. Death is coming, and even nature announces it.
Do you hear, masters? do you hear?
Do you hear it, guys? Do you hear it?
Third Soldier · Act 4, Scene 3
A third soldier repeats the question, asking if anyone else hears the mysterious music. The line persists because it expresses a need for confirmation—the soldiers need to know they are not alone in their fear, that the strangeness is real and shared. It shows how supernatural moments bind men together in uncertainty.
Hark!
Listen!
Second Soldier · Act 4, Scene 3
A soldier calls for attention to a sound none of them can fully explain. The single word lands because it is an act of listening in darkness—the soldiers pause, aware that something has changed in the world but unable to name it. It creates a moment of collective dread, as if fate itself is speaking.
’Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, Now leaves him.
It’s the god Hercules, the one Antony loved, Now leaving him.
Second Soldier · Act 4, Scene 3
A soldier reports that he hears mysterious music under the stage, and interprets it as the god Hercules leaving Antony. The line works because it makes divine abandonment audible—the audience hears the god's departure as an actual sound. It shows that Antony's defeat is not simply military but metaphysical; the very forces of nature are deserting him.
Original Shakespeare alongside modern English. Synced read-along narration in the app.
