I must do for myself what thou couldst not do for me." So saying, he took the sword from his servant's hands, plunged it into his body, and staggering to a little bed that was near, fell over upon it in a swoon.

He had received a mortal wound.
The pressure, however, which was produced by the position in which he lay upon the bed, stanched the wound a little, and stopped the flow of blood.

Antony came presently to himself again, and then began to beg and implore those around him to take the sword and put him out of his misery.

But no one would do it.

He lay for a time suffering great pain, and moaning incessantly, until, at length, an officer came into the apartment and told him that the story which he had heard of Cleopatra's death was not true; that she was still alive, shut up in her monument, and that she desired to see him there.