Introduction
Antony and Cleopatra is the second of a two-parter from the Roman world. The first was Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar had the second famous love affair with Cleopatra (after Pompey), but he is murdered in his own play and Antony, his dear friend, along with Octavius (Augustus Caesar), avenge his murder and now rule the Roman world together with Lepidus. However, Antony, is positioned in the east, and is so smitten with Cleopatra and the luxurious and decadent lifestyle in Egypt, that he has abandoned the power centre of Rome to Octavius, who increasingly takes full advantage of this arrangement. Indeed, Antony appears to be neglecting his duties as part of the famous Roman Triumverate and has crowned himself a joint ruler over Egypt and the Eastern territories of the Roman Empire, along with his Cleopatra. This provides Octavius with the perfect excuse to use the mighty Roman fleet to attack Antony, who is defeated by Rome. Antony blames Cleopatra for his defeat and her reaction is to hide in her family tomb and send word to Antony that she is dead. He believes the news of her demise and falls on his sword and is carried to the tomb, where he dies in her arms. Cleopatra has no interest in being dragged back to Rome as a captive and takes her own life. This all paves the way for Octavius to be crowned the one and only Emperor of Rome, as Augustus Caesar, perhaps Rome’s greatest leader during its 500 years of Imperial rule.
This is our second play with Marc Antony, who, together with Octavius, was appointed co-ruler of the Roman Empire. He was a heroic figure in Julius Caesar, giving a brilliant speech that turned the populous of Rome against the conspirators Brutus and Cassius and unified the empire following Caesar’s death. Antony is far less heroic in this second play, after bedding down with Cleopatra in Egypt and abandoning completely his duties to Rome. His obsession with Cleopatra is a personal character flaw and he demonstrates way more care for his private love life than he does for his duty as co-ruler of the Roman Empire. His private life smothers his public persona under the influence of the exotic Cleopatra, who plays the role of a dangerous vixen in Antony’s life. She is devoted to his attention, as she was with Julius Caesar, but she also plays the role of the spider to the fly when it comes to Antony. She is a brilliant tease, and she plays him perfectly. Whether she actually loves him or not is a matter of constant debate and discussion. He is one of the most powerful men in the world and Egypt seems safe from Roman incursion so long as he remains in her bed. By Act V her love seems more genuine, when Antony is slipping away from her and the cold and calculating Octavius draws nearer and nearer and death becomes her best option. Octavius is the consummate leader and will be a spectacular Roman Emperor. He is cool and calculating, especially compared to the passionate unpredictability of Antony and Cleopatra. Each of the play’s namesakes have close supporters, as Romeo and Juliet did with Friar Lawrence and the nurse. Enobarbus is a blunt soldier and friend to Antony. However, he is increasingly disturbed by what he perceives as Antony’s betrayal of Rome and eventually deserts his friend and is a part of Octavius’ army that defeats Antony. It was the right decision but Enobarbus is so saddened by these events that he dies of a profound grief. Cleopatra has two strong-willed servants, Charmain and Iras. They are loyal to Cleopatra and when she dies they accompany her into the tomb.
Shakespeare wrote several plays around the same time exploring the theme of great men buckling under the strain of their private feelings. In this sense, Antony joins the tragic fate of Othello, Lear, Macbeth and Timon of Athens, who all allowed their private lives to destroy their sense of righteous duty to their state. Antony’s feelings are manipulated by the powerful and sensual Queen of Egypt. The prolonged sexual encounter between Antony and Cleopatra is a direct threat to Rome and its public virtues. The conflict between Antony’s individual will and the efficient and effective administration of the Roman Empire is vividly portrayed. Antony explicitly broadcasts that he is prepared, for the sake of his passion for Cleopatra, to ‘let Rome in the Tiber melt’. More treasonous words have rarely been spoken. He is genuinely torn between his fiercely loyal upbringing as a model Roman soldier and leader and his sexual infatuation with Cleopatra and her exotic and exciting Eastern way of life. They fall in love and Rome is divided once again, this time between Antony and Octavius. Only Octavius is entrenched in the power-base of Rome itself, all the while Antony is luxuriating in the sensual bed of Egypt.
These are not ‘star-crossed lovers, as in Romeo and Juliet. These are mature adults and Antony is actually married to a Roman wife. But somehow he is drawn into the exotic luxury of Cleopatra’s prowess, as Julius Caesar himself was. Their mutual attraction to one another, despite how wrong it is on so many levels, is what makes this love story so powerful. Antony has so much to lose and will lose it all. They can be great together, akin to two gods, but are also often monstrous and irrational. Shakespeare depicts both sides of this couple with some of the finest language ever expressed. Cleopatra can be infuriating as well as captivating. She is a powerful and experienced sedductress and holds a spell over Antony that destroys them both. His soldiers claim that she transforms this ‘pillar of the world’ into a ‘strumpet’s fool’. Enorbarbus declares in Act II that Cleopatra ‘makes hungry where she most satisfies’. She is a professional temptress and he sacrifices his very life for the time she gives him. She also famously seduced Julius Caesar: ‘He ploughed her and she cropped.’ Apparently, she gravitates to power. But her temperament is as fluid as the Nile itself. She is as unpredictable as her sexual appetite is insatiable. Typical of Shakespeare, he presents many questions but provides few answers. As dangerous as Cleopatra is to Antony and to Rome, he remains devoted to her until the tragic end. Such was her allure. Cleopatra puts on quite the show, whenever she appears on stage. She is the consummate performer, wearing a host of faces and displaying a wide array of emotions. Her death scene is an impressive demonstration of theatricality, eclipsing Antony’s awkward suicide attempt with a sexually charged ecstasy of death, in which she speaks of ‘immortal longings’ and refers to facing her death as something of a ‘lover’s pinch’. Cleopatra never stops playing Cleopatra and this is her play as it is her Egypt. She may be the most theatrical character in stage history.
Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s finest creations, perhaps reminiscent of Hamlet and Falstaff. She is certainly the most formidable of his female characters. The two lovers offer a final glimpse into Shakespeare’s portrayal of the inner self, which began with Richard II and continued through Shylock, Falstaff, Brutus, Hamlet, Iago, Macbeth and Lear. In fact King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra were written within 14 months of one another in 1605-1606 and may have exhausted Shakespeare’s quest for inner truth. The later romances are a whole different world than he presents in his depth analysis of the above characters and their plays. If Shakespeare’s greatest creative gift was his exploration of the interior of human nature, then Antony and Cleopatra could be regarded as his greatest accomplishment, as the kaleidoscope of shifting perspectives is profoundly mesmerizing. What we know for certain is that the love and lust expressed between Antony and Cleopatra is no match for the powerful and opportunistic Octavius. In the end, even he acknowledges something in Cleopatra in death, that is reminiscent of her in life: ‘She looks like sleep, as she would catch another Antony’. Anna Brownell Jameson was an 18th century art critic and Shakespeare scholar who summed up Shakespeare’s creation as follows: ‘I have not the slightest doubt that Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is the real historical Cleopatra – Her mental accomplishments, her unequalled grace, her woman’s wit, her irresistible allurements, her starts of irregular grandeur, her bursts of ungovernable temper, her vivacity of imagination, her petulant caprice, her fickleness and her falsehood, her tenderness and her truth, her childish susceptibility to flattery, her magnificent spirit, her royal pride, the gorgeous eastern colouring of the character – all these contradictory elements has Shakespeare seized, mingled them in their extremes, and fused them into one brilliant impersonation of classical elegance, Oriental voluptuousness and gypsy sorcery.’ Naturally, this assessment says as much about Shakespeare as it does Cleopatra.
Act I (5 scenes)
Scene i
Alexandria, Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Demetrius and Philo
Philo: “Nay, but this dotage of our general’s overflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes, that over the files and musters of the war have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn, the office and devotion of their view upon a tawny front. His captain’s heart, which in the scuffles of great fights hast burst the buckles on his breast, reneges all temper, and is become the bellows and the fan to cool a gypsy’s lust.”
Enter Antony, Cleopatra and her ladies and eunuch
Philo: “Look where they come! Take but good note, and you shall see in him the triple pillar of the world transformed into a strumpet’s fool. Behold and see.”
Cleopatra: “If it be love indeed, tell me how much.”
Antony: “There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.”
Enter messenger
Messenger: “News, my good lord, from Rome.”
Antony: “Grates me the sum.”
Cleopatra: “Nay, hear them, Antony. Fulvia perchance is angry, or who knows if the scarce-bearded Caesar has not sent his powerful mandate to you: ‘Do this or this; take in that kingdom and enfranchise that; Perform it, or else we damn thee.’ Most like, you must not stay here longer, your discussion is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.”
Antony: “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space. There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?”
Cleopatra: “Hear the ambassadors.”
Antony: “Fie, wrangling queen! Tonight we’ll wander through the streets and note the qualities of people.”
Analysis
Demetrius and Philo are friends to Antony and they clearly are concerned about the transformation they see in him into ‘a strumpet’s fool’. We encounter classic Cleopatra right from her first utterances, as she seeks to quantify Antony’s love and makes awkward a message from Rome, suggesting that perhaps his wife, Fulvia, is angry or else Octavius Caesar is forwarding mandates to Antony. She manages to irritate him with her provocations and he speaks treasonous words in front of his men: ‘Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space.’ Antony then returns to his preoccupation with his hedonistic life in Egypt with Cleopatra: ‘There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch without some pleasure now.’ He has clearly come a long way from his avenging of Julius Caesar’s murder in the previous play, as presently the conflict emerging is between Antony and Octavius Caesar, between East and West and between Egypt, governed by passion and pleasure, and Rome, steeped in discipline and reason. Antony rules one-third of the Roman Empire, but a distant one-third in the Far East, which includes Egypt. Octavius Caesar rules Rome itself. The two rulers are allied to one another but hardly friendly.
Act I
Scene ii
Alexandria, Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas and a soothsayer
Charmian: “Sweet Alexas, where’s the soothsayer who you praised so to the Queen?”
Alexas: “Soothsayer.”
Soothsayer: “Your will?”
Charmian: “Is this the man? Is it you, sir, who knows things?”
Soothsayer: “In nature’s infinite book of secrecy a little I can read.”
Enter Enobarbus
Enobarbus: “Bring in the banquet quickly, wine enough Cleopatra’s health to drink.”
Alexas: “Good sir, give me good fortune.”
Soothsayer: “I make not, but foresee. You shall be yet far fairer than you are. You shall be more believing than beloved. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.”
Charmian: “O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.”
Enter Cleopatra
Cleopatra: “Saw you my lord?”
Enobarbus: “No, lady.”
Cleopatra: “He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden a Roman thought hath struck him. Seek him, and bring him hither.”
Alexas: “My lord approaches.”
Enter Antony with a messenger
Cleopatra: “We will not look upon him. Go with us.”
Exit Cleopatra, Enobarbus and the rest
Antony: “Well, what worse?”
Messenger: “The nature of bad news infects the teller.”
Antony: “When it concerns the fool or the coward. Go on! Things that are past are done with me. ‘Tis thus: who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, I hear him as he flattered.”
Messenger: “O, my lord!”
Antony: “Speak to me; mince not the general tongue. Name Cleopatra as she is called in Rome. Rail thou in Fulvia’s phrase, and taunt my faults with such full licence as both truth and malice have power to utter.”
Messenger: “At your noble pleasure.”
Antony: “These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, or lose myself in dotage.
gMessenger: “Fulvia thy wife is dead. Her length of sickness, with what else more serious import thee to know, this bears.”
Antony: “Forbear me. There’s a reat spirit gone! Thus did I desire it. She’s good, being gone. I must from this enchanting queen break off. Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know, my idleness doth hatch. How now, Enobarbus!”
Enter Enobarbus
Enobarbus: “What is your pleasure, sir?”
Antony: “I must with haste from hence. I must be gone.”
Enobarbus: “Cleopatra, watching but the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moments.”
Antony: “She is cunning past man’s thought.”
Enobarbus: “Alack, sir, no! Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears, they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report.”
Antony: “Would I had never seen her!”
Enobarbus: “O sir, you had then left unseen a wondrous piece of work, which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.”
Antony: “Fulvia is dead.”
Enobarbus: “Fulvia?”
Antony: “Dead.”
Enobarbus: “Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice, comforting therein that when old robes are worn out there are members to make new. If there were no more woman but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented. This grief is crowned with consolation: your old smock brings forth a new petticoat.”
Antony: “I shall break the cause of our expedience to the Queen, and get her leave to part.”
Analysis
By the end of scene ii we have met all of the principle characters other than Octavius Caesar. Cleopatra is highly dramatic throughout the play, but she is also extremely shrewd and calculating and doesn’t miss much. She notes that Antony was ‘disposed to mirth, but on the sudden a Roman thought hath struck him’. Sure enough, the constant stream of messenges for him from Rome are rarely good and they only serve to remind him of his dereliction of Roman accountability. Cleopatra is not the only person to flip and flop as the minutes alter their course. Antony, in just the last scene, was willing to ‘let Rome in Tiber melt’ and here he tells Enobarbus that he wishes he had never seen Cleopatra and that he must ‘from this enchanting queen break off, for ten thousand harms does his idleness hatch’. Antony is clearly torn between his Rome and his Egypt, which is to say, between duty and allegiance to Caesar and love and lust for Cleopatra. The latest message from Rome informs Antony that his wife, Fulvia, is dead. Once again he is torn: ‘There’s a great spirit! Thus did I desire it.’ He plans to leave for Rome immediately. Enobarbus meanwhile praises Cleopatra and is thankful of the news of Fulvia’s death: ‘Your old smock brings forth a new petticoat.’
Act I
Scene iii
Alexandria, Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Alexas
Cleopatra: “Where is he? See where he is, who is with him and what he does. If you find him sad, say I am dancing; if in mirth, report that I am sudden sick. Quick and return.”
Exit Alexas
Charmian: “Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly, you do not hold the method to enforce the like from him.”
Cleopatra: “What should I do I do not?”
Charmian: “In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.”
Cleopatra: “Thou teaches like a fool – the way to lose him.”
Charmian: “Here comes Antony.”
Cleopatra: “I am sick and sullen.”
Antony: “I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose.”
Cleopatra: “Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall.”
Antony: “Now, my dearest queen -“
Cleopatra: “Pray you, stand farther from me.”
Antony: “What’s the matter?”
Cleopatra: “I know by that same eye there’s some good news. What says the married woman? You may go. Would she had never given you leave to come! Let her not say ’tis I that keep you here’ – I have no power upon you. Hers you are. O, never was there a queen so mightily betrayed!”
Antony: “Cleopatra.”
Cleopatra: “Why should I think you can be mine and true, though you in swearing shake the gods who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness, to be entangled with thee mouth-made vows, which break themselves in swearing.”
Antony: “Most sweet queen -“
Cleopatra: “Bid farewell and go.”
Antony: “Here me, Queen: The strong necessity of time commands our service awhile, but my full heart remains in use with you. Our Italy shines over with civil swords. My more particular, and that which most with you should safe my going, is Fulvia’s death.”
Cleopatra: “Can Fulvia die?”
Antony: “She’s dead, my queen.”
Cleopatra: “O, most false love. Now I see in Fulvia’s death how mine received shall be.”
Antony: “Quarrel no more. I’ll leave you, lady.”
Cleopatra: “Corteous lord, one word. Sir, you and I must part – but that’s not it. Sir, you and I have loved – but that’s not it. Your honour calls you hence; therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly, and all the gods go with you! Upon your sword smooth success be strewed before your feet!”
Antony: “Let us go.”
Analysis
Cleopatra keeps everyone on their toes. She instructs Alexas that if she should find Antony sad, she should tell him that Cleopatra is dancing; and if in mirth then tell him that she is ‘sudden sick’. When Charmian suggests to Cleopatra that she give way to Antony and cross him in nothing, she thinks Charmian is mad: ‘thou teaches like a fool – the way to lose him.’ Enobarbus calls her a ‘wonderful piece of work’ and so she is. But she likes to keep Antony on edge at all times. It takes him upwards of 40 lines to inform her that Fulvia is dead, as she rails and rails about Fulvia and simply cuts him off over and over again with her histrionics. And once Antony does finally tell her that Fulvia is dead, Cleopatra criticizes him for not being more upset over her death, suggesting that ‘now I see in Fulvia’s death how mine received shall be.’ She is the consummate drama queen.
Act I
Scene iv
Rome. Caesar’s house
Enter Octavius Caesar and Lepidus
Caesar: “You may see, Lepidus, it is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate our great competitor. From Alexandria this is the news: he fishes, drinks and hastes the lamps of night in revel. You shall find there a man who is the abstract of all faults that all men follow. Let’s grant it is not amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy, say this becomes him – yet must Antony no way excuse his foils when we do bear so great weight in his lightness.”
Enter messenger
Messenger: “Pompey is strong at sea, and it appears he is beloved of those who only have feared Caesar.”
Caesar: “I should have known no less.”
Messenger: “Caesar, I bring thee word Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, make the sea serve them. Many hot inroads they make in Italy. Not vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon taken as seen.”
Caesar: “Anthony, leave thy lascivious wassails.”
Lepidus: “‘Tis pity of him.”
Caesar: “Let his shames quickly drive him to Rome. ‘Tis time we twain did show ourselves in the field; and to that end assemble we immediate council. Pompey thrives in our idleness.”
Analysis
Here we get our first indication of Rome’s perspective on Antony in Egypt. Straight-laced Octavius Caesar reports that Antony ‘fishes, drinks, and wastes the lamps of night in revels.’ He refers to him as ‘a man who is the abstract of all faults.’ Rome is beset with troubles. There is a rebellion afoot in Asia Minor, Pompey is raging at sea and the pirates are routinely capturing Roman ships all over the coasts of Italy. And, oh yes… Flavia is dead. Caesar wants Antony in Rome, where there is much need of him: ‘We bear so great weight in his lightness.’ And indeed, Antony is coming to Rome.
Act I
Scene v
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Cleopatra and Charmian
Cleopatra: “Charmian!”
Charmian: “Madam?”
Cleopatra: “Give me to drink mandragora.”
Charmian: “Why, madam?”
Cleopatra: “That I might sleep out this great gap of time my Antony is away.”
Charmian: “You think of him too much.”
Cleopatra: “O, ’tis treason! O Charmian, where think’st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he? Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse? O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! He’s speaking now, or murmuring ‘where is my serpent of old Nile?’ For so he calls me. Did I, Charmian, ever love Caesar so?”
Charmian: “O that brave Caesar!”
Cleopatra: “Be choked with such another emphasis! Say, ‘the brave Antony’.”
Charmian: “The valiant Caesar!”
Cleopatra: “By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth if thou with Caesar paragon again my man of men. Get ink and paper. He shall have every day a several greeting, or I’ll unpeople Egypt.”
Analysis
Cleopatra pines for her Antony while he is away in Rome. Charmian tells her she thinks too much of him, which Cleopatra calls a treason. When Cleopatra asks Charmian if she had ever loved Caesar as she does Antony, Charmian praises her memory of Caesar. Cleopatra threatens to bloody her teeth if she she once again holds up Caesar to the level of Antony. Cleopatra seems like a teenage girl at times, although her reputed sexual prowess suggests otherwise.
Act II (7 scenes)
Scene i
Messina. Pompey’s house
Enter Pompey, Menecrates and Menas in warlike manner
Pompey: “If the great gods be just, they shall assist the deeds of just men.”
Menecrates: “Know, worthy Pompey, that what they do delay they not deny.”
Pompey: “I shall do well. The people love me, and the sea is mine; my powers are crescent, and my auguring hope says it will come to the full. Mark Antony in Egypt sits at dinner.”
Enter Varrius
Varrius: “Mark Antony is every hour in Rome expected.”
Menas: “I cannot hope Caesar and Antony shall well greet together.”
Pompey: “But how the fear of us may cement their divisions, and bind up the petty difference we yet not know. Be it as our gods will have it.”
Analysis
Antony has been called to Rome to deal with some serious issues besetting the empire, not the least of which is Pompey, who is gaining territory and popularity by the day. Here we find Pompey in Messina, confident that he is loved by the people, has a solid grip of the seas, has encouraging auguries and sees Antony relishing his Egyptian lifestyle. He learns here that Antony is arriving in Rome as a formidable commanding soldier and his greatest hope is that Caesar and Antony, two very different personalities, may dissolve their alliance in much anticipated conflicts between them. Shakespeare moves his scenes all about the Roman Empire, from Egypt to Rome, Athens, Syria and beyond, as this play encompasses the known western world and is somewhat less about the depth of characters as we will have noted in his many previous productions involving Falstaff, Hamlet, Iago, Macbeth, Lear, and Brutus, among others. There is not a single soliloquy in this play. Indeed, the inward glance will be less and less present in his final years of troublesome Romantic tragedies and comedies. Antony and Cleopatra rather suddenly brings a halt to the classic period of Shakespeare’s most creative brilliance which blessed his works from 1595 to 1606 and included Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Henry IV (parts I and II), Henry V, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and finally, Antony and Cleopatra. Richard III came earlier (1592) and The Tempest came later (1611). All the other masterpieces were written in that 12 year window of 1595-1606. Such a proliferation of genius has never been witnessed by anyone else in such a short period of time. Following 1606 Shakespeare wrote Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Cymbeline, Winter’s Tale, Henry VIII, Two Noble Kinsmen and The Tempest. He wrote plays for 25 years before retiring back to his childhood home of Stratford Upon Avon.
Act II
Scene ii
Rome. The house of Lepidus
Enter Enobarbus and Lepidus
Lepidus: “Here comes the noble Antony.”
Enter Antony and Ventidius
Enobarbus: “And yonder Caesar.”
Enter Caesar, Maecenas and Agrippa
Lepidus: “Noble friends, that which combined us was most great, and let not a leaner action rend us. What’s amiss, may it be gently heard. When we debate our trivial difference loud, we do commit murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners, touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms.”
Antony: “‘Tis well spoken.”
Caesar: “Welcome to Rome.”
Antony: “Thank you. I learn you take things ill which are not so, or being, concern you not. My being in Egypt, Caesar, what was it to you?”
Caesar: “No more than my residing here at Rome might be to you in Egypt. Your wife and brother made wars upon me, and their contestation was theme for you.”
Antony: “You do mistake your business; my brother never did urge me in his act. Did he not rather discredit my authority with yours?”
Caesar: “You praise yourself by laying defects of judgement to me; but you patched up your excuses.”
Antony: “Not so, not so.”
Caesar: “I wrote to you when rioting in Alexandria; you did pocket up my letters, and with taunts did gibe my missive out of audience. You have broken the article of your oath, which you shall never have tongue to charge me with.”
Lepidus: “Soft, Caesar!”
Antony: “Lepidus, let him speak. The article of my oath -“
Caesar: “To lend me arms and aid when I required them, the which you both denied.”
Antony: “Truth is, that Fulvia, to have me out of Egypt, made wars here.”
Maecenas: “It might please you to enforce no further the griefs between ye – to forget them quiet.”
Lepidus: “Worthily spoken, Maecenas.”
Agrippa: “Give me leave, Caesar.”
Caesar: “Speak, Agrippa.”
Agrippa: “Thou has a sister, admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony is now a widower.”
Caesar: “Say not so, Agrippa. If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof were well deserved of rashness.”
Antony: “I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear Agrippa further speak.”
Agrippa: “To hold you in perpetual amity, to make you brothers, to knit your hearts, take Antony Octavia to his wife. By this marriage, all little jealousies, which now seem great, and all great fears, which now import their dangers, would then be nothing. Truths would be tales, where now half tales be truths.”
Antony: “Will Caesar speak?”
Caesar: “Not till he hears how Antony is touched with what is spoke already.”
Antony: “What power is in Agrippa to make this good.”
Caesar: “The power of Caesar, and, his power unto Octavia.”
Antony: “May I never, to this good purpose, dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand.”
Caesar: “There is my hand. A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother did ever love so dearly.”
Lepidus: “Happily, amen! Of us must Pompey presently be sought, or else he seeks us out.”
Antony: “What is his strength by land?”
Caesar: “Great and increasing; but by sea he is an absolute master.”
Exit all but Enobarbus, Agrippa and Maecenas
Maecenas: “Welcome, sir. You stayed well by it in Egypt.””
Enobarbus: “Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance and made the night light with drinking.”
Maecenas: “Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast. Is this true?”
Enobarbus: “We had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.”
Maecenas: “She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her. Royal wench! She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed. He ploughed her, and she cropped. Now Antony must leave her utterly.”
Enobarbus: “Never, he will not. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. She makes hungry where most she satisfies; for vilest things become themselves in her.”
Maecenas: “If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle the heart of Antony, Octavia is a blessed lottery to him.”
Analysis
Lepidus immediately proposes that in the meeting among the Roman Triumvirate the two principle persons, Antony and Caesar, deal gently with their differences. Lepidus is the weakest of the three Roman rulers and will be dispensed with soon enough by Caesar, but his point is well received, as Antony and Caesar simply must work together well, despite their differences, if the integrity of the empire is to be preserved in the face of multiple challenges. Nonetheless the two rulers rip into each other fast and furious at the outset, until Agrippa proposes a marriage between Antony, recently widowed, and Caesar’s sister, Octavia. The hope is the this union would bind Caesar and Antony as family and render their fears and petty jealousies harmless. It is agreed upon that this marriage will knit their hearts as one and they immediately plan their battle against the great Pompey. Once everyone leaves Maecenas asks Enobarbus about life in Egypt and about the wonders of Cleopatra. Enobarbus sings her praises: ‘Age cannot wither her and she makes hungry where she most satisfies.’ It is doubtful that Octavia, Caesar’s sister, can make Antony abandon his ‘serpent on the Nile’.
Act II
Scene iii
Rome. Caesar’s house
Enter Antony, Caesar and Octavia
Antony: “The world and my great office will sometimes divide me from your bosom. My Octavia, read not my blemishes in the world’s report.”
Octavia: “Good night, sir.”
Exit Caesar and Octavia
Enter soothsayer
Antony: “Say to me, whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar’s or mine?”
Soothsayer: “Caesar’s. Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side. Make space enough between you. If thou dost play with him at any game, thou art sure to lose.”
Exit soothsayer
Antony: “He has spoken true. The very dice obey him; and in our sports my better cunning faints under his chance. I will to Egypt; and though I make this marriage for my peace, in the east my pleasure lies.”
Analysis
Antony warns Octavia that his ‘affairs’ will sometimes ‘divide me from your bosom’. Truer words were never spoken! Once alone with the soothsayer Antony receives the advice he seemingly searches for: ‘Stay not by his side… make space between you…’ Indeed, ‘I will to Egypt… where my pleasure lies.’ He is hooked.
Act II
Scene iv
Rome. A street
Enter Lepidus, Maecenas and Agrippa
Lepidus: “Pray you hasten your generals. Till I see you in your soldier’s dress, farewell.””
Analysis
Lepidus orders soldiers to prepare to confront Pompey’s army
Act II
Scene v
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Cleopatra and Charmian
Cleopatra: “Give us some music – moody food of us who trade in love.”
Enter a messenger
Messenger: “Madam, madam -“
Cleopatra: “Antony’s dead! If thou say so, villain, thou kills thy mistress.”
Messenger: “First, madam, he is well.”
Cleopatra: “Why, there’s more gold. But, sirrah, mark, we used to say the dead are well. Bring it to that, the gold I give thee will I melt and pour down thy ill-uttering throat.”
Messenger: “Good madam, hear me.”
Cleopatra: “I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak’st. Yet, if thou say Antony lives, is well, or friends with Caesar, I’ll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail rich pearls upon thee.”
Messenger: “Madam, he’s well, and friends with Caesar.”
Cleopatra: “Make thee a fortune from me.”
Messenger: “But yet, madam – “
Cleopatra: “I do not like ‘but yet’. Fie upon ‘but yet.'”
Messenger: “He is bound unto Octavia.”
Cleopatra: For what good turn?”
Messenger: “For the best turn in the bed.”
Cleopatra: “I am pale, Charmian.”
Messenger: “Madam, he’s married to Octavia.”
Cleopatra: “The most infectious pestilence upon thee! (she strikes him) Horrible villain! I’ll unhair thy head; thou shalt be whipped with wire and stewed in brine.”
Messenger: “Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match. He’s married, madam.”
Cleopatra: “Rogue, thou has lived too long.” (she draws a knife)
Messenger: “Nay, then I’ll run.”
Charmian: “Good madam, the man is innocent.”
Cleopatra: “Some innocents escape not the thunderbolt. Call the slave again. Though I am mad, I will not bite him.”
Charmian: “He’s afeared to come.”
Cleopatra: “I will not hurt him.”
Re-enter the messenger
Cleopatra: “Come hither, sir. Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news.”
Messenger: “I have done my duty.”
Cleopatra: “Is he married? I cannot hate thee worse than I do if thou again says ‘yes’.”
Messenger: “He’s married to Octavia, madam.”
Cleopatra: “Get thee hence.”
Exit messenger
Cleopatra: “In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar.”
Charmian: “Many times, madam.”
Cleopatra: “I am paid for it now. I faint. Go to the fellow and bid him report the features of Octavia; her years, her inclinations; let him not leave out the colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly how tall she is. Lead me to my chamber.”
Analysis
Cleopatra is a petulant child in this scene and hardly becoming of an Egyptian queen. Indeed, Shakespeare reveals multiple sides of both Cleopatra and her Antony in this play. She can be an emotional wrecking ball of a teenage girl, but at times is a very capable monarch and a sexually mature lover of great renown. Indeed, Enobarbus calls her ‘a woman of infinite variety’. Antony is a great warrior and Roman ruler but is increasingly losing his Roman toughness the longer he lingers in the hedonism of Alexandria and Cleopatra’s bed. Here, a messenger arrives with news and Cleopatra falls apart just imagining the news and then rages when she learns that Antony is married to Caesar’s sister Octavia. She beats the messenger and threatens to kill him, but then calls him back to confirm the news and have him learn everything about Octavia and report back to her promptly. Cleopatra is a complex character and quite the drama queen… literally.
Act II
Scene vi
Near Misenum
Enter Pompey and Menas at one door and Antony, Caesar, Lepidus, Enobarbus, Maecenas and Agrippa at the other door.
Pompey: “Your hostages I have, so have you mine; and we shall talk before we fight.”
Antony: “Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails; we’ll speak with thee at sea; at land thou know’st how much we do over-count thee.”
Lepidus: “Be pleased to tell us how you take the offers we have sent you.”
Caesar: “There’s the point.”
Pompey: “You have made me offer of Sicily and Sardinia, and I must rid all the seas of pirates; then to send measures of wheat to Rome.”
Caesar: “That’s our offer.”
Pompey: “Let me have your hand and thus we are agreed.”
Lepidus: “Well met here.”
Pompey: “We’ll feast ere we part. Antony, your fine Egyptian cookery shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar grew fat with feasting there. Aboard my galley I invite you all.”
Exit all but Enobarbus and Menas
Enobarbus: “We came hither to fight with you.”
Menas: “For my part, I am sorry it has turned to drinking. Is Mark Antony married to Cleopatra?”
Enobarbus: “Caesar’s sister, Octavia, is now the wife of Antony.”
Menas: “Then are Caesar and he forever knit together.”
Enobarbus: “If we’re bound to divine of this unity, I would not prophesy so.”
Menas: “I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage than the love of the parties.”
Enobarbus: “I think so too. But you shall find the bond that seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity. He will to his Egyptian dish again; then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar, and, as I said before, that which is the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of their variance.”
Menas: “Come sir, will you board? Let’s away.”
Analysis
Pompey accepts the peace proposal from the triumvirate and they now plan a night of serious drinking aboard Pompey’s galley. Enobarbus reflects to Menas that he is yet concerned about Caesar and Antony despite his marriage to Octavia. Enobarbus knows the Antony will return again and again to Cleopatra’s bed and that this will be hurtful to both Octavia and Caesar and therefore ‘that which is the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of their variance’. Enobarbus is a very wise and blunt man. He calls it as he sees it and he is usually right.
Act II
Scene vii
On board Pompey’s galley
Enter two servants
2 Servant: “Lipedus is high-coloured.”
1 Servant: “It raises the greater war between him and his discretion.”
Enter Caesar, Antony, Lepidus, Pompey and Menas
Antony: (to Caesar) “Thus do they, sir: they take the flow of the Nile by certain scales in the pyramid.”
Lepidus: “You have strange serpents there.”
Antony: “Ay, Lepidus.”
Pompey: “Sit, and some wine! A health to Lepidus.”
Lepidus: “What manner of thing is your crocodile?”
Antony: “It is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath breadth; it is just so high as it is and it lives by the which nourishes it.”
Lepidus: “What colour is it?”
Antony: “Of its own colour too.”
Lepidus: “Tis a strange serpent.”
Antony: “Tis so.”
Menas: “Would thou be lord of all the world?”
Pompey: “How should that be?”
Menas: “I am the man will give thee all the world.”
Pompey: “Hath thou drunk well?”
Menas: “No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.”
Pompey: “:Show me which way.”
Menas: “These three world-sharers, these competitors, are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable, and when we are put off, fall to their throats. All there is thine.”
Pompey: “Ah, this thou should have done, and not have spoken on it. In me tis villainy. In thee it had been good service. I should have found it afterwards well done, but must condemn it now.”
Menas: (aside) “For this, I’ll never follow thy palled fortunes more. Who seeks, and will not take when once tis offered, shall never find it more.”
Antony: “Here’s to Caesar!”
Caesar: “Its monstrous labour when I wash my brain and it grows fouler.”
Antony: “Be a child of the time.”
Caesar: “What would you more? Pompey, good night. Gentle lords, let’s part.”
Analysis
Servants discuss Lepidus’ state of drunkeness aboard Pompey’s ship and then we witness silly and drunken Lepidus reduced to asking Antony all about the serpents of Egypt. Antony already condemned Lepidus as an errand boy and soon he will be dismissed and dispatched by Caesar. More signifiant in this scene is when Menas suggests to Pompey that they set sail and slit the throats of the entire triumvirate, which would deliver the Roman Empire to Pompey on a silver platter. Pompey is upset that Menas did not simply do it rather than speak of it to Pompey. ‘I should have found it afterwards well done.’ How this would have dramatically altered the course of world history cannot be overstated, as Caesar Augustus will be an exemplary Emperor who sets Rome on a course it will survive for nearly 500 years despite a plethora of godforsaken emperors, including the three out of four which follow him, Tiberius, Caligula and Nero. There is peace between all of the principles at this point in the play, but this will not survive Act III, let alone the entire play, since this is a tragedy with the well known deaths of both of the play’s namesakes.
Act III (13 scenes)
Scene i
A plain in Syria
Enter Ventidius and Silius
Silius: “Noble Ventidius, whiles yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm, the fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media, Mesopotamia and the shelters whither the routed fly.”
Ventidius: “O Silius, I have done enough. Better to leave undone than by our deed acquire too high a fame when him we serve is away. Who does in the wars more than his captain can become his captain’s captain; and ambition, the soldier’s virtue, rather make choice of loss than gain which darkens him. I could do more to do Antony good, but ‘would offend him; and in his offence should my performance perish.”
Analysis
Ventidius is one of Antony’s loyal soldiers and here has defeated an army of the Parthians, in Asia Minor, on behalf of Antony. A soldier encourages him to go further and pursue the routed Parthians through Mesopotamia and beyond, but Ventidius reminds the soldier that going further could offend Anthony and undo all of his success. The unspoken suggestion here is that Antony could be fighting this battle except that he is preoccupied with all things Egypt and Cleopatra related.
Act III
Scene ii
Rome. Caesar’s house
Enter Agrippa and Enobarbus
Agrippa: “What, are the brothers parted?”
Enobarbus: “They have dispatched with Pompey; he is gone; Octavia weeps to part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus, since Pompey’s feast, is troubled with the green sickness.”
Agrippa: “Tis a noble Lepidus.”
Enobarbus: “A very fine one. O, how he loves Caesar!”
Agrippa: “Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony! Both he loves.”
Enter Caesar, Antony, Lepidus and Octavia
Caesar: “You take from me a great part of myself; use me well in it. Sister, prove such a wife as my thoughts make thee. Most noble Antony, let not the piece of virtue which is set betwixt us as the cement of our love be the ram to batter the fortress of it.”
Antony: “Make me not offended in your distrust. You shall not find, though you be therein curious, the least cause for what you seem to fear.”
Caesar: “Farewell, my dearest sister.”
Octavia: “My noble brother!”
Caesar: “Adieu; be happy! Farewell, farewell!”
Antony: “Farewell.”
Analysis
The meeting in Rome is ending. Octavia and Caesar are sad to be parting and Lepidus is still hungover from drinking on Pompey’s ship. Agrippa and Enobarbus have a good chuckle at harmless Lepidus’ expense. Lepidus is the obvious weak link in the triumvirate and will soon be dispatched. Caesar reminds Antony not to mess this up with Octavia and Antony assures him there is no substance to his fears. Oh Antony… Enobarbus and Caesar apparently know him better than he knows himself.
Act III
Scene iii
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Alexas
Cleopatra: “Where is the fellow?”
Alexas: “Half afeared to come.”
Enter the messenger
Cleopatra: “Come thou near.”
Messenger: “Most gracious majesty!”
Cleopatra: “Did thou behold Octavia?”
Messenger: “Ay, dread queen.”
Cleopatra: “Is she as tall as me?”
Messenger: “She is not, madam.”
Cleopatra: “Is she shrill-tongued or low?”
Messenger: “Madam, she is low voiced.”
Cleopatra: “That’s not so good. He cannot like her long.”
Charmian: “Like her? Tis impossible.”
Cleopatra: “I think so Charmian. Dull of tongue and dwarfish! What majesty is in her gait?”
Messenger: “She creeps. She shows a body rather than a life, a statue than a breather.”
Cleopatra: “The fellow has good judgment. Guess at her years.”
Messenger: “Madam, she was a widow and I do think she’s thirty.”
Cleopatra: “Bear’st thou her face in mind? Is it long or round?”
Messenger: “Round even too faultiness.”
Cleopatra: “Her hair, what colour?”
Messenger: “Brown, madam.”
Cleopatra: “There’s gold for thee. Thou must not take my former sharpness ill. I will employ thee back again; I find thee most fit for business.”
Exit messenger
Charmian: “A proper man.”
Cleopatra: “Indeed, he is so. I repent me much that so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him, this creature is no such thing.”
Charmian: “Nothing, madam.”
Analysis
This scene follows up on the one where she beat the messenger for the news that Antony is married to Octavia. Now he is back to report the goods on Octavia and he plays it way smarter this time. This is the petty and petulant Cleopatra kept from bad behaviour by the messenger always answering according to what Cleopatra wants to hear. He gets gold and avoids another beating.
Act III
Scene iv
Athens. Antony’s house
Enter Antony and Octavia
Antony: “Nay, nay, Octavia – that were excusable, that and thousands more – but he hath waged new wars against Pompey; made his will, read it to public ear and spoke scantily of me.”
Octavia: “O my good lord, believe not all; a more unhappy lady, if this division chance, never stood between, praying for both parts.”
Antony: “Gentle Octavia, if I lose mine honour, I lose myself. I’ll raise the preparations of war shall stain your brother.”
Analysis
The peace everyone hoped would result from the marriage between Antony and Caesar’s sister, Octavia, remains fraught with strain between the two rulers of the empire. Antony seems easily angered by Caesar’s words and actions and Caesar is extremely protective of his sister. Antony is bound to feel left out of the affairs of Rome from his perspective in the Far East of the empire. And can anyone entertain the notion that Antony will abandon Cleopatra now that he has married into Caesar’s family? Acts III and IV generally deepen the complexity of plot and characterization and this play is no exception.
Act III
Scene v
Athens. Antony’s house
Enter Enobarbus and Eros
Eros: “There is strange news come, sir.”
Enobarbus: “What, man?”
Eros: “Caesar and Lepidus have made war upon Pompey. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars against Pompey, presently denied him rivalry, would not let him partake in the glory of the action and accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal seizes him. So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.”
Enobarbus: “Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps – no more.”
Analysis
Rumours abound. Eros informs Antony that Caesar hath declared war on Pompey and has cut Lepidus out of the triumvirate. Now only Caesar and Antony are running the big show and Caesar is about to make powerful accusations of Antony. This is all pretty much historically accurate regarding the events in the play surrounding Pompey, Lepidus, Octavia, Antony, Cleopatra and Caesar. While this is a tragedy, it reads very much like Shakespeare’s series of history plays.
Act III
Scene vi
Rome. Caesar’s house
Enter Caesar, Agrippa and Maecenas
Caesar: “Contemning Rome, he has done all of this and more in Alexandria. Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold were publicly enthroned. Unto her he gave Egypt, Lower Syria, Cyprus and Lydia as absolute queen.”
Maecenas: “This in the public eye?”
Caesar: “In the common show-place. His sons he proclaimed kings of kings. Great Media, Parthia and Armenia he gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assigned Syria, Cilicia and Pheonicia.”
Maecenas: “Let Rome be thus informed.”
Caesar: “The people know it and have now received his accusations.”
Maecenas: “Who does he accuse?”
Caesar: “Caesar. I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel and did deserve his change. For what I have conquered I grant impart, but then in his Armenia and others of his conquered kingdoms, I demand the like.”
Maecenas: “He’ll never yield too that.”
Caesar: “Nor must not then be yielded to in this.”
Enter Octavia
Octavia: “Hail, Caesar, and my lord!”
Caesar: “That ever I should call thee castaway! Why have you stolen upon us thus? The wife of Antony should have an army for an usher; but you are come a market-maid to Rome. We should have met you by sea and land, supplying every stage with an augmented greeting.”
Octavia: “My lord, Mark Antony, hearing that you prepared for war, acquainted my grieved ear withal; whereon I begged his pardon for return.”
Caesar: “Which soon he granted, being an obstruct between his lust and him.”
Octavia: “Do not say so, my lord.”
Caesar: “Where is he now?”
Octavia: “My lord, in Athens.”
Caesar: “No my most wronged sister. He hath given his empire up to a whore, who now are levying the kings of the earth for war. Welcome to Rome; you are abused beyond the mark of thought, and the high gods, to do you justice, make their ministers of us and those that love you.”
Maecenas: “Welcome, dear madam. Each heart in Rome does love and pity you; only the adulterous Antony, most large in his abominations, turns you off.”
Analysis
Having just disposed of Lepidus, Caesar now takes aim at Antony, who has given Caesar much to work with. It is reported that Antony sits on a throne as Cleopatra’s king. He has given Cleopatra much of the Roman Empire’s Middle Eastern lands. Finally, Caesar informs Octavia that Antony is not at his home in Athens, as she believes, but is back in Alexandria with Cleopatra, preparing a military force to fight Rome. Octavia is crushed and Caesar’s worst fears about Antony have born fruit, despite Anthony’s prior assurance to the contrary. We can sense an inevitable slide toward irreconcilable conflict between Caesar and Antony, as the latter seems to have entirely forgotten his duties to Rome. So intoxicating is Cleopatra apparently.
Act III
Scene vii
Antony’s camp near Actium
Enter Cleopatra and Enobarbus
Enobarbus: “Here comes the Emperor.”
Enter Antony and Canidius
Antony: “We’ll fight with him by sea.”
Canidius:”Why will my lord do so?”
Antony: “For that he dares us to it.”
Enobarbus: “So hath my lord dared him to single fight?”
Antony: “Ay, but these offers, which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off, and so should you.”
Enobarbus: “Your ships are not well manned; your mariners are muleteers. In Caesar’s fleet are those who often have against Pompey fought. No disgrace shall fall you for refusing him at sea, being prepared for land.”
Antony: “By sea, by sea.”
Enobarbus: “Most worthy sir, you therein throw away the absolute soldiership you have by land.”
Antony: “I’ll fight at sea.”
Cleopatra: “I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.”
Enter a soldier
Soldier: “O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea; trust not to rotten planks. We are used to conquering on the earth and fighting foot to foot.”
Antony: “Well, well, away.”
Soldier: “By Hercules, I think I am in the right.”
Canidius: “Soldier, thou art. We are all women’s men.”
Analysis
Antony prepares for war with Caesar, which is to say he is preparing for war against Rome itself. He insists the fight will be at sea, which Enobarbus and Canidius oppose vehemently. Enobarbus tells him his ships are manned by muleteers and that Caesar’s fleet has often fought against Pompey and is very experienced. Antony’s answer: ‘By sea, by sea!’ Cleopatra also believes the best course of fighting Caesar is at sea. She claims to have sixty sails to contribute to the battle. Finally, a soldier arrives and begs Antony not to fight at sea. Antony dismisses him and the soldier commiserates with Canidius, who assures him that he is correct and concludes that ‘we are women’s men’, suggesting that Antony is under Cleopatra’s spell. This is clearly a terrible decision on the part of Antony to fight Caesar by sea… as we shall witness.
Act III
Scene viii
A plain near Actium
Enter Caesar and Taurus
Caesar: “Taurus! Strike not by land; provoke not battle till we have done at sea. Our fortune lies upon this jump.”
Analysis
Caesar does not want to distract Antony from their impending battle at sea, so when one of his generals considers attacking Antony’s army by land, Caesar is quick to pull him back at least until the battle at sea is over. Caesar is fully aware that he has a considerable advantage at sea.
Act III
Scene ix
Another part of the plain near Actium
Enter Antony and Enobarbus
Antony: “Set we our squadrons on yonder hillside, in eye of Caesar’s battle; from which place we may the number of his ships behold, and so proceed accordingly.”
Analysis
Antony’s superior army is relegated to watching the sea battle from a nearby hillside, from where they may count the number of Caesar’s ships. Only Antony thinks this is a good idea.
Act III
Scene x
Another part of the plain near Antium
Enter Enobarbus and Scarus
Enobarbus: “Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer. The Egyptian admiral, with all their sixty sails, fly and turn the rudder.”
Scarus: “We have kissed away kingdoms and provinces.”
Enobarbus: “How appears the fight?”
Scarus: “On our side like the token pestilence, where death is sure. You nag of Egypt – whom leprosy overtake – in the midst of the fight, the breeze upon her, hoists her sails and flies.”
Enobarbus: “That I beheld; mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not endure a further view.”
Scarus: “The noble ruin of her magic, Antony, like a doting mallard, leaving the fight in height, flies after her. I never saw an action of such shame; experience, manhood and honour never before did violate so itself.”
Enter Canidius
Canidius: “Our fortune on the sea is out of breath, and sinks most lamentably. Had our general been what he knew himself, it had gone well. O, he has given example for our flight most grossly by his own! To Caesar will I render my legions and my horse.”
Enobarbus: “I’ll yet follow the wounded chance of Antony, though my reason sits in the wind against me.”
Analysis
Apparently Antony was winning the battle at sea until Cleopatra suddenly fled from the battle with her sixty sails. Antony followed her and the battle was lost. Antony’s soldiers are sickened by what they witnessed. Camidius has seen enough and even takes his army over to Caesar’s side. Enobarbus is tempted to do the same, but against his better judgment, remains loyal to Antony… for a bit longer. The scenes rush by in rapid succession. Acts III and IV contain a total of 28 scenes, each advancing the plot a bit here and there, providing brief glimpses of one side or the other. And in each scene the big picture is getting clearer and clearer. Antony and Cleopatra are bumbling and buckling under the pressure and Caesar is relentless in his pursuit of them.
Act III
Scene xi
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Antony and attendants
Antony: “Hark! The land bids me tread no more upon it; it is ashamed to bear me. Friends, I am so lated in the world that I have lost my way forever. I have a ship laden with gold; take that; divide it. Fly, and make your peace with Caesar. I have fled myself, so be gone. I have myself resolved upon a course which has no need of you; be gone. My treasure’s in the harbour; take it. Pray you look not sad; take the hint which my despair proclaims. Let that be left which leaves itself. Leave me, I pray, a little; for indeed I have lost command.”
Enter Cleopatra, Iras, Charmian and Eros
Eros: “Nay, gentle madam, to him! Comfort him.”
Iras: “Do, most dear queen.”
Antony: “No, no, no, no, no! Fie, fie, fie!”
Eros: “The queen, my lord, the queen! She approaches. Her head’s declined, and death will seize her but your comfort makes the rescue.”
Antony: “O, wither hast thou led me, Egypt?”
Cleopatra: “O, my lord, my lord. Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought you would have followed.”
Antony: “Egypt, thou knew’st too well my heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings. Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods command me.”
Cleopatra: “O, my pardon.”
Antony: “You did know how much you were my conquerer.”
Cleopatra: “Pardon, pardon!”
Antony: “Give me a kiss; even this repays me.”
Analysis
Antony is very hard on himself here and suggests his men abandon him as he has abandoned his duty and himself. ‘Indeed, I have lost command.’ He tries to get Cleopatra to explain why she fled with her ships at the height of a battle they were winning and all she can do is beg pardon. But seeing her so upset melts his heart and he asks for a kiss, which he claims repays him for her blunder. They are quite the pair at this point in the play. Had Cleopatra not fled that sea battle, it might have represented their finest opportunity to survive Caesar’s pursuit of them. Since the next scene witnesses Antony attempting to negotiate the terms of his surrender, we can assume that sea battle was their last shot.
Act III
Scene xii
Caesar’s camp in Egypt
Enter Caesar, Agrippa and Thyreus
Caesar: “Let him appear who comes from Antony.”
Enter Eurphronius, ambassador from Anthony
Caesar: “Approach and speak.”
Eurphronius: “Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and requires to live in Egypt; which not granted, he lessens his requests and to thee sues to let him breathe a private man in Athens. This for him. Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness, submits her will to thy might and of thee craves the circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs.”
Caesar: “For Antony, I have no ears to his request. The queen from Egypt must drive her ill-disgraced friend, or take his life there.”
Exit Euphronius
Caesar: (to Thyreus) “Try thy eloquence now; tis time. Dispatch; From Antony win Cleopatra. Promise what she requires; add more offers.”
Thyreus: “Caesar, I go.”
Caesar: “Observe how Antony becomes his flaws.”
Thyreus: “Caesar, I shall.”
Analysis
Antony’s ambassador arrives with requests from Caesar. He wishes to be left in Egypt, or barring that, to be left to live a free man in Athens. Cleopatra, for her part, asks that her kingdom be passed on to her heirs. Caesar has no time for anything Anthony needs or wants but claims he will offer generous terms to Cleopatra if she will either expel or kill Antony. In this way does Caesar hope to divide and conquer the lovers.
Act III
Scene xiii
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Cleopatra and Enobarbus
Cleopatra: “What shall we do, Enobarbus?”
Enobarbus: “Think and die.”
Cleopatra: “Is Antony or are we in fault for this?”
Enobarbus: “Antony only, that would make his will lord of his reason.”
Cleopatra: “Prithee, peace.”
Enter Eurphronius the ambassador and Antony
Antony: “Is that the answer?”
Eurphronius: “Ay, my lord.”
Antony: “The queen shall then have courtesy, so she will yield us up.”
Eurphronius: “He says so.”
Antony: “Let her know it. I dare he answer me, sword against sword, ourselves alone.”
Exit Antony and Eurphronius
Enobarbus: (aside) “Yes, I see men’s judgments are a parcel of their fortunes, and things outward do draw the inward quality after them, to suffer all alike. That he should dream, knowing all measures, the full Caesar will answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdued his judgment, too. Mine honesty and I begin to square. The loyalty well held to fools does make our faith mere folly. Yet he that can endure to follow with allegiance a fallen lord does conquer him that did his master conquer, and earns a place in the story.”
Enter Thyreus
Cleopatra: “Caesar’s will?”
Thyreus: “He knows that you embrace not Antony as you did love, but as you feared him. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he does pity.”
Cleopatra: “He is a god, and knows what is most right. My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely.”
Thyreus: Shall I say to Caesar what you require of him? For he partly begs to be desired to give. It much would please him that of his fortunes you should make a staff to lean upon. But it would warm his spirits to hear from me you had left Antony, and put yourself under his shroud, the universal landlord.”
Cleopatra: “Most kind messenger, say to great Caesar this: in deputation I kiss his conquering hand. Tell him I am prompt to lay my crown at his feet, and there to kneel. Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear the doom of Egypt.”
Thyreus: ‘Tis your noblest course.”
Enter Antony and Enobarbus
Antony: “What art thou, fellow?”
Thyreus: “One that but performs the bidding of the fullest man.”
Enobarbus: (aside) “You will be whipped.”
Antony: “Approach here. Have you no ears. I am still Antony. Take hence this Jack and whip him. Whip him till like a boy you see him cringe his face, and whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.”
Cleopatra: “Good, my lord.”
Antony: “You have been a boggler ever. The wise gods seal our eyes, in our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us adore our errors, while we strut to our confusion.”
Cleopatra: “O, has it come to this?”
Antony: “I found you as a morsel cold upon dead Caesar’s trencher. Nay, you were a fragment of Pompey’s. For I am sure, though you could guess what temperance should be, you know not what it is.”
Enter servant with Thyreus
Antony: “Is he whipped?”
Servant: “Soundly, my lord.”
Antony: “Cried he? Begged a pardon?”
Servant: “He did ask for favour.”
Antony: “Be thou sorry to follow Caesar in his triumph. Get thee back to Caesar; tell him thy entertainment; look thou say he makes me angry with him; for he seems proud and disdainful, harping on what I am, not what he knew I was.”
Cleopatra: “Have you done yet?”
Antony: “Alack, our moon is now eclipsed, and it portends alone the fall of Antony.”
Cleopatra: “I must stay his time.”
Antony: “To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes? Cold-hearted toward me?”
Cleopatra: “So dissolve my life!”
Antony: “I am satisfied Caesar sits down in Alexandria, where I will oppose his fate. Our force by land hath nobly held; our served navy too has knit again. Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady? If from the field I shall return once more to kiss these lips, I will appear in blood. I and my sword will earn our chronicle. There’s hope in it.”
Cleopatra: “That’s my brave lord!”
Antony: “I will be treble-sinewe’d , hearted, breathed, and fight maliciously. Now I’ll set my teeth, and send to darkness all that stops me. Come, let’s have one other gaudy night. Call to me all my sad captains; fill our bowls once more; let’s mock the midnight bell.”
Cleopatra: “Its my birthday. Since my lord is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.”
Antony: “We will yet do well. The next time I do fight I’ll make death love me; for I will contend even with his pestilent scythe.”
Exit all byt Enobarbus
Enobarbus: “I still see a diminution in our captain’s brain restores his heart. When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with. I will seek some way to leave him.”
Analysis
Cleopatra asks Enobarbus who is at fault for what has befallen them. Enobarbus is clear that Antony is solely responsible, as he chose lust over reason. ‘Men’s judgments are a parcel of their fortunes. Caesar, thou hast subdued his judgment too.’ He seriously considers leaving the service of Antony, his friend. ‘The loyalty well held to fools does make our faith mere folly.’ Thyreus arrives from Caesar to feel out Cleopatra’s take on things, just as Caesar closes in on Alexandria. Cleopatra refers to Caesar as a god and claims that her honour was not yielded to Antony, but rather ‘conquered merely’. Antony arrives just as Cleopatra is betraying him to Caesar’s ambassador and Antony has him whipped and then lashes out at Cleopatra: ‘I am sure, though you can guess what temperance should be, you know not what it is.’ They reconcile toward the end of the scene, as Antony still believes both his army and navy might yet prevail and requests of Cleopatra ‘one other gaudy night’. Enobarbus reflects in a final aside that he will, indeed, seek a way to leave Antony. So ends Act III.
Both Antony and Cleopatra have wild mood swings back and forth between despair and fury and hope and reconciliation. Only Caesar remains firmly himself, as his noose tightens around Egypt and Enobarbus prepares to switch sides.
Act IV (15 scenes)
Scene i
Caesar’s camp before Alexandria
Enter Caesar and Maecenas
Caesar: “He calls me boy, and chides as he had power to beat me out of Egypt. My messenger he hath whipped with rods; dares me to personal combat, Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know I have many other ways to die, meantime laugh at his challenge.”
Maecenas: “Give him no breath, but now make boot of his distraction.”
Caesar: “Tomorrow, the last of many battles we plan to fight. See it done, and feast the army; they have earned the waste. Poor Antony!”
Analysis
Caesar is at the gates of Alexandria and recounts the insults he has received from Antony and is determined to crush him in tomorrow’s ‘final battle’. There are fifteen scenes in Act IV, so the plots advances quickly.
Act IV
Scene ii
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Antony, Cleopatra, and Enobarbus
Antony: “He will not fight with me? Why should he not?”
Enobarbus: “He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune, he is twenty men to one.”
Antony: “By sea and land Ill fight.”
Enobarbus: “I’ll strike and cry ‘take all’.”
Antony: “Well said; come on. Let’s tonight be bounteous in our meal. Tend me tonight. Happily, you shall not see me no more. Perchance tomorrow you’ll serve another master. Mine honest friends, I turn you not away; but, like a master married to your good service, stay till death.”
Enobarbus: “What mean you, sir, to give them this discomfort? Look, they weep; for shame! Transform us not to women.”
Antony: “Know, my hearts, I hope well of tomorrow.”
Analysis
Caesar was extremely confident in scene i and here in scene ii Antony is preparing to fight at both land and sea but then tells his soldiers that this night may be the last they ever spend together and that by tomorrow they all may serve another master. His soldiers begin to weep and Enobarbus scolds Antony for the shame of transforming his army into women. Clearly, Antony continues to alternate between confidence and despair and time is running out with a resourceful and aggressive Caesar at the door.
Act IV
Scene iii
Alexandria. Before Cleopatra’s palace
Enter soldiers
1 Soldier: “Good night. Tomorrow is the day.”
2 Soldier: “It will determine one way.”
3 Soldier: “‘Tis a brave army, and full of purpose.”
2 Soldier: “Peace, what noise?”
3 Soldier: “Music in the air.”
5 Soldier: “It signs well, does it not?”
4 Soldier: “No.”
3 Soldier: “What should this mean?”
2 Soldier: “”Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, now leaves him.”
1 Soldier: “‘Tis strange.”
Analysis
Anthony’s soldiers are quite positive about their impending battle until they hear music and decide it is from Hercules, who is abandoning Antony. They alternate between confidence and despair just as their general does. No surprise there.
Act IV
Scene iv
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Antony, Cleopatra and Charmian
Antony: “We shall thrive now.”
Enter an armed soldier
Soldier: “A thousand, sir, at the port expect you.”
Antony: “Fare thee well, dame, whatever becomes of me. This is a soldier’s kiss. I’ll leave thee now like a man of steel. You who will fight, follow me close.”
Cleopatra: “He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might determine this Great War in single fight.”
Analysis
Here we find Antony quite positive about prospects in the upcoming battles with Caesar. ‘We will thrive now.’ Each little scene bring us closer to the big battles.
Act IV
Scene v
Alexandria. Antony’s camp
Antony: “Who’s gone this morning?”
Soldier: “One ever near thee. Call for Enobarbus, he shall not hear thee. He is with Caesar. His chests and treasures he has not with him.”
Antony: “Go, send his treasures after him. Do it. I charge thee. Write to him with gentle adieus and greetings; say that I wish he never find more cause to change a master. O, my fortunes have corrupted honest men! Dispatch. Enobarbus!”
Analysis
This news is a tough blow to Antony. Enobarbus left him because of his incompetence as a general. The end just got closer and more real.
Act IV
Scene vi
Alexandria. Caesar’s camp
Enter Caesar, Agrippa and Enobarbus
Caesar: “Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight. Our will is Antony be taken alive. Make it so known.”
Agrippa: “Caesar, I shall.”
Caesar: “The time of universal peace is near. Prove this a prosperous day.”
Enter messenger
Messenger: “Antony is come into the field.”
Enobarbus: (aside) “I have done ill, of which I do accuse myself so sorely that I will joy no more.”
Enter a soldier
Soldier: “Enobarbus, Antony hath after thee sent all thy treasure.”
Enobarbus: “I give it to you.”
Soldier: “Mock not, Enobarbus.”
Enobarbus: (aside) “I am alone the villain of the earth, and feel I am so most. O Antony, this blows my heart. I fight against thee? No! I will go seek some ditch wherein to die; the foulest best fits my latter part of life.”
Analysis
Caesar senses ‘the time of universal peace is near’. Indeed, he will, as Emperor Augustus, usher in the famous ‘Peace Romana’, the Roman Peace, which will be a 200 year golden age of peace and prosperity during and after his reign, for which his wise and effective rule is credited for accomplishing. Enobarbus feels enormous guilt for abandoning Antony, who generously forwards his treasure to Caesar’s camp. All that’s left for Enobarbus is to ‘seek a ditch wherein to die.’ The walls appear to be closing in tight around Antony, as they are for Enobarbus.
Act IV
Scene vii
Field of battle between the camps
Enter Agrippa and soldiers
Agrippa: “Retire. We have engaged ourselves too far. Our oppression exceeds what we expected.”
Exit Agrippa
Enter Antony and Scarus
Scarus: “O my brave Emperor, this is fought indeed! Had we done so at first, we had driven them home with clouts about their heads.”
Antony: “They do retire.”
Scarus: “We’ll beat them into bench-holes.”
Enter Eros
Eros: “They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves for a fair victory.”
Scarus: “Let us score their back and snatch ’em up, as we take hares; ’tis sport to maul runners.”
Antony: “I will reward thee once for thy sprightly comfort, and tenfold for thy good valour.”
Analysis
We have been led to believe in several previous scenes that Caesar is pressing for his final victory over Antony. So it comes as a surprise when we see here that Antony’s army has been victorious in the field against Caesar. There still remain eight scenes in Act IV and all of Act V, so that leaves plenty of time for a bit of back and forth fortunes on the battlefield.
Act IV
Scene viii
Under the walls of Alexandria
Enter Antony and Scarus
Antony: “Tomorrow, we will spill the blood that has today escaped. I thank you all. Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends, tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears wash the congealment from your wounds and kiss the honoured gashes whole.”
Enter Cleopatra
Cleopatra: “Lord of lords! O infinite virtue, com’st thou smiling from the world’s great snare uncaught?”
Analysis
Antony returns to Alexandria victorious and confident.
Act IV
Scene ix
Caesar’s camp
Enter Enobarbus
Enobarbus: “O Antony, nobler than my revolt is infamous, let the world rank me a master-leaver and a fugitive! O Antony! O Antony!”
Enobarbus dies
Analysis
Enobarbus essential dies of grief from his abandoning Antony. He sees Antony fight heroically and actually win the day in battle against Caesar’s army and cannot live with himself as a ‘master-leaver and fugitive’. The tragedy has begun in earnest with his death.
Act Iv
Scene x
Between the two camps
Enter Antony and Scarus
Antony: “Their preparation is today by sea. We please them not by land.”
Analysis
We may recall that the previous sea battle was going quite well before Cleopatra escaped with her entire fleet. So after the victory by land Antony is prepared to fight Caesar wherever necessary, including at sea.
Act IV
Scene xi
Between the camps
Enter Caesar and his army
Caesar: “We will be still by land and hold our best advantage.”
Analysis
Having just experienced a setback on land, Caesar is prepared to take the fight to the sea, where he holds ‘our best advantage.’ Never any histrionics with Caesar. He is merely relentless and dogged in his preparation and execution.
Act IV
Scene xii
A hill near Alexandria
Enter Scarus
Scarus: “Antony is valiant and dejected; and by starts his fretted fortunes give him hope and fear of what he has and has not.”
Enter Antony
Antony: “All is lost! This foul Egyptian has betrayed me. My fleet has yielded to the foe. Triple turned whore! Thou hast sold me to this novice; and my heart makes only wars on thee.”
Exit Scarus
Antony: “O sun, thy uprise will I see no more! Fortune and Antony part here; even here do we shake hands. All come to this? Betrayed I am of this false soul of Egypt! Like a right gypsy, she hath at fast and loose beguiled me to the very heart of loss.”
Enter Cleopatra
Cleopatra: “Why is my lord enraged against his love?”
Antony: “Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving and blemish Caesar’s triumph. Let him take thee and hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians and let patient Octavia plough thy visage up with her prepared nails.”
Exit Cleopatra
Antony: “‘Tis well thou art gone. The witch shall die.”
Analysis
How much can change between these tiny scenes. Antony is watching the sea battle from a nearby hillside and once again witnesses Cleopatra’s ships desert the battle, this time defecting directly to Caesar. As a result, the battle is is hopelessly lost. Antony rails against Cleopatra, first to Scarus, then to himself and finally to Cleopatra herself. He threatens to beat her and thereby blemish Caesar’s triumph. ‘The witch shall die’, he concludes after she runs off. The battle between Caesar and Antony has taken its final turn and the famous couple are badly out of sorts.
Act IV
Scene xiii
Alexandria. Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Mardian
Cleopatra: “Help me, my women. O, he is mad.”
Charmian: “To the monument! There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead. The soul and body rive not more in acting than greatness going off.”
Cleopatra: “To the monument! Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself; say that the last I spoke was ‘Antony’ and word it, prithee, piteously. And bring me how he takes my death. To the monument!”
Analysis
Cleopatra fears Antony’s rage and Charmian suggests she lock herself in her monument to be safe from Antony and report to him that she is dead. Just the type of drama that Cleopatra would embrace and sure enough, off she goes to the monument, instructing Mardian to report back to her how Antony receives word of her death. The confusion of her apparent death and then his death upon hearing of hers is directly reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. In both cases the end result is the same. Antony just takes quite a bit longer to die than the other three. Perhaps he should have found an apothecary!
Act IV
Scene xiv
Cleopatra’s palace
Enter Antony and Eros
Antony: “Here I am Antony, yet cannot hold this visible shape. I made these wars for Egypt; and the Queen, whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine. She has packed cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory unto an enemy’s triumph. Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us ourselves to end ourselves.”
Enter Mardian
Antony: “O, thy vile lady!”
Mardian: “No, Antony; my mistress loved thee, and her fortunes mingled with thine entirely.”
Antony: “Hence, saucy eunuch, peace. She hath betrayed me, and shall die the death.”
Mardian: “Death of one person can be paid but once, and that she has discharged. The last she spoke was ‘Antony! Most noble Antony!’ It was divided between her heart and lips. She rendered life, thy name so buried in her.”
Antony: “Dead then?”
Mardian: “Dead.”
Antony: “Unarm, Eros; the long day’s task is done, and we must sleep.”
Exit Mardian
Antony: “The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep the battery from my heart. O, cleave my sides! Heart, crack thy frail case. No more a soldier. From me awhile.”
Exit Eros
Antony: “I will overtake thee, Cleopatra, and weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now all length is torture. I come, my queen.”
Re-enter Eros
Eros: “What would my lord?”
Antony: “Since Cleopatra died, I have lived in such dishonour that the gods detest my baseness. I condemn myself to lack the courage of a woman; thou art sworn, Eros, that, when the exigent should come – which now is come indeed – when I should see behind me the inevitable prosecution of disgrace and horror, that, on my command, thou then wouldst kill me; do it, the time is come.”
Eros: “The gods withhold me!”
Antony: “Come, then; for with a wound I must be cured. Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn most useful for thy country.”
Eros: “O, sir, pardon me!”
Antony: “When I did make thee free, swor’st thou not then to do this when I bade thee? Do it at once. Draw and come.”
Eros: “Turn from me then that noble countenance. My sword is drawn.”
Antony: “Then let it do at once the thing why thou hast drawn it.”
Eros: My dear master, my captain and my emperor, let me say, before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.”
Antony: “‘Tis said, man; and farewell.”
Eros: “Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?”
Antony: “Now, Eros.”
Eros: “Why, there then! Thus do I escape the sorrow of Antony’s death.”
Eros kills himself
Antony: “Thrice nobler then myself! Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what I should. But I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run onto it as to a lover’s bed. Come, then; to do thus.”
Antony falls on his sword
Antony: “Not dead? Not dead? Guard, ho! O, dispatch me. I have done my work ill, friends. O, make an end of what I have begun.”
Enter Dercetas and guards
1 Guard: “The star is fallen.”
2 Guard: “And time is at his period.”
Antony: “Let he who loves me, strike me dead.”
1 Guard: “Not I.”
2 Guard: “Nor I.”
3 Guard: “Nor anyone.”
Dercetas: “Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.”
Enter Diomedes
Diomedes: “Where’s Antony?”
Dercetas: “There, Diomedes, there.”
Diomedes: “Lives he?”
Antony: “Art thou there, Diomedes? Draw thy sword and give me sufficing strokes for death.”
Diomedes: “Most absolute lord, my mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.”
Antony: “When did she send thee?”
Diomedes: “Now, my lord.”
Antony: “Where is she?”
Diomedes: “Locked in her monument. When she saw that your rage would not be purged, she sent you word she was dead; bit fearing since how it might work, hath sent me to proclaim the truth; and I am come, I dread, too late.”
Enter Antony’s guards
Antony: “Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bide; ’tis the last service that I shall command you.”
1 Guard: “Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear all your true followers out.”
Antony: “Take me up. I have led you often; carry me now, good friends, and have my thanks.”
Analysis
This is a tragic scene indeed for Antony. He has lost the battle with Caesar and he has lost his ‘serpent of the Nile’ in one swoop. ‘There is left us ourselves to end ourselves.’ He is thus prepared to kill himself. He then learns, falsely, that Cleopatra has taken her own life with his name on her dying lips. His heart splits. ‘I come, my queen.’ He seems to forgive her by her reported death, rather as she had hoped. However, she did not anticipate his next move, as he tries to convince Eros to slay him with his sword. Instead, at the last instant, Eros slays himself. Antony, inspired by Cleopatra’s and Eros’ suicides, runs on his sword but is surprised that it does not kill him. In a scene which borders on comic absurdity, he next turns to his guards, who refuse to kill him. Diomedes arrives with word that Cleopatra is safe in her monument. She only wanted Antony to believe she kills herself, to stem his rage. In this she was successful, but she did not figure he would try to kill himself. He asks his guards to carry his dying self to Cleopatra’s monument. This has the feel of an Act V resolution scene and yet much of the play remains. Caesar has yet to snatch his final victory and Cleopatra requires Act V in order to go out with the dramatic ending we would expect of her. Poor Antony! At this point he can’t even kill himself as is expected of a proper Roman soldier.
Act IV
Scene xv
Alexandria. A monument
Enter Cleopatra and her maids
Cleopatra: “O Charmian, I will never go from hence!”
Charmian: “Be comforted, dear madam.”
Cleopatra: “No, I will not. All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise.”
Enter Diomedes carrying Antony
Cleopatra: “How now! Is he dead?”
Diomedes: “His death’s upon him, but not dead. His guards have brought him hither.”
Cleopatra: “O Antony, Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian. Let’s draw him hither.”
Antony: “Peace! Not Caesar’s valour hath overthrown Antony, but Antony’s hath triumph’d on itself.”
Cleopatra: “So it should be, that none but Antony should conquer Antony.”
Antony: “I am dying, Egypt, dying; only I here importune death awhile, until of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips.”
Cleopatra: “I dare not come down, dear, lest I be taken. Not the imperious show of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall be brooched with me. But come, come, Antony, we must draw thee up to me.”
Antony: “O quick, or I am gone.”
Cleopatra: “How heavy weighs my lord! Our strength is all gone into heaviness. Welcome, welcome! Die where thou hast lived, quicken with kissing.”
Antony: “I am dying, Egypt, dying. Give me some wine and let me speak a little.”
Cleopatra: “No, let me speak. My resolution and my hands I’ll trust; none about Caesar.”
Antony: “The miserable change now at my end lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts in feeding them with those my former fortunes wherein I lived the greatest prince in the world. Now my spirit is going and I can no more.”
Cleopatra: “Noblest of men, hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide this dull world, which in thy absence is no better than a sty?”
Antony dies
Cleopatra: “The crown of the earth doth melt, my lord! There is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.”
Cleopatra swoons
Charmian: “O, quietness, lady.”
Iras: “She’s dead too, our sovereign.”
Charmian: “Lady!”
Iras: “Madam! Royal Egypt, Empress!”
Cleopatra: “It were for me to throw my sceptre at the injurious gods to tell them that this world did equal theirs till they had stolen our jewel. Our lamp is spent, its out! We’ll bury him; and then, what’s brave, what’s noble, let’s do it after the high Roman fashion, and make death proud to take us. Come away; this case of that huge spirit now is cold. Ah, women, women! Come, we have no friend but resolution and the briefest end.”
Analysis
The war is essentially over as Antony is dying and we but await Caesar. He is brought to Cleopatra. This is Antony’s dying scene but when he asks to speak before he dies Cleopatra interrupts him: ‘No, let me speak.’ She needs him to know that she too is resolved to take her own life, as her Antony has taken his. There will be no prisoners for Caesar. She claims that the world without Antony is a dull world, no better than a sty, with nothing remarkable remaining. She has committed to kill herself. And a full act remains. It will be Cleopatra’s act, to be sure. We cannot imagine for a minute that she will go quietly into the night, especially as Caesar approaches.
Act V (2 scenes)
Scene I
Alexandria. Caesar’s camp
Enter Caesar, Agrippa, Dolabella, Maecenas and Proculeius
Caesar: “Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield; being so frustrated, tell him he mocks the pauses that he makes.”
Dolabella: “Caesar, I shall.”
Exit Dolabella
Enter Dercetas with Antony’s sword
Caesar: “Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar’st appear thus to us.”
Dercetas: “Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy, best to be served. He was my master. If thou please to take me to thee, as I was to him I’ll be to Caesar.; if thou please not, I yield thee up my life.”
Caesar: :What is it thou say’st?”
Dercetas: “I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.”
Caesar: “The breaking of so great a thing should make a better crack. The round world should have shook lions into civil streets, and citizens to their den. The death of Antony is not a single doom: in the name lay a moiety of the world.”
Dercetas: He is dead, Caesar, not by a public minister of justice, nor by a hired knife; but that self hand with the courage which the heart did lend. It, split the heart. This is his sword; behold it stained with his most noble blood.”
Caesar: “Look you sad, friends? The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings to wash the eyes of kings.”
Agrippa: “And strange it is that nature must compel us to lament our most persisted deeds. A rarer spirit never did steer humanity. Caesar is touched.”
Caesar: “O Antony, I have followed thee to this! But yet let me lament, with tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts, that thou, my brother, my competitor, my mate in empire, friend and companion in the front of war, the arm of mine own body, and the heart where mine his thoughts did kindle – that our stars, unreconcilable, should divide our equableness to this.”
Enter an Egyptian
Caesar: “Whence are you?”
Egyptian: “A poor Egyptian, yet the Queen, my mistress, confined in all she has, her monument, of thy intents desires instruction, that she preparedly may proclaim herself to the way she’s forced to.”
Caesar: “Bid her have good heart. She soon shall know of us how honourable and how kindly we determine for her; for Caesar cannot learn to be ungentle.”
Egyptian: “So the gods preserve thee.”
Exit Egyptian
Caesar: “Proculeius, go and say we purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts the quality of her passion shall require, lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke, she do defeat us; for her life in Rome would be eternal in our triumph. Go, bring us what she says, and how you find her.”
Proculeius: “Caesar, I shall.”
Analysis
The battles are over and Caesar sends word to Antony that it is time for him to surrender. It is very important to Caesar that he take both Antony and Cleopatra alive. Unfortunately for Caesar, he learns that Antony has taken his own life and delivers one of Shakespeare’s great lines: ‘The breaking of so great a thing should make a better crack.’ He and Agrippa reflect admirably on Antony: ‘Let me lament with tears my brother, my mate in empire, friend and companion in the front of war, the arm of mine own body, and the heart where mine his thoughts did kindle…’ Antony was a deeply divided man. He was torn apart between duty to Rome and the hedonism that was Egypt and her queen. His private life destroyed his public persona as Roman soldier, statesman and avenger of Julius Caesar’s murder. Octavius Caesar knew him as a great Roman, only to witness Cleopatra’s spell destroy him. In Julius Caesar we saw Antony the great Roman hero. In Antony and Cleopatra we see the great fall of a giant.
A servant to Cleopatra arrives to ask of Caesar on her behalf what his plans are for her. She also must decide between surrender and death. Caesar has already lost Antony so he sends soothing and reassuring words to Cleopatra that she will be dealt with ‘honourably and kindly’, ‘lest she… by some mortal stroke, do defeat us.’ No sooner does her servant leaves than does he confess his true intentions to Proculeius: ‘Her life in Rome would be eternal in our triumph.’
Act V
Scene ii
Alexandria. The monument
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Mardian
Cleopatra: “My desolation does begin to make a better life. ‘Tis paltry to be Caesar: not being fortune, he’s but fortune’s knave, a minister of her will; and it is great to do that thing that ends all other deeds.”
Enter Proculeius, Gallus and soldiers
Proculeius: “Caesar sends greeting to the Queen of Egypt, and bids thee study on what fair demands thou means to have him grant thee.”
Cleopatra: “I do not greatly care to be deceived, that have no use for trusting. If he please to give me conquered Egypt for my son, he gives me so much of mine own as I will kneel to him with thanks.”
Proculeius: “Be of good cheer; you are fallen into a princely hand; fear nothing. You shall find a conquerer who will pray in aid for kindness, where he for grace is kneeled to.”
Cleopatra: “I hourly learn a doctrine of obedience, and would gladly look him in the face.”
Proculeius: “This I’ll report, dear lady. Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied of him who caused it.”
Gallus: “Guard her till Caesar come.”
Cleopatra: “Quick, quick, good hands.”
Cleopatra draws a dagger
Proculeius: “Hold, worthy lady, hold.”
Proculeius disarms Cleopatra
Proculeius: “Cleopatra, do not abuse my master’s bounty by the undoing of yourself. Let the world see his nobleness well acted, which your death will never let come forth.”
Cleopatra: “Where art thou, death? Come, hither, come! Come, come, and take a queen worth many babes and beggars!”
Proculeius: “O, temperance, lady!”
Cleopatra: “Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I will not wait pinioned at your master’s court, nor once be chastised with the sober eye of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up, and show me to the shouting of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt be gentle grave unto me!”
Proculeius: “You do extend these thoughts of horror further than you shall find cause in Caesar.”
Exit Proculeius with soldiers
Enter Dolabella
Dolabella: “Hear me, good Madam.”
Cleopatra: “I thank you, sir. Know you what Caesar means to do with me?”
Dolabella: “I am loathe to tell you what I would you knew. Though he be honourable -“
Cleopatra: “He’ll lead me, then, in triumph?”
Dolabella: “Madam, he will. I know it.”
Enter Caesar
Caesar: “Which is the Queen of Egypt?”
Dolabella: “It is the emperor, madam.
Cleopatra kneels
Caesar: “Arise, you shall not kneel. I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.”
Cleopatra: “Sir, the gods will have it thus; my master and my lord I must obey.”
Caesar: “Take to you no hard thoughts, the record of what injuries you did us, we shall remember as things but done by chance. Cleopatra, if you seek to lay on me a cruelty by taking Antony’s course, you shall bereave yourself of my good purposes, and put your children to that destruction which I’ll guard them from. Cleopatra, make not your thoughts your prisons, no, dear Queen; for we intend to so dispose you as yourself shall give us council. Our care and pity is so much upon you that we remain your friend; and so, adieu.”
Cleopatra: “My master and my lord!”
Caesar: “Not so, adieu.”
Exit Caesar and his men
Cleopatra: “He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not be noble to myself.”
Enter Dolabella
Dolabella: “Madam, I tell you this: Caesar through Syria intends his journey, and within three days you and your children will be sent for. Make your best use of this; I have performed your pleasure and my promise.”
Cleopatra: “Dolabella, I shall remain your debtor.”
Exit Dolabella
Cleopatra: “Now, Iras, what thinks thou? Thou an Egyptian puppet shall be shown in Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves, with greasy aprons, rulers and hammers, shall uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths, rank of gross diet, shall we be encoded, and forced to drink their vapour.”
Iras: “The gods forbid!”
Cleopatra: “Nay, that’s certain.”
Enter a guard
Guard: “Here is a rural fellow who will not be denied your Highness’ presence. He brings you figs.”
Cleopatra: “Let him come in.”
Exit the guard
Cleopatra: “What poor an instrument may do a noble deed! He brings me liberty. Now from head to foot I am marble-constant.”
Enter clown, with a basket
Cleopatra: “Hast thou the pretty worm of the Nile there that kills and pains not?”
Clown: “Truly I have him. But I would not be the party that should desire you to touch him, for his biting is immortal; those that do die of it do or never seldom recover. But the worm’s an odd worm.”
Cleopatra: “Get thee hence, farewell.”
Clown: “Look you, the worm is not to be trusted, for there is no goodness in the worm.”
Cleopatra: “It shall be heeded.”
Clown: “Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth the feeding.”
Cleopatra: “Will it eat me?”
Clown: “You must not think I am so simple but I know the devil himself will not eat a woman. I know that a woman is a dish for the gods.”
Cleopatra: “Well, get thee gone; farewell.”
Clown: “Yes, forsooth, I wish you joy of the worm.”
Exit clown
Re-enter Iras, with a robe and crown
Cleopatra: “Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me. Good Iras, quick. Methinks I hear Antony call. I see him rouse himself to praise my noble act. Husband, I come. Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips. Farewell, kind Charmian. Iras, farewell.”
Cleopatra kisses Charmian and Iras and Iras falls dead
Cleopatra: “If thou and nature can so gently part, the stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired.”
Charmian: “Dissolve, thick cloud and rain, that I may say the gods themselves do weep.”
Cleopatra: “Come thou mortal wretch, with thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool, be angry and dispatch.”
Cleopatra applies an asp snake to her breast
Charmian: “O eastern star!”
Cleopatra: “Peace, peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast that sucks the nurse asleep?”
Charmian: “O break! O, break!”
Cleopatra: “As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle – O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too:”
Cleopatra applies another asp snake to her arm and dies
Charmian: “Fare thee well. Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies a lass unparalleled.”
Guard rushes in
1 Guard: “Where’s the Queen?”
Charmian: “Speak softly, wake her not.”
1 Guard: “Caesar hath sent -“
Charmian: “Too slow a messenger.”
Charmian applies the asp snake to herself
1 Guard: “Approach, ho! All’s not well: Caesar’s beguiled. What work is here?”
Charmian: “It is well done and fitting for a princess descended of so many royal kings.”
Charmian dies
Enter Dolabella
Dolabella: “How goes it here?”
2 Guard: “All dead.”
Dolabella: “Caesar, thy thoughts touch their effects in this. Thyself art coming to see performed the dreaded act which thou so sought to hinder.”
Enter Caesar
Dolabella: “O sir, you are too sure an augurer; that you did fear is done.”
Caesar: “Bravest at the last, she levelled at our purposes, and being royal, took her own way. The manner of their deaths? I do not see them bleed.”
Dolabella: “Who was last with them?”
1 Guard: “A simple countryman who brought her figs. This was his basket.”
Caesar: “If they had swallowed poison it would appear by external swelling; but she looks like sleep, as she would catch another Antony in her strong toil of grace.”
Dolabella: “Here on her breast there is a vent of blood; the like is on her arm.”
1 Guard: “This is an asp trail.”
Caesar: “Most probable that so she died; for her physician tells me she hath pursued conclusions infinite of easy ways to die. She shall be buried by her Antony; no grave upon the earth shall clip in it a pair so famous; and their story is no less in pity than his glory which brought them to be lamented. Our army shall in solemn show attend his funeral, and then to Rome.”
Final Thoughts
Shakespeare’s source for this play is Plutarch’s Lives. Act V, focused as it is on the Egyptian Queen, acknowledges the play Cleopatra by Samual Daniels (1594). Richard Burbage played Antony in the very first production, and then the play as we know it disappears from the stage until 1849. Antony and Cleopatra has become the hit we know it to be only in the 20th Century, with stand out lead performances by the likes of Peggy Ashcroft, Lawrence Olivier, Christopher Plummer and Charlton Heston. There are several filmed and staged productions of Antony and Cleopatra available on youtube, along with many clips and much analysis.
William Shakespeare: Journey Through Genius 