We are to understand, surely, that Enobarbus dies of 'thought'
(melancholy or grief), and has no need to seek a 'swifter mean.' Cf. IV.
vi. 34 _seq._, with the death-scene and his address there to the moon as
the 'sovereign mistress of true melancholy' (IV. ix.). Cf. also III.
xiii., where, to Cleopatra's question after Actium, 'What shall we do,
Enobarbus?' he answers, 'Think, and die.'
The character of Enobarbus is practically an invention of Shakespeare's.
The death-scene, I may add, is one of the many passages which prove that
he often wrote what pleased his imagination but would lose half its
effect in the theatre. The darkness and moonlight could not be
represented on a public stage in his time.