Analysis and Summary of Antony and Cleopatra by Williams Shakespeare
Mark
Antony, one of the three rulers of the Roman Empire, spends his time in Egypt,
living a life of decadence and conducting an affair with the country’s
beautiful queen, Cleopatra. When a message arrives informing him that his wife,
Fulvia, is dead and that Pompey is raising an army to rebel against the
triumvirate, Antony decides to return to Rome. In Antony’s absence, Octavius
Caesar and Lepidus, his fellow triumvirs, worry about Pompey’s increasing
strength. Octavius condemns Antony for neglecting his duties as a statesman and
military officer in order to live a decadent life by Cleopatra’s side.
The news
of his wife’s death and imminent battle pricks Antony’s sense of duty, and he
feels compelled to return to Rome. Upon his arrival, he and Octavius quarrel,
while Lepidus tries ineffectually to make peace. Realizing that an alliance is
necessary to defeat Pompey, Antony and Octavius agree that Antony will marry
Octavius’s sister, Octavia, who will solidify their loyalty to one another.
Enobarbus, Antony’s closest friend, predicts to Octavius’s men that, despite
the marriage, Antony will surely return to Cleopatra.
In
Egypt, Cleopatra learns of Antony’s marriage and flies into a jealous rage.
However, when a messenger delivers word that Octavia is plain and unimpressive,
Cleopatra becomes confident that she will win Antony back. The triumvirs meet
Pompey and settle their differences without going to battle. Pompey agrees to
keep peace in exchange for rule over Sicily and Sardinia. That evening, the
four men drink to celebrate their truce. One of Pompey’s soldiers discloses to
him a plan to assassinate the triumvirs, thereby delivering world power into
Pompey’s hands, but Pompey dismisses the scheme as an affront to his honor.
Meanwhile, one of Antony’s generals wins a victory over the kingdom of Parthia.
Antony
and Octavia depart for Athens. Once they are gone, Octavius breaks his truce,
wages war against Pompey, and defeats him. After using Lepidus’s army to secure
a victory, he accuses Lepidus of treason, imprisons him, and confiscates his
land and possessions. This news angers Antony, as do the rumors that Octavius
has been speaking out against him in public. Octavia pleads with Antony to
maintain a peaceful relationship with her brother. Should Antony and Octavius
fight, she says, her affections would be painfully divided. Antony dispatches
her to Rome on a peace mission, and quickly returns to Egypt and Cleopatra.
There, he raises a large army to fight Octavius, and Octavius, incensed over
Antony’s treatment of his sister, responds in kind. Octavius commands his army
and navy to Egypt. Ignoring all advice to the contrary, Antony elects to fight
him at sea, allowing Cleopatra to command a ship despite Enobarbus’s strong
objections. Antony’s forces lose the battle when Cleopatra’s ship flees and
Antony’s follows, leaving the rest of the fleet vulnerable.
Antony
despairs, condemning Cleopatra for leading him into infamy but quickly
forgiving her. He and Cleopatra send requests to their conqueror: Antony asks
to be allowed to live in Egypt, while Cleopatra asks that her kingdom be passed
down to her rightful heirs. Octavius dismisses Antony’s request, but he
promises Cleopatra a fair hearing if she betrays her lover. Cleopatra seems to
be giving thought to Octavius’s message when Antony barges in, curses her for
her treachery, and orders the innocent messenger whipped. When, moments later,
Antony forgives Cleopatra, Enobarbus decides that his master is finished and
defects to Octavius’s camp.
Antony
meets Octavius’s troops in battle and scores an unexpected victory. When he
learns of Enobarbus’s desertion, Antony laments his own bad fortune, which he
believes has corrupted an honorable man. He sends his friend’s possessions to
Octavius’s camp and returns to Cleopatra to celebrate his victory. Enobarbus,
undone by shame at his own disloyalty, collapses under the weight of his guilt
and dies.
Another
day brings another battle, and once again Antony meets Octavius at sea. As
before, the Egyptian fleet proves treacherous; it abandons the fight and leaves
Antony to suffer defeat. Convinced that his lover has betrayed him, Antony vows
to kill Cleopatra. To protect herself, she sequesters herself in her monument
and sends word that she has committed suicide. Antony, racked with grief,
determines to join his queen in the afterlife. He commands one of his
attendants to fulfill his promise of unquestioned service and kill him. The
attendant kills himself instead. Antony then falls on his own sword, but the
wound is not immediately fatal. He is carried to Cleopatra’s monument, where
the lovers are reunited briefly before Antony’s death. Octavius takes the queen
prisoner, planning to display her in Rome as a testament to the might of his
empire, but she learns of his plan and kills herself with the help of several
poisonous snakes. Octavius has her buried beside Antony.
Summary: Act 1: Scene
1
In
Egypt, Philo and Demetrius, two Roman soldiers, discuss how their general, Mark
Antony, has fallen in love with the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, and has lost
interest in his proper role as one of the three leaders (or triumvirs) of the
Roman Empire. Cleopatra and Antony enter, the queen imploring Antony to
describe just how much he loves her, when a messenger from Rome greets them.
Antony says that he has little interest in hearing Roman news, but Cleopatra
tells him that he must listen. She teases Antony for possibly turning away a
command from young Octavius Caesar or a rebuke from Antony’s wife, Fulvia. When
she urges him to return to Rome, Antony claims that Rome means nothing to him.
He says that his duty requires him to stay in Alexandria and love Cleopatra.
Although the queen doubts the sincerity of his sentiment, her suggestions that
Antony hear the news from Rome go unheeded, and the couple exits together.
After the lovers have gone, Philo and Demetrius express shock and despair at
their general’s disrespect for Octavius and the concerns of the empire.
Summary: Act 1: Scene
2
Cleopatra’s
attendants ask the Soothsayer, or fortune-teller, to reveal their futures. The
Soothsayer tells Charmian and Iras, the queen’s maids, that their fortunes are
the same: their pasts will prove better than their futures, and they shall
outlive the queen whom they serve. Cleopatra joins them, complaining that
Antony has suddenly turned his mind toward Rome again. She sends Antony’s
follower Enobarbus to fetch his master but then changes her mind, and as Antony
approaches, she leaves to avoid seeing him. A messenger reports to Antony that
Fulvia and Lucius, Antony’s brother, have mounted an army against Octavius but
have lost their battle. When the messenger hesitantly suggests that this event
would not have happened had Antony been in Rome, Antony invites the man to
speak openly, to “taunt [his] faults / With such full license as both truth and
malice / Have power to utter” (1.2.117–19). Another messenger arrives to report
that Fulvia is dead. Antony comments that he long desired his wife’s death but
now wishes her alive again.
Enobarbus
arrives and tries to comfort Antony with the thought that Fulvia’s death was an
event that should be welcomed rather than mourned. Worried that his idleness
and devotion to Cleopatra are responsible for these events, as well as for a
battle being waged by Sextus Pompeius, who is currently attempting to take
control of the seas from the triumvirs, Antony decides to break away from
Cleopatra and return to Rome.
Summary: Act 1: Scene
3
Cleopatra orders her servant
Alexas to fetch Antony. When Antony enters, Cleopatra feigns a fainting spell,
lamenting that Fulvia ever gave Antony leave to come to Egypt. She asks how she
could have believed the vows of a man so willing to break his vows to his wife.
Antony tells her of the volatile political situation in Rome and of Fulvia’s
death. Cleopatra notes how little he mourns and predicts that he will grieve as
little after her own death. They argue about the depth and truth of his
feelings, until Antony finally departs, promising that distance will not
threaten their love.
Analysis: Act 1: Scenes 1–3
Shakespeare organizes the plot
of Antony and Cleopatra around
the conflict between two civilizations, represented by Egypt and Rome. He
immediately establishes this opposition in the opening scene, when two Roman
soldiers pass judgment on their commander, Mark Antony, for surrendering his
martial duties to the exotic pleasures of Cleopatra’s Egypt. The battle is not
merely between two geographically distinct empires but also between two
diametrically opposed cultures and worldviews. As Philo and Demetrius lament
Antony’s decline, claiming that his “captain’s heart” now serves as “the
bellows and the fan / To cool a gypsy’s lust” (1.1.6–10), they illustrate a
divide between a world that is governed by reason, discipline, and prudence,
and another ruled by passion, pleasure, and love
Cleopatra, however, is much more
than the high-class prostitute that the Romans believe her to be. Often
considered Shakespeare’s strongest female character, Cleopatra is a consummate
actress. As her first scene with Antony shows, she conducts her affair with the
Roman general in a highly theatrical fashion, her actions fueled as much by the
need to create a public spectacle as by the desire to satisfy a private
passion. Later, upon learning of Antony’s plan to return to Rome, the queen
shifts from grief to anger with astonishing speed. No sooner does she recover
from a fainting spell than she rails at Antony for his inability to mourn his
dead wife adequately. As he prepares to leave, Cleopatra says, “But sir,
forgive me, / Since my becomings kill me when they do not / Eye well to you”
(1.3.116–18). Here, “becomings” refers not only to the graces that become or
suit the queen but also to her fluid transformations, her many moods, and the
many different versions of herself she presents. In act 1, scene 1, Antony
points to this mutability when he notes that Cleopatra is a woman “[whom
everything becomes—to chide, to laugh, / To weep” (1.1.57–58). This talent for
perpetual change lends Cleopatra her characteristic sense of drama as well as
her complexity
Antony,
meanwhile, seems to enjoy indulging in hyperbole as much as Cleopatra. When she
tells him that his duties call him home, he declares: “Let Rome in Tiber melt,
and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space. / Kingdoms are
clay. Our dungy earth alike / Feeds beast as man” (1.1.38–41). His speech
stands in stark contrast to the measured, unadorned speech of Philo and
Demetrius and, later, Octavius Caesar. Antony delights in depicting himself in
heroic terms. Indeed, he occupies himself with thoughts of winning nobleness
and honor. However, we can already detect the sharp tension between his
rhetoric and his action.
From the
beginning of the play, Antony is strongly attracted to both Rome and Egypt, and
his loyalty vacillates between the two. In these first scenes, he goes from
letting “Rome in Tiber melt” to deciding that he “must from this enchanting
queen break off” (1.2.143). His infatuation with the queen is not strong enough
to overcome his sense of responsibility to Rome, and while Octavius Caesar, his
efficient antagonist, has yet to appear onstage, the lengthy discussion of the
strife between Fulvia, Octavius, and young Pompey reminds us of the political
context of this love affair. Antony governs a third of the Roman Empire, which
has endured decades of civil strife, and he and Octavius, though allies, are
not true friends. Such an unstable situation does not bode well for the future
of Antony’s romance with the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra
Here, as throughout the play,
Enobarbus, Antony’s most loyal supporter, serves as the voice of reason; he
speaks plainly, in prose rather than verse. As the drama continues to unfold,
his estrangement from Antony will increase as Antony’s power wanes. For the moment,
however, he represents Antony’s connection to Rome and to his political duties.
Enobarbus’s blunt honesty contrasts sharply with Cleopatra’s theatricality.
Summary: Act 1: Scene
4
In Rome,
young Octavius Caesar complains to Lepidus, the third triumvir, that Antony has
abandoned his responsibilities as a statesman and, in doing so, has also
abandoned the better part of his manhood. Lepidus attempts to defend Antony,
suggesting that Antony’s weaknesses for fishing, drinking, and reveling are
traits he inherited rather than ones he has chosen. Octavius remains
unconvinced, declaring that Antony has no business enjoying himself in Egypt
during a time of crisis. A messenger arrives with news that Pompey’s forces are
both gathering strength and finding support among those whose prior allegiance
to Octavius arose from fear, not duty. Remembering Antony’s valiant and
unparalleled performance as a soldier, Octavius laments that Antony is not with
them. He and Lepidus agree to raise an army against Pompey.
Summary: Act 1: Scene
5
Cleopatra
complains to Charmian that she misses Antony. She wonders what he is doing and
whether he, in turn, is thinking of her. Alexas enters and presents her with a
gift from Antony: a pearl. He tells the queen that Antony kissed the gemstone
upon leaving Egypt and ordered it be delivered to Cleopatra as a token of his
love. Cleopatra asks if he appeared sad or happy, and she rejoices when Alexas
responds that Antony seemed neither. To appear sad, Cleopatra says, might have
contaminated the moods of his followers, while a happy countenance could have
jeopardized his followers’ belief in his resolve. Cleopatra orders Alexas to
prepare twenty messengers, so that she can write to Antony on each day of his
absence. She promises, if need be, to “unpeople Egypt” by turning all its
citizens into messengers (1.5.94).
Analysis: Act 1:
Scenes 4 & 5
Unlike
Shakespeare’s other great tragedies, Antony
and Cleopatra is not confined to a single geographical location.
Whereas Macbeth unfolds
in Scotland and Hamlet in
Denmark’s Elsinore castle, Antony and Cleopatra takes
the audience from one end of the Mediterranean Sea to the other in the course
of a scene change. This technique is noteworthy for several reasons. First, it
shows the global concerns of the play: traveling from Alexandria to Athens to
Rome to Syria demonstrates the scope of the empire for which Antony, Cleopatra,
and Octavius struggle. Second, the use of rapidly shifting locales shows that
Shakespeare has become less interested in the deep psychological recesses that
he examines in his greatest tragedies and is now addressing more public concerns.
A stylistic result of Shakespeare’s interest in the broader world is that Antony and Cleopatra lacks soliloquies, a device
that Shakespeare elsewhere uses to reveal his characters’ hidden thoughts to
the audience.
As he
shuttles the audience from Egypt to Rome, Shakespeare introduces the other
members of the triumvirate who, with Antony, have ruled the Roman Empire since
Julius Caesar’s death. Octavius Caesar, Julius’s nephew, stands in stark
contrast to Antony. His first lines establish him as a man ruled by reason
rather than passion, duty rather than desire. He complains that Antony neglects
affairs of state in order to fish, drink, and waste the night away in revelry.
Even though he lacks the military prowess that he praises in Antony, Octavius is,
politically speaking, ever practical and efficient. That he disapproves so
strongly of Antony’s relationship with Cleopatra foreshadows the collapse of
the triumvirate and forecasts Octavius’s role as a worthy adversary.
Speaking
little in act 1, scene 4, Lepidus emerges as the weakest of the three Roman
leaders. Neither heroic like Antony nor politically astute like Octavius,
Lepidus lacks the power and command of his fellow triumvirs. Lepidus works
desperately to maintain a balance of power by keeping Octavius and Antony on
amiable terms. When Octavius criticizes Antony, Lepidus urges him not to
condemn their fellow triumvir so harshly, and he later entreats Antony to speak
gently when speaking to Octavius. The triumvirate is a triangular form of government,
and it is little wonder, given the extreme weakness of one of its sides, that
it soon collapses.
The
shift in scene from Rome back to Egypt also helps to introduce a comparison
between Octavius and Cleopatra, each of whom thinks about Antony while he is en
route to Rome. This shift makes it clear that Cleopatra admires Antony for the
same reasons Octavius has grown frustrated with him. In scene 4, Octavius
laments the fact that Antony has fallen from his previous state of exemplary
heroism. He specifically recalls how, despite being defeated at a battle in
Italy, Antony showed incredible grit by making a grueling journey through the
Alps: “Thou didst drink / The stale of horses and the gilded puddle / Which
beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign / The roughest berry on the
rudest hedge” (1.4.70–74). Now, however, Octavius believes that Antony’s time
in Egypt has compromised him. From the heights of heroism he has fallen into
the depths of depravity, such that he is now “[a] man who is th’ abstract of
all faults” (1.4.10).
For
Cleopatra, however, Antony is a model of grace whose “well-divided disposition”
gives him an ideally balanced perspective. Alexas confirms this sense of
balance when Cleopatra asks her how Antony acted as his ship disembarked: “Like
to the time ‘o th’ year between th’ extremes / Of hot and cold, he was nor sad
nor merry” (1.5.60–61). Cleopatra celebrates Antony’s emotional composure as
the sign of a great leader. Had he been sad, he might have negatively impacted
his troops’ morale. By contrast, had he been happy, he might have negatively
impacted her morale by seeming eager to get away. Instead, he maintained a
neutrality that she describes as a “heavenly mingle” (1.5.69), and which marks
him as an exemplary statesman and lover. So highly does he rank in her esteem
that she refers to him as a demigod—that is, as “[t]he demi-Atlas of this
earth” (1.5.28). The way Cleopatra’s perspective clashes with that of Octavius
clearly foreshadows the danger in store for Antony—a man whose position between
Rome and Egypt is here reflected by his current physical location as he crosses
Mediterranean Sea.
Act 2: Scene 1
Pompey
discusses the military situation with his lieutenants, Menecrates and Menas. He
feels confident of victory against the triumvirs, not only because he controls
the sea and is popular with the Roman people, but also because he believes that
Antony, the greatest threat to his power, is still in Egypt. Menas reports that
Octavius and Lepidus have raised an army, and another soldier, Varrius, arrives
to tell them that Antony has come to Rome. Menas expresses his hope that
Octavius and Antony’s mutual enmity will give rise to a battle between the two
triumvirs, but Pompey predicts that the two will come together to fend off their
common enemy.
Summary: Act 2: Scene
2
Lepidus
tells Enobarbus that Antony should use “soft and gentle speech” when speaking
to Octavius (2.2.3). Enobarbus answers that Antony will speak as plainly and
honestly as any great man should.
Antony
and Octavius enter with their attendants and sit down to talk. Octavius
complains of the rebellion that Fulvia and Antony’s brother raised against him.
He asks why Antony dismissed his messengers in Alexandria and accuses Antony of
failing in his obligation to provide military aid to the other triumvirs.
Antony defends himself, and Maecenas, one of Octavius’s companions, suggests
that they put aside their bickering in order to face Pompey.
Agrippa,
another of Octavius’s men, suggests that Antony marry Octavius’s sister,
Octavia. This bond, he claims, would cement the men’s affection for and
alliance with one another. Antony consents. Octavius and Antony shake hands,
promising brotherly love, and they agree to march together toward Pompey’s
stronghold on Mount Misenum.
When the
triumvirs disperse, Enobarbus tells Agrippa of the good life they lived in
Egypt. He describes how Antony first met Cleopatra, whom he describes as
surpassing the beauty of Venus, the goddess of love. Antony, he maintains, will
never be able to leave her, despite his marriage to Octavia.
Summary: Act 2: Scene
3
Antony
promises Octavia that although his duties will often force him to be away from
her, he will avoid the sexual indiscretions of his past. Octavia and Octavius
depart, and Antony is joined by the Egyptian Soothsayer, who predicts Antony’s
return to Egypt. Antony asks whether he or Octavius has the brighter future,
and the Soothsayer answers that Octavius’s fortune will rise higher. As long as
Antony remains in Rome, the Soothsayer predicts, he will be overshadowed by
Octavius. He advises Antony to leave plenty of space between himself and the
triumvir of Rome. Antony dismisses the fortune-teller but agrees with his
assessment, and he resigns himself to returning to Egypt, where his “pleasure
lies” (2.3.46). Antony summons Ventidius, a soldier and friend, and commissions
him to go east to make war against the kingdom of Parthia.
Summary: Act 2: Scene
4
Meanwhile,
Lepidus orders Maecenas and Agrippa to gather their soldiers and meet at Mount
Misenum, where they shall confront Pompey’s army.
Summary: Act 2: Scene
5
In
Egypt, Cleopatra amuses herself with her servants Charmian and Mardian, a
eunuch. As she reminisces about Antony, likening him to a fish that she has
caught, a messenger arrives from Italy. Noting his unhappy expression,
Cleopatra fears that Antony is dead and threatens the messenger should he
deliver such unwelcome news. The messenger assures the queen that her lover is
alive and well, but he admits that Antony has married Octavia. Cleopatra
strikes the messenger furiously, but he insists that he must tell her the
truth. Cleopatra admits that it is beneath her station to treat a menial
servant so viciously, but she cannot help upbraiding the man as she forces him
to repeat that Antony belongs to another. She finally dismisses the messenger,
then sends him orders to go and see Octavia so that he may report her
features—how old she is, how she acts, even the color of her hair.
Act 2: Scene 6
Before
waging a war, Pompey and the triumvirs hold a meeting. Pompey tells Octavius,
Lepidus, and Antony that he is fighting to avenge his father, whose defeat by
Julius Caesar led him into Egypt, where he was killed. Antony informs Pompey
that despite the latter’s strength at sea, the triumvirs’ army will prevail.
The three offer Pompey rule over Sicily and Sardinia should he agree to rid the
sea of pirates and to send payments of wheat to Rome as a tax. Pompey admits
that he was ready to accept this offer until Antony offended him by refusing to
acknowledge the hospitality he showed Antony’s mother on her recent visit to
Sicily. Antony assures Pompey that he intended to offer a gracious thanks, at
which the men shake hands and make peace.
Pompey
invites the Romans aboard his ship for dinner, and the triumvirs join him.
Enobarbus and Menas stay behind discussing their military careers, the current
political situation, and Antony’s marriage to Octavia. Enobarbus repeats that
he is sure Antony will inevitably return to Egypt. After the talk, the two go
to dinner.
Summary: Act 2: Scene
7
A group
of servants discusses Pompey’s dinner party, commenting on Lepidus’s
drunkenness in particular. Pompey enters with his guests as Antony discusses
the Nile River. Lepidus babbles on about crocodiles, which, according to
popular belief, formed spontaneously out of the river mud. Lepidus asks Antony
to describe the crocodile, and Antony responds with a humorously circular and
meaningless definition: “It is shaped, sir, like itself, and is as broad as it
hath breadth” (2.7.44–45).
Menas
pulls Pompey away from the festivities to suggest that they set sail and kill
the three triumvirs while they are still drunk and onboard the boat, thus
delivering control of the Western world into Pompey’s hands. Pompey rails against
Menas for sharing this plan with him. Were the deed done without his knowledge,
Pompey says, he would have praised it, but now that he knows, it would violate
his honor. In an angry aside, Menas expresses his disappointment with Pompey
and swears that he will leave his master’s service. Meanwhile, the triumvirs
and their host continue their drunken revelry, eventually joining hands,
dancing, and singing before they leave the ship and stumble off to bed
Analysis: Act 2:
Scenes 1–5
With act
2, Antony and Cleopatra shifts
into a new gear as the action begins to toggle between multiple places,
shifting across wide geographical expanses, often in rapid succession. In the
first five scenes of the act, Shakespeare moves around the Mediterranean Sea,
making stops in Sicily, Rome, and Alexandria. Each of these places represents a
major hub in the tensions brewing throughout the Roman Empire. Pompey the
insurrectionist presides over Sicily, the large island near the “toe” of the
“boot” of Italy, which he has established as an independent state. Meanwhile,
Octavius Caesar rules from the Italian city of Rome, and Cleopatra remains at
her court in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, which lies on the far
southeastern shore of the Mediterranean. As the play proceeds, Shakespeare will
continue to shift the action from one place to another, often also making
significant leaps through time. These leaps are not typical for Shakespeare,
but they contribute to the unique structure of Antony and Cleopatra, giving it an epic scope that
adequately reflects the historical significance of its subject matter.
Scene 1
of the play’s second act introduces us to Sextus Pompeius, known here simply as
Pompey. Pompey is a Roman general who stands in opposition to the triumvirate
comprised of Octavius, Lepidus, and Antony. Pompey inherits his opposition to
the triumvirate from his father, Pompey the Great, who had fought in the civil
war against Julius Caesar, the uncle and adoptive father of Octavius. After his
father’s treacherous murder in the midst of that conflict, Pompey and his
brothers continued the fight against Julius Caesar. However, ongoing defeat
forced them to retreat to Sicily. Back in Rome, however, Julius Caesar’s
enemies organized and executed a plot to murder him, which instigated a new
civil war. This new war gave Pompey the reprieve needed to establish the navy
which, by the time when Antony and Cleopatra is
set, has grown into a formidable force. His pirates roam the sea, terrorizing
Rome’s official fleet in ongoing resistance to the triumvirate.
Shakespeare
depicts Pompey as a somewhat pompous man who believes wholeheartedly in his
future success against the triumvirate. Believing that all three triumvirs of
the Roman Empire have grown complacent and therefore weak, Pompey asserts to
Menas: “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 th’ full”
(2.1.11–14). Yet for all his apparent self-confidence, Pompey also recognizes
the potential danger signaled by Antony’s present journey to Rome. As long as
Antony remains in Egypt, he isn’t a threat. But the moment he returns to Rome
and reconciles the brewing tension between him and Octavius, the triumvirate
will be newly strengthened and thus pose a significant challenge for Pompey’s
opposition. For the present, his only line of defense is to pray that Antony
will make a quick return to Alexandria, where Cleopatra will continue to
bewitch him: “Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both; / Tie up the
libertine in a field of feasts; / Keep his brain fuming” (2.1.27–29).
Shakespeare’s
depiction of Pompey as both self-confident and vulnerable relates to his
similarly conflicting depictions of other key characters in the play. Perhaps
most conflicting of all is the portrayal of Antony, whom we have seen—and will
continue to see—from a variety of different perspectives. For example, in the
opening scenes of the play, Demetrius and Philo complained that their general
has sacrificed his better self for the sake of Cleopatra’s lust. Three scenes
later, Octavius described Antony’s incomparable prowess in battle, confirming
the audience’s impression of the general’s military might. When Antony appears
in act 2, scene 3, however, he seems less interested in maintaining this heroic
reputation than in pursuing his own pleasure. We may find it difficult to
decide whether the Antony we see is the celebrated war hero or a man corrupted
by his desires for fame and romance. The play doesn’t offer an easy answer. Instead,
we must weigh the various impressions of Antony from Pompey, Octavius,
Enobarbus, and Cleopatra against Antony’s understanding of himself. Antony,
like each character in the play, is thus the product of three distinct
elements: what other characters think of him, what he thinks of himself, and
what he does.
Similarly,
Cleopatra is both the regal, incomparably beautiful seductress of Enobarbus’s
speech and the spoiled, petty tyrant who beats her servant for delivering
unwelcome news. More than any other character in the play—and perhaps in all of
Shakespeare—Cleopatra assumes each of these contradictory roles with unmatched
passion and flair. She is, above all else, a consummate actress, a woman whose
grief over Antony’s marriage to Octavia can be soothed only by the theatrics of
drawing a knife on her innocent messenger. Cleopatra’s over-the-top behavior
may cause us to doubt the authenticity of her emotions and question whether her
grief is more performance than actual feeling. But to entertain such doubts
about her may be to look at the play too much from the Roman point of view. We
should remember that Cleopatra is more than the harlot the Romans see when they
look at her. As Enobarbus says in act 2, scene 2, Cleopatra is a woman of
“infinite variety”: there is room in her for both theatrical emotions and
genuine love, for both stately grandeur and for girlish insecurity (2.2.241).
Analysis: Act 2:
Scenes 6 & 7
In act
2, scene 6, Pompey arrives in Rome for a face-to-face negotiation with the men
he opposes: Octavius, Lepidus, and Antony. Now that he stands before the three
triumvirs of the Roman Empire, Pompey clearly recognizes the vulnerability of
his situation. He acknowledges as much when he reflects his willingness to
accept the offer the triumvirs have extended to him, which involves him
retaining power over Sicily but retracting his navy and agreeing to pay Rome a
tithe of wheat. Yet Pompey also demonstrates a sense of pride when he qualifies
his agreement to the deal not by making a counteroffer, but by complaining that
Antony has failed to show him due gratitude. Pompey has apparently showed
hospitality to Antony’s mother, who had sought shelter in Sicily when his
brother and wife were recently warring against Octavius. In other words, Pompey
will relent, but only on the condition that he is also shown the requisite
degree of respect. Antony quickly pays Pompey the gratitude he’s due, and the
men shake hands on peace.
Pompey’s
demand for respect isn’t simply a matter of pride; it’s also tied to his larger
sense of honor. This sense of honor becomes clear during the party scene in act
2, scene 7, when Menas takes Pompey aside and articulates a grim plan to
assassinate all three triumvirs. Realizing that the advantage of opportunity
has fallen into the chastened Pompey’s hands, Menas insists that his leader can
still have the military victory he has long sought after. Thus, he asks Pompey:
“Wilt thou be lord of all the world?” (2.7.69). Pompey need only say the word,
and he could have it all for himself. But Pompey recognizes that such action
would be dishonorable given the circumstances, in which he has just made peace
with the triumvirs. Regardless of how much he might still want to take them
down, he believes he retains his honor by not acting on his dishonorable
feelings.
From
another vantage, however, Pompey’s refusal of Menas’s plans arguably has less
to do with personal virtue and more to do with political optics. As someone who
believes he has widespread support among the Roman public, he worries that his
public reputation would be tarnished were he associated with the murder of the
three leaders who collectively ruled a vast empire. After all, Pompey has
already lived through not just one, but two civil wars generated by hostile
takeovers of power. Thus, the only way such a plan might have worked is if he
genuinely had no knowledge of it. As he puts the matter to Menas: “Ah, this
thou shouldst have done / And not have spoke on ‘t! In me ‘tis villainy; / In
thee ‘t had been good service. Thou must know / ‘Tis not my profit that does
lead mine honor; / Mine honor, it” (2.7.86–90). Here Pompey claims that his
desire for worldly success doesn’t guide his sense of honor, but rather the
other way around. As such, he can’t condone the action: “Being done unknown, /
I should have found it afterwards well done, / But must condemn it now”
(2.7.91–93).
Menas’s
disappointment in the face of Pompey’s rejection is important to note for the
way it reflects a growing tension in the play between leaders and their
followers. In an aside, Menas makes a personal pledge to break with Pompey:
“For this / I’ll never follow thy parallel fortunes more” (2.7.93–94). This
personal pledge foreshadows similar expressions of discontent from Enobarbus,
one of Antony’s key advisors. Like Menas, Enobarbus will, in act 3, grow
increasingly frustrated with Antony’s tactical decision-making and seek a way
to leave his service. The link between Menas and Enobarbus is further cemented
in the significant interactions they share in scenes 6 and 7 of act 2. In scene
6, for instance, they have a private interaction in which they prophesy that
the present atmosphere of unity cannot last. In particular, they predict that
“the band” that seems to secure the friendship between Octavius and Antony
“will be the very strangler of their amity” (2.6.150–52). As anyone already
familiar with the historical events dramatized in the play will know, these
words of prophecy ring true.
Another
key to the future downfall of the triumvirate is forecast in scene 7, when
Lepidus drinks himself into near oblivion. Lepidus’s drunkenness during the
part on Pompey’s ship symbolizes his political weakness. Indeed, he will make
only one more appearance before Octavius removes him from the proverbial
playing board. Once again, the characters who effectively predict his fortune
are the advisors, Enobarbus and Menas. Upon seeing Lepidus barely able to walk,
Enobarbus comments ironically, “There’s a strong fellow, Menas. . . . He bears
/ The third part of the world, man. Seest not?” (2.7.103–106). The clear
implication here is that at least one of the three pillars propping up the
Roman Empire is weak. And, just as a three-legged stool will topple if even one
leg fails, all it will take for the triumvirate to come crashing down is to
have one pillar falter.
Act 3: Scene 1
Ventidius,
fighting for Antony, defeats the Parthians, killing their king’s son. One of
Ventidius’s soldiers urges him to push on into Parthia and win more glory, but
Ventidius says he should not. If he were too successful in war, he explains, he
would fall out of Antony’s favor and not be able to advance as a member of
Antony’s forces. Instead, Ventidius halts his army and writes to Antony,
informing him of his victory.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
2
Agrippa
and Enobarbus discuss the current state of affairs: Pompey has gone, Octavia
and Octavius are saddened by their nearing separation, and Lepidus is still
sick from his night of heavy drinking. Agrippa and Enobarbus mock Lepidus, the
weakest of the three triumvirs, who trips over himself trying to stay on good
terms with Antony and Octavius. A trumpet blares, and Lepidus, Antony, and
Octavius enter. Octavius bids farewell to Antony and his sister, urging his new
brother-in-law never to mistreat Octavia and thereby drive a wedge between
himself and Antony. Antony implores Octavius not to offend him, making
assurances that he will not justify Octavius’s fears. Antony and Octavia
depart, leaving Lepidus and Octavius in Rome.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
3
Cleopatra’s
messenger returns to report on Antony’s bride. He tells Cleopatra that Octavia
is shorter than she and that Octavia has a low voice and is rather lifeless.
This news pleases Cleopatra, who delights in thinking that Antony’s bride is
stupid and short. She decides that, given Octavia’s lack of positive
attributes, Antony cannot possibly enjoy being with her for long. She promises
to reward the messenger for his good service, showers him with gold, and asks
him not to think of her too harshly for her past treatment of him. She then
tells Charmian that Antony will almost certainly return to her.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
4
Antony
complains to Octavia that since departing Rome, Octavius has not only waged war
against Pompey but has also belittled Antony in public. Octavia urges Antony
not to believe everything he hears, and she pleads with him to keep the peace
with her brother. Were Antony and Octavius to fight, Octavia laments, she would
not know whether to support her brother or her husband. Antony tells her that
he must do what needs to be done to preserve his honor, without which he would
be nothing. Nevertheless, he sends her to Rome to make peace again between
Octavius and himself. Meanwhile, he prepares for war against Pompey.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
5
Enobarbus
converses with Eros, another friend of Antony. The two discuss Octavius’s
defeat of Pompey’s army and the murder of Pompey. Eros reports that Octavius
made use of Lepidus’s forces, but then, after their victory, denied Lepidus his
share of the spoils. In fact, Octavius has accused the triumvir of plotting
against him and has thrown him into prison. Enobarbus reports that Antony’s
navy is ready to sail for Italy and Octavius.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
6
Back in
Rome, Octavius rails against Antony. He tells Agrippa and Maecenas that Antony
has gone to Egypt to sit alongside Cleopatra as her king. He has given her rule
over much of the Middle East, making her absolute queen of lower Syria, Cyprus,
and Lydia. Octavius reports that Antony is displeased that he has not yet been
allotted a fair portion of the lands that Octavius wrested from Pompey and
Lepidus. He will divide his lot, he says, if Antony responds in kind and grants
him part of Armenia and other kingdoms that Antony conquered. No sooner does
Maecenas predict that Antony will never concede to those terms than Octavia
enters. Octavius laments that the woman travels so plainly, without the fanfare
that should attend the wife of Antony. Octavius reveals to her that Antony has
joined Cleopatra in Egypt, where he has assembled a large alliance to fight
Rome. Octavia is heartbroken, and Maecenas assures her that she has the
sympathy of every Roman citizen.
Act 3: Scene 7
Cleopatra
plans to go into battle alongside Antony and responds angrily to Enobarbus’s
suggestion that her presence will be a distraction. Enobarbus tries to dissuade
her, but she dismisses his objections. Antony tells his general, Camidius, that
he will meet Octavius at sea. Camidius and Enobarbus object, pointing out that
while they have superiority on land, Octavius’s naval fleet is much stronger.
Antony, however, refuses to listen. Cleopatra maintains that her fleet of sixty
ships will win the battle. Antony leaves to prepare the navy, despite the
protests of a soldier who begs him to forgo a doomed sea battle and fight on
foot. After the general and the queen exit, Camidius complains that they are
all “women’s men,” ruled by Cleopatra (3.7.87). He comments on the speed of
Octavius’s approach, then goes to prepare the land defenses.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
8
Octavius
orders his army to hold off its attack until the sea battle ends.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
9
Antony
instructs Enobarbus to set their squadrons on a hillside, which will allow them
to view the battle at sea.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
10
Enobarbus
describes the sea fight he has just witnessed: Antony’s forces were winning the
battle until Cleopatra’s ship fled without warning and Antony followed her. The
fleet was thrown into confusion, and the victory went to Octavius. Antony’s
soldiers are sickened by the sight, one of them declaring that he has never
seen anything so shameful. Camidius defects to Octavius’s side, bringing his
army and following the lead of six of Antony’s royal allies, but Enobarbus,
against his better judgment, remains loyal to his general.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
11
Deeply
ashamed of his performance in battle, Antony berates himself, ordering his
servants to leave the service of such an unworthy master. He urges them to
abandon him, just as he has abandoned his nobler self. When Cleopatra enters,
she finds her lover distraught and alone. She tries to comfort him, but Antony
can remind her only of his valiant past: it was he who won fierce battles, who
dealt with the treacheries of Cassius and Brutus. But now, he determines, such
events do not matter. He asks Cleopatra why she has led him into infamy, and
she begs his forgiveness, saying that she never dreamed that he would follow
her retreat. He asks her how she could doubt that he would follow her, when his
heart was tied to her. Antony complains that he must now seek young Octavius’s
pardon, but unable to bear the sight of the queen’s sorrow, he forgives her. As
Antony kisses Cleopatra, he remarks that even her mere kiss repays him for his
shame.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
12
Octavius
is with Dolabella and Thidias, two of his supporters, when Antony’s ambassador
arrives with his master’s request: Antony asks to be allowed to live in Egypt
or, barring that, to “breathe between the heavens and earth, / A private man in
Athens” (3.12.17–18). The ambassador further delivers Cleopatra’s request that
Egypt be passed on to her heirs. Octavius dismisses Antony’s requests but
declares that Cleopatra will have a fair hearing so long as she expels Antony
from Egypt or executes him. He sends Thidias to lure Cleopatra to accept these
terms, hoping that she will betray her lover.
Summary: Act 3: Scene
13
Enobarbus
tells Cleopatra that the defeat was not her fault since Antony could have
chosen to follow reason rather than lust. The ambassador returns with
Octavius’s message: Antony declares that he will challenge his rival to
one-on-one combat. Enobarbus meditates on such a course of action, but he
decides that if he remains loyal to Antony, then he might be able to attack
Octavius in the event that Octavius kills Antony. Meanwhile, Thidias arrives to
tell Cleopatra that Octavius will show her mercy if she relinquishes Antony.
The queen concedes that she embraced Antony more out of fear than love and
declares Octavius a god to whom she will bow down. Just then, Antony enters in
a fury and demands that Thidias be whipped. He then turns to Cleopatra and
rails at her for betraying him. The queen protests that she would never betray
him, which satisfies Antony. Antony’s fleet has reassembled, and much of his
land forces remain intact, ready to attack Octavius again. Enobarbus, who has
observed this scene, decides that he has been faithful to Antony long enough.
He feels that Antony’s mind is slipping and that he must abandon his master.
Analysis: Act 3: Scenes
1–6
In act
3, the pace of the action picks up yet again. Now that we have met all the
major players in the complex dispute that unfolds in the region surrounding the
Mediterranean Sea, Shakespeare allows the action to shift rapidly from place to
place, sometimes within the space of a couple pages. The rapid nature of the
scene shifts may admittedly be difficult to follow for those who don’t already
have detailed knowledge of the history being staged. To make matters more
challenging, Shakespeare chooses not to show much of the action onstage, and
instead simply summarizes the major events through messages and reports.
However, the swiftness of the action also powerfully demonstrates just how
quickly power structures can collapse once they begin to falter. Indeed, over
the course of a single act, the triumvirate will implode, resulting in the end
of a major era in Roman history.
Act 3
opens with a brief scene in which a man named Ventidius recounts a proud
victory over Parthia that he has won in Antony’s name. Antony thus begins act 3
in a powerful position. However, Ventidius’s caution against attempting to
extend the conquest too much further has an ominous significance. Ventidius
couches his warning in terms that extend the play’s ongoing concern with the
nature of honor. He explains that it would not be honorable to keep pursuing
conquest, since eclipsing his captain’s fame would reflect poorly on himself.
His point is ultimately about curbing one’s ambition to avoid the perils of
overachievement. As he puts the matter: “I could do more to do Antonius good, /
But ‘twould offend him, and in his offence / Should my performance perish”
(3.1.27–29). But though he speaks about his own sense of honor here,
Ventidius’s words also ring out with caution against Antony’s own ambition. As
becomes clear in the scenes that follow in quick succession, Antony’s
irritation at Octavius’s failure to include him in the defeat of Pompey will
lead to the remarkably ambitious decision to go against his fellow triumvir.
Of course,
Antony’s desire to against Octavius isn’t unmotivated. Despite having just come
from Rome, where they have worked to restore equilibrium between the three
pillars of the empire, Octavius has taken it upon himself to go to war against
Pompey. Yet the triumvirate has recently established peaceful relations with
Pompey, making Octavius’s act of war dishonorable. To make matters worse,
Octavius has made the executive decision to cut Lepidus out, at once relying on
his forces and yet denying him any of the spoils of war. Octavius even goes so
far as to imprison Lepidus. For Antony such actions must be understood as a
betrayal, to which he responds by making a series of executive decisions of his
own. Chief of among these are his decisions to assemble a fleet and to name
Cleopatra the queen not just of Egypt, but also of lower Syria, Cyprus, and
Lydia.
As
political tensions rise and the major powers of the empire turn against each
other, Octavia stands in the middle of it all. From the moment she was introduced
in the play, it was clear that Octavia functioned as little more than a
political pawn manipulated by men. Her marriage to Antony served the sole
purpose of easing tensions between Antony and her brother, Octavius. Enobarbus
recognized the danger involved in such an arrangement back in act 2, scene 6,
where he noted that “the band that seems to tie their friendship together will
be the very strangler of their amity” (2.6.150–52). The “band” he refers to is
Octavia, and already in the first half of act 3 she has become a key source of
strife between these two powerful men. Octavia reflects on her tortured
position, trapped as she is between two competing forces: “A more unhappy lady,
/ If this division chance, ne’er stood between, / Praying for both parts”
(3.4.13–15). Although Antony sends Octavia back to Rome under orders to restore
peace between him and Octavius, for the audience it’s clear that this act
merely aggravates their increasingly unstable relationship.
Shakespeare
reminds the audience of an additional force against Octavia when, in scene 3,
he returns us to Alexandria, where Cleopatra eagerly receives news about how
unremarkable Antony’s new bride is. Just as Octavia is forced between Antony
and Octavius, she’s also unwittingly forced between Antony and Cleopatra.
Cleopatra clearly takes pleasure in the news of Octavia’s plain appearance and
demure manner—“dull of tongue, and dwarfish” (3.3.24), as she puts it. However,
it’s important to note that Cleopatra’s cruelty toward Octavia is an effect both
of her affection for Antony and of the larger political drama that has forced
the marriage between Antony and Octavia. In other words, Cleopatra’s jealousy
is as much a matter of love as of politics.
This
marks a significant difference between this play and Shakespeare’s other great
love tragedy. Whereas Romeo and Juliet largely chronicles the
private moments of its teenaged protagonists, following the couple as they
steal moments together at a crowded party or on a moonlit balcony, Antony and Cleopatra’s concerns are public rather than
private. What earns stage time in this play are not the muted whispers of
discreet lovers but the grand performances of paramours who live in, and play
for, the public eye. Love in Antony and Cleopatra is
thus less a product of the bedroom than of political alliance. And the
consequences of love are equally historical in scope. When Octavius laments
that Antony has given up his empire for a “whore,” we understand the enormous
impact—both civic and geographic—that the lovers’ affair will have on the
world. Kingdoms stand to be built on the foundation of Antony and Cleopatra’s
love, or else to crumble under its weight.
Analysis: Act 3:
Scenes 7–13
Scenes
7–10 of act 3 again show how narrative time and chronological time occur at
different paces in Antony and Cleopatra.
In the space of four scenes, we witness the full battle of Actium. We see
Antony and Octavius each prepare for battle, and within the first four lines of
act 3, scene 10, we know the outcome of the conflict. In other sections of the
play, the same number of scenes conveys far less information and covers much
less time. The rapid progression of these scenes attests to the ease with which
time can be compressed onstage: in a matter of minutes, an entire naval battle
may be waged and won. This compression demonstrates just how quickly events of
world-historical importance can unfold. Yet it also has the effect of
diminishing the importance of the physical conflict itself, ensuring that more
time is spent in scenes that function to trace the arcs of the play’s central
characters.
With
this in mind, what’s arguably more important than the actual clash between
Octavius and Antony are the consequences of this clash for Antony and
Cleopatra—both as individuals and as lovers. Indeed, the second half of act 3
amply demonstrates the increasingly turbulent influence Cleopatra has on Antony
and the political drama in which he is enmeshed. In scene 7, it is Cleopatra’s
insistence on the power of her naval fleet that seems to convince Antony to do
battle at sea rather than on land. Despite his own prowess as a foot soldier
and the grave counsel of his chief advisors, Antony makes the disastrous decision:
“By sea, by sea” (3.7.52). And just as Cleopatra’s zeal leads Antony into a
catastrophic loss, her cowardly escape from the battle leads him into shame by
luring him to follow her in flight. Nor does the tumult end with the loss to
Octavius. Even after the pair is reconciled after the Battle of Actium, they
suffer another bout of mistrust when Antony finds Thidias, an emissary from the
enemy, kissing Cleopatra’s hand. Though they reconcile yet again, it’s clear
that the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra grows more and more
tumultuous.
Cleopatra’s
evident—and evidently destructive—influence over Antony appears to confirm a
claim that many in the play have made about women’s power to emasculate men.
For some critics of the play, too, the second half of act 3 has the unfortunate
effect of flattening Antony’s character, reducing him to a man rendered weak by
love. But Shakespeare’s depiction of Antony is arguably more nuanced. The
aftermath of the battle shows that Antony is struggling with competing
identities. His lament that he has fled from himself shows that his character
has developed beyond his own understanding. The self he believes he has fled is
the military hero; the self he now confronts is a man whose heart can lead him
to defeat as surely as his reason has previously led him to victory. Though his
fellow Romans may find Antony reprehensible for his apparent weakness, his
flaws are arguably what makes him a sympathetic character. He is not the
demigod Cleopatra insists he is. Instead, he is human, riddled with weaknesses
despite his famous strengths.
Although
we in the audience may pity Antony in his self-divided state, his closest
companions and advisors increasingly distrust his decisions. Enobarbus,
especially, weighs the pros and cons of abandoning Antony’s service. His
suspicions of Antony first arose back in the final scenes of act 2, where he
and Pompey’s advisor, Menas, predicted a decisive clash between Antony and
Octavius. Now, in the latter half of act 3, these predictions are coming true,
and Enobarbus can do little more than watch as Antony “throw[s] away” all his
advantages and “giv[es] up [him]self merely to chance and hazard / From firm
security” (3.7.53, 60–61). By the end of the act, having witnessed Antony
falter, Enobarbus makes an even clearer and more ominous prediction: “When
valor preys on reason, / It eats the sword it fights with” (3.13.240–41). It is
with this prophecy that Enobarbus closes act 3, pledging to “seek / Some way to
leave [Antony]” (3.13.241–42).
Summary: Act 4: Scene
1
Octavius,
encamped near the Egyptian capital of Alexandria, receives Antony’s challenge
to one-on-one combat and laughs at it. Maecenas counsels him to take advantage
of Antony’s rage, for “[n]ever anger / Made good guard for itself” (4.1.11–12).
Octavius assembles his army, which has been augmented by deserters from his
enemy’s troops, and prepares to crush Antony for good.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
2
Enobarbus
brings word to Antony that Octavius has refused to fight him. Antony asks why,
and Enobarbus suggests that Octavius is so sure of success that one-on-one
combat seems unfair. Antony declares that he will fight the next day, whether
it brings him victory or death. He thanks his servants for their faithful
service and warns them that this night might be his last night with them. They
begin to weep, and Enobarbus, with tears in his eyes, rebukes Antony for such a
morbid speech. Antony says that he did not mean to cause sorrow, and, as he
leads them off toward a bountiful feast, urges them to enjoy their evening
together.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
3
That
night, Antony’s soldiers hear strange music resounding from somewhere
underground. They whisper that it is the music of Hercules, the god after whom
Antony modeled himself and who they believe now abandons him.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
4
The
following day, Eros arms Antony for battle, and Cleopatra insists on helping.
Antony feels confident about the coming fight, promising Cleopatra that anyone
who attempts to undo his armor before he is ready to remove it will face his
rage. An armed soldier enters and reports that a thousand troops stand ready
for Antony’s command. Antony bids Cleopatra adieu, kisses her, and leaves to
join the fight.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
5
Preparing
for battle, Antony admits he wishes he had taken the earlier opportunity to
oppose Octavius on land. A soldier comments that had he done so, he would still
count Enobarbus as an ally. This report is the first Antony has heard of his
most trusted friend’s desertion, and the news shocks him. At first, he doesn’t
believe it, but Eros then points to the “chests and treasure” Enobarbus left
behind (4.5.16). Antony orders soldiers to deliver Enobarbus’s possessions to
him, along with “gentle adieus and greetings,” and he laments that his
“fortunes have / Corrupted honest men” (4.5.22–25).
Summary: Act 4: Scene
6
Octavius,
feeling certain of his victory, orders Agrippa to begin the battle. Octavius
orders that the front lines be fitted with soldiers who have deserted Antony,
so that Antony will feel like he is wasting his efforts fighting himself. After
hearing of Octavius’s cruel plan, Enobarbus receives the treasure and is
overcome by guilt. The combination of these events makes him realize that he
has become a traitor. Deciding that he would rather die than fight against
Antony, he declares himself a villain and goes to seek out a ditch in which to
die.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
7
Agrippa
calls for his troops to retreat, declaring that the power of Antony’s forces
has exceeded his expectations. Meanwhile, Antony’s men win the battle and
retake Alexandria with a fierce display of force. Scarus sustains a significant
wound, but he refuses to relent, begging Antony for the chance to chase after
the retreating army.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
8
Antony
returns from war, vowing to destroy Octavius’s army completely on the following
day. He praises his soldiers for their valor and commands them to regale their
families with tales of the day’s battle. When Cleopatra enters, Antony declares
his love for her. He announces that she is the only thing that can pierce his
armor and reach his heart. Antony asks Cleopatra to commend Scarus, one of his
bravest soldiers. The queen promises the man a suit of golden armor that once
belonged to a king. Antony leads his troops and his lover in a triumphant march
through the streets of Alexandria to mark the joyous occasion.
Act 4: Scene 9
Octavius’s
sentries discuss the coming battle as Enobarbus berates himself nearby. Unaware
that he is being watched, Enobarbus rails against his life, wishing for its end
and hoping that history will mark him as a traitor and a fugitive. After he
collapses, the sentries decide to rouse him but discover that he has died.
Because he is an important man, they bear his body to their camp.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
10
Antony
determines that Octavius means to attack him by sea and declares himself ready.
He wishes his enemy were equipped to fight in fire or air, swearing he would
meet him in those places if he could.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
11
Octavius
holds his armies back, preparing to attack Antony at sea.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
12
Anthony
has gone with Scarus to watch the naval battle. Scarus, in an aside, condemns
Cleopatra’s fleet as weak, and laments that the soothsayers refuse to share
their knowledge regarding the battle’s outcome. Antony watches as the Egyptian
fleet betrays him and defects to Octavius. Realizing his predicament, Antony
commands Scarus to order his army to flee. Alone, the general blames Cleopatra
as a deadly enchantress who has beguiled him to a state of absolute loss. When
the queen enters, Antony drives her away, threatening to kill her for her
betrayal.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
13
Cleopatra
returns to her maids with tales of Antony’s murderous rage. Charmian suggests
that her mistress lock herself in a monument and send Antony word that she has
killed herself, to quell his anger. Abiding by the plan, Cleopatra sends the
eunuch Mardian to deliver the news to Antony and asks him to return with word
of her lover’s reaction.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
14
Antony
arms himself to kill his lover, telling Eros that he no longer knows who he is
now that Cleopatra’s love has proven false. Mardian arrives with his false
report of the queen’s death, adding that her last words were “Antony, most
noble Antony!” (4.14.37). Antony tells Eros to remove his armor. Overcome with
remorse, he declares that he will join Cleopatra in death and beg her
forgiveness for thinking him false. He asks Eros to kill him. Horrified, Eros
refuses, but Antony reminds him of the pledge he made long ago to follow even
Antony’s most extreme wishes. Eros relents. He prepares to stab Antony but then
stabs himself instead. Antony praises his soldier’s honor and says he must
learn from this example. He falls on his own sword but fails to kill himself. A
group of guardsmen refuses to finish the task, and Diomedes, a servant of
Cleopatra, reports that the queen is alive and well. It is too late, however,
to save Antony’s life. Dying, Antony commands his guards to bear his body to
Cleopatra.
Summary: Act 4: Scene
15
From
atop the monument with her maids, Charmian and Iras, Cleopatra declares that
she will never leave her hiding place. Diomedes appears below and calls up to
her that Antony’s guard has brought the wounded Antony. The lovers call to one
another. Antony says that he is dying and wishes to embrace her one last time.
She replies that she dares not come down from her monument, lest she be
captured by Octavius and paraded through the streets as a prisoner of war.
Instead, Cleopatra asks the soldiers to heave Antony up to her, which they do.
Antony advises the queen to cast herself upon Octavius’s mercy, trusting in the
honesty of Octavius’s friend Proculeius. He then recalls his own greatness and
reflects on the righteousness of his death: “a Roman by a Roman / Valiantly
vanquished” (4.16.66–67). He dies, and Cleopatra curses the world. Without
Antony, she feels the meaning drain from her life. After her maids revive her
from a fainting spell, Cleopatra decides that they must bury Antony in Roman
fashion and then help her seek her own death
Analysis: Act 4:
Scenes 1–8
Because
the play’s dramatic structure suggests that the battle in act 4 will be
climactic and probably result in Antony’s death, Antony’s victory in these
scenes is surprising. After Antony’s flight from battle in act 3, and after
Cleopatra’s apparent willingness to betray him, all seemed lost for the lovers.
Indeed, the opening scenes of act 4 confirm and build upon this impression.
Octavius rejects Antony’s proposal for hand-to-hand combat with such assurance
that we feel that there is something prophetic in the lines, “Know that
tomorrow the last of many battles / We mean to fight” (4.1.14–15). Antony
himself seems to believe the end is near. Seemingly undone by the treachery of
his own behavior, he burdens his men with sadness rather than rousing them for
battle. Finally, as if to seal our sense that Antony’s ill fortune is
guaranteed, soldiers hear an otherworldly music they interpret as the departure
of the spirit of Hercules. If the spirit of Hercules had ensured Antony’s
previous military victories, then its departure surely signals a coming defeat.
If we in
the audience have been wrong to anticipate Antony’s final fall from grace, we
are not alone. Enobarbus, who has long felt suspicious of his leader’s capacity
to lead, now finds sufficient reason to defect to his enemy’s camp. Although he
has made an effort to continue advising Antony, Enobarbus determines that
Antony has finally lost faith in himself. On the night before the next battle
is set to take place, Enobarbus interprets Antony’s morose speech about the
coming of death as a sign that he’s given up hope for victory. With tears in
his eyes, Enobarbus rebukes his master. Yet this is also the moment when
Enobarbus makes the decision at last to leave Antony’s service. Arguably, this
decision is the true source of his tears.
Enobarbus’s
defection has the additional function of demonstrating a key difference between
Octavius and Antony. Enobarbus leaves Antony’s service because he feels that
the great leader he’d known previously had lost his capacity to make reasonable
decisions. In short, he leaves because he felt Antony had been too far
compromised by love. But when he arrives at Octavius’s camp, he quickly
realizes that he’s shifted his allegiance to a man who, though perhaps more
self-assured as a military strategist, is nonetheless brutal in his
calculations. When Octavius orders his captains to place the recent defectors
from Antony’s army at the front lines of his own army, Enobarbus registers the
malice at the heart of Octavius’s strategy. When he’s left alone on stage, he
also reflects on how Octavius executed another defector from Antony’s army
simply because he had once been sent on a diplomatic mission to steer Herod the
Great’s allegiance away from Rome. In other words, Octavius is both cruel and
capable of holding a grudge.
Antony,
by contrast, exhibits a generosity of spirit that only becomes clear to
Enobarbus when Antony sends along his chest of treasure along with a kind word
of farewell. Many characters in the play have derided Antony for the way his
emotional attachment to Cleopatra and his love for Egypt have apparently
emasculated him. Enobarbus makes such a claim himself in act 4, scene 2, when
he rebukes Antony: “For shame, / Transform us not to women” (4.2.46–47).
Enobarbus sees Antony’s emotionality as a form of weakness, and he clearly
fears contamination. Yet he seems to change his mind about Antony when faced
with his former leader’s ungrudging generosity. Now deeply regretting his
desertion, Enobarbus calls Antony a “mine of bounty” (4.6.36), reflecting a new
perspective that ranks the generous man as nobler and more honorable than
Octavius. There is clearly more to leadership than shrewdly calculated military
tactics. This recognition seems ultimately to bear out in Antony’s victory over
Octavius.
Analysis: Act 4:
Scenes 9–15
After
the jubilant victory of the first half of act 4, the tides of war turn against
Antony, and in the second half of act 4 the deaths begin to rack up. Aside from
those lost in battle, the first major character to die is Enobarbus. Having
already recognized the grave error he made in abandoning Antony’s service, he
now seeks a way out of his new predicament. He sees death as the only possible
escape, and in his despair, he seems almost to will himself to death. Indeed,
Shakespeare neglects to indicate the specific cause of Enobarbus’s demise,
making it appear as though the intensity of his grief is sufficient to kill
him: “Throw my heart / Against the flint and hardness of my fault, / Which,
being dried with grief, will break to powder / And finish all foul thoughts”
(4.9.18–20).
Once the
second sea battle is lost, the play belongs to Antony until his death—Cleopatra
recedes, as does Octavius. In the scenes leading up to his death, Antony’s
mixed feelings of betrayal, regret, and, ultimately, love leave him in a swirl
of confusion. As may be expected in Shakespeare, such a heady mix of complex
thoughts and emotions yields some of the finest language in the play:
O sun, thy
uprise shall I see no more.
Fortune and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
That spanieled me at heels, to whom I gave
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Caesar, and this pine is barked
That overtopped them all. (4.12.20–26)
Here, as
Antony bids goodbye to “Fortune,” he comes to an important realization from
which he cannot recover. Comparing himself to a tree that once towered above
all others, he now feels that Cleopatra’s inconstant love, which once
“spanieled” at his heels, has made him lose his bark. This metaphor expresses
that he feels raw, unprotected, and doomed. Cleopatra enters soon after Antony
delivers these lines, and he scares her away with vicious threats. More than
anger, however, Antony feels a keen sense of loss. He laments, “I made these
wars for . . . the Queen, / Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine— /
Which . . . had annexed unto ‘t / A million more, now lost” (4.14.19–22). This
expression of regret confirms Antony’s lost sense of self: he no longer
possesses either of the identities—military giant or lover—that have previously
defined him so well.
Perhaps
the surest sign of Antony’s challenged sense of identity appears in the passage
where he compares himself to shape-shifting clouds. In act 4, scene 14, he
remarks: “Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish, / A vapor sometime like a
bear or lion” (4.14.3–4). With this image in place, Antony tells his attendant,
Eros, “not thy captain / Is even such a body”—that is, he’s become as
“indistinct / As water in water” (4.14.16–17, 13–14). The existential crisis
expressed in these lines suggests that what’s most tragic about Antony’s
situation isn’t the spectacular events of loss and betrayal. Rather, it’s the
sense that he’s gotten himself ensnared in tangle of relations that has pitted
himself against himself. As Antony reflects to Cleopatra on his deathbed: “Not
Caesar’s valor hath o’erthrown Antony, / But Antony’s hath triumphed on itself”
(4.15.18–19). Though ultimately self-defeated, Antony dies making one last
attempt to recuperate his identity, and therefore his sense of honor. Telling
Cleopatra to remember him as his former, more heroic self, he makes a final
claim for the righteousness of his death: “a Roman by a Roman / Valiantly
vanquished” (4.15.66–67).
Even as
Antony reckons with how much he has changed, Cleopatra remains very much
herself—yet another sign of her almost mythic timelessness. Take, for example,
the message she sends to Antony about her suicide. Though done to quell
Antony’s anger, this ultimately fatal act recalls the coyly flirtatious
falsehoods she orchestrated back in act 1: “If you find him sad, / Say I am
dancing; if in mirth, report / That I am sudden sick” (1.3.4–6). Likewise, when
faced with Antony’s death, the queen resolves that “[o]ur size of sorrow, /
Proportioned to our cause, must be as great / As that which makes it”
(4.15.5–7). These words echo her opening lines, in which she begs Antony to
outdo himself and all others with professions of love. Cleopatra’s ongoing
performance of the spectacle of love reasserts itself as Antony speaks his
dying words:
Antony: I am
dying, Egypt, dying.
Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.
Cleopatra: No, let me speak, and let me rail so
high
That the false hussy Fortune break her
wheel,
Provoked by my offense. (4.15.48–52)
Here,
Cleopatra’s self-awareness in her role as grief-stricken lover rises to a
near-comic level when she interrupts Antony as he tries to deliver his last
words. Even so, the moment also registers the outsized proportion of her love
for Antony and grief at his death.
Summary: Act 5: Scene
1
Octavius
orders Dolabella to deliver to Antony a command for his surrender. After
Dolabella leaves, Dercetus, one of Antony’s men, enters carrying Antony’s
sword. He explains that Antony has died by his own hand, and with his old
master dead, Dercetus offers his services to Octavius. Octavius remarks that
the passing of such a great man ought to be marked by great tumult and
mourning—after all, the death of Antony, as one of the two remaining triumvirs,
“is not a single doom” but the end of one-half of the world (5.1.21). Agrippa
notes the irony of their mourning Antony’s death after having fought him so
fiercely. Octavius and his men agree that Antony was a great man, and Octavius
declares it proper to mourn him.
A
messenger arrives from Cleopatra to ask what Octavius intends for the queen.
Octavius promises to be honorable and kind to her, and he dispatches
Cleopatra’s messenger with assurances, bidding her to be of good heart.
Although Octavius tells Cleopatra that he intends to cause her no shame, he
plans to force her to live in Rome, where she will be his eternal triumph. To
this end, he orders some of his men, led by Proculeius, to prevent Cleopatra
from committing suicide and thus robbing him of renown.
Summary: Act 5: Scene
2
Proculeius
arrives at the queen’s monument and asks Cleopatra’s terms for giving herself
up to Octavius. Cleopatra remembers that Antony told her to trust Proculeius
and tells the Roman she hopes the emperor will allow her son to rule Egypt.
Proculeius assures her of Octavius’s generosity and says he will soon repay her
supplication with kindness. Meanwhile, his soldiers, having slipped into the
monument, move to seize Cleopatra. The queen draws a dagger, hoping to kill herself
before being taken captive, but Proculeius disarms her. He orders the soldiers
to guard the queen until Octavius arrives, and Cleopatra cries that she will
never allow herself to be carried through Rome as a trophy of the empire’s
triumph.
Dolabella
arrives and takes over for Proculeius. The queen converses with him, discussing
her dreams (in which she sees a heroic vision of Antony), and then persuades
Dolabella to admit that Octavius plans to display her as a prisoner of war.
Octavius arrives and promises to spare Cleopatra’s children and treat her well
if she doesn’t kill herself. She gives him a scroll that catalogs all her
wealth, but when she asks her treasurer, Seleucus, to confirm that she has
given Octavius everything, he contradicts her. Cleopatra rails against
Seleucus’s treachery, but Octavius assures her that he doesn’t desire her
wealth.
When
Octavius leaves, Cleopatra admits to her maids that she doubts his intentions,
remarking that he is merely charming her with words. Rather than succumb to the
infamy of being a spectacle for the entertainment of filthy Roman crowds,
Cleopatra resolves to kill herself. She would rather die than see herself
imitated by a boy actor, who would portray her as a common whore. She orders
Charmian and Iras to dress her in her most queenly robes. When they have done
so, she admits into her presence an anonymous countryman. He brings her a
basket of figs in which, concealed, there are several poisonous snakes known as
asps.
Dressed
in her finest royal garments, Cleopatra kisses her maids goodbye. Iras falls
dead, then Cleopatra takes a snake from the basket and presses it to her
breast. She applies another asp to her arm, then dies. As the guards rush in to
discover the dead queen, Charmian presses the snake to herself and joins her
mistress in death. Dolabella enters, followed by Octavius. They realize the
manner of the suicide, and Octavius orders Cleopatra to be buried next to
Antony in a public funeral.
Analysis: Act 5:
Scenes 1 & 2
Act 4
arguably belonged to Antony, centering the pains of loss and betrayal that led
him to a crisis of identity and, finally, to suicide. By contrast, act 5
belongs to Cleopatra. Of the many performances Cleopatra stages throughout the
play, the multilayered act she gives to triumph over the Romans in act 5, scene
2 is, without doubt, her greatest. Here, her complex character seems to have
secret longings and undisclosed motivations. For instance, she seems resigned
to joining Antony in death at the end of act 4, scene 15, resolving to commit
suicide. We may wonder, then, why Cleopatra bothers convincing Dolabella to
reveal Octavius’s desire to turn her into the empire’s trophy. Octavius’s
intentions wouldn’t matter to someone as committed to dying as Cleopatra says
she is. Similarly, her motivations for trying to preserve her possessions from
Octavius are unclear. Perhaps she entertains a hope of starting a new life
despite Antony’s death. If so, she may only be pretending to court death until
Dolabella’s admission of Octavius’s plans makes her death a necessity.
All that
said, it is also clear that Cleopatra is enormously grieved by Antony’s death.
As she has done before, she describes him as a man who was greater than any
mere mortal. Indeed, she likens him to an enormous statue like the Colossus of
Rhodes: “His legs bestrid the ocean, his reared arm / Crested the world. His
voice was propertied / As all the tunèd spheres” (5.2.102–104). She then goes
on to say that, though he’s a man whose colossal magnitude is the stuff of the
imagination, he was in fact real, and the sheer greatness of his reality far
outstrips his legendary status. Just as Antony’s decline gave rise to some of
his most moving speeches, Cleopatra’s grief yields some of the play’s most extraordinary
language. This language powerfully reflects the immensity of her pain. As ever,
Cleopatra gauges her performance to match the intensity of her emotion, which
Dolabella observes in his remark: “Your loss is as yourself, great; and you
bear it / As answering to the weight” (5.2.125–26).
In the
end, Cleopatra’s bravura maneuvering around the Roman forces to ensure her own
death demonstrates how, to the bitter end, she wishes to remain absolutely in
control of her fate. As with her other performances, then, Cleopatra only
allows others—and us in the audience—to glimpse a narrow view of her character.
Indeed, we arguably never get total access to the inner depths of Cleopatra,
and so we are left to contend with her various complexities and contradictions.
As she prepares to make her final exit, she takes on a role that, like her
previous incarnations as enchantress, queen, and shrew, reflects only one
aspect of her character. Now she strikes an ironic pose as wife and mother,
“nursing” her “child,” the venomous asp. But to understand Cleopatra in her
final moments as a mere domestic—as an uncompromised lover and dutiful wife—is
to reduce her to a single aspect of her character. She may claim to be
“marble-constant” (5.2.293), but before dying she also indicates that she is
made of something much more changeable: “I am fire and air; my other elements /
I give to baser life” (5.2.344–45).
Cleopatra’s
actions in the face of death make a final gesture at the stark difference
between the two civilizations that have clashed over the course of the play:
Egypt and Rome. In her last moments of life, Cleopatra continues to embody the
symbolic characteristics of Egypt: passionate and with an inclination toward
theatricality. She deftly outmaneuvers the men who want to prevent her suicide.
In doing so, she refuses these Romans’ desire for power and containment. Above
all, she flouts Octavius, who would keep her like a trophy. Though Octavius has
won the war and laid claim to the entire Roman Empire, Cleopatra seeks to win a
different, more intimate conflict. As she puts it just before applying the asp
to her breast: “Methinks I hear / Antony call. I see him rouse himself / To
praise my noble act. I hear him mock / The luck of Caesar, which the gods give
men / To excuse their after wrath” (5.2.338–42). Hence, though motivated by her
desire to reunite with Antony, it’s also clear that her suicide will deprive
Octavius of the victory he believes he has won over her and Egypt.
Characters
Mark Antony
A once
fierce and feared general who rules the Roman Empire along with the two other
triumvirs: Octavius Caesar and Lepidus. When the play opens, Antony has
neglected his duties as a ruler in order to live in Egypt, where he carries on
a highly visible love affair with Queen Cleopatra. His loyalty is divided
between the Roman and Egyptian worlds; he is torn between the sense of duty and
the desire to seek pleasure, between reason and passion. While he feels the
need to reaffirm the honor that has made him a celebrated Roman hero, he is
also madly in love with Cleopatra.
Shakespeare
first depicted Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, where the Roman general heroically
vanquished the treacherous assassins, Brutus and Cassius. Although historically
the events depicted in Antony and Cleopatra take
place about two years after the Julius
Caesar, Shakespeare presents Antony as a man who’s left behind the
heroism of his youth and who has, in his middle age, fallen hopelessly in love
with the entrancing but mercurial Egyptian queen, Cleopatra. For his many
admirers in Rome, Antony’s affair with Cleopatra signals the great general’s
decline. They see him as a shadow of his former self, emasculated by an exotic
woman whom they perceive as “gypsy” (1.1.3) and a “whore” (3.6.77). Antony must
contend with this public image, which sparks an internal conflict between his
love for Cleopatra and his sense of duty to the Roman Empire. In act 1, scene
1, he expresses his love for Cleopatra through a rhetorical rejection of his
homeland: “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire
fall” (1.1.38–39). In the very next scene, however, Antony worries that he is
about to “lose [him]self in dotage” (1.2.129).
The two
poles that draw him in opposite directions represent deep-seated conflicts
between reason and emotion, duty and desire. As the play progresses, it becomes
increasingly evident that Antony cannot bear the stress of these tensions. He
often casts his thoughts back to his glory days as an accomplished young
soldier. But now that he’s entangled in an affair with Cleopatra, his memories
do little more than demonstrate how far he has strayed from his former self. As
he points out to Octavia in act 3, scene 4, his current actions imperil his
honor, and without his honor—the defining characteristic of any Roman worthy of
the name—he can no longer be Antony: “If I lose mine honor, / I lose myself;
better I were not yours / Than yours so branchless” (3.4.24–26). Later, having
been defeated by Octavius and betrayed by Cleopatra, Antony returns to the
imagery of the stripped tree as he laments, “[T]his pine is barked / That
overtopped them all” (4.12.25–26). Rather than amend his identity to
accommodate these defeats, Antony chooses to take his own life, an act that
symbolically restores him to his brave and indomitable former self. In suicide,
Antony asserts that he is “a Roman by a Roman / Valiantly vanquished”
(4.15.66–67).
Cleopatra
The
queen of Egypt and Antony’s lover. A highly attractive woman who once seduced
Julius Caesar, Cleopatra delights in the thought that she has caught Antony
like a fish. In matters of love, as in all things, Cleopatra favors high drama:
her emotions are as volatile as they are theatrical, and she always gives a
top-notch performance. Although she tends to make a spectacle of her emotions,
one cannot doubt the genuine nature of her love for Antony. Shakespeare makes
clear that the queen does love the general, even if her loyalty is sometimes
misplaced.
Cleopatra
is one of the most dazzling and complex female characters ever to have graced
the Shakespearean stage. This legendary queen stands as an emblem of Egyptian
values, which broadly center on matters of aesthetic and sensual pleasure. The
Egypt of Cleopatra is a land characterized primarily by its appetites, both for
food and drink as well as for art, poetry, and drama. With a past that extends
back millennia, Egypt also signifies the infinite boundlessness of history.
Cleopatra embodies all these values. She is strangely ageless—at once “wrinkled
deep in time” and yet predisposed to mercurial emotions and girlish antics
(1.5.34). Her sexual allure is intimately linked to her complex and sometimes
contradictory personality. Indeed, she is as excessive as the overflowing Nile,
which is the symbolic heart of Egypt. Cleopatra’s magnificent excess is at once
the lure that draws Antony in and the snare that contributes to his downfall.
Though Cleopatra frequently likens Antony to legendary heroes and mythical
demigods, he is ultimately just a man and cannot equal her outsized
magnificence. Cleopatra, however, ends the play by passing out of life and into
immortality, becoming as “marble-constant” as an ancient Egyptian relic (5.2.294).
Though
for the audience Cleopatra’s legendary reputation precedes her, the other
characters in the play are divided in their perceptions of the Egyptian queen.
From the very beginning, it’s clear that the Romans see Cleopatra as an exotic
witch who casts a powerful—and powerfully emasculating—sexual spell. Indeed,
many see her as an enchantress who has made Antony “the noble ruin of her
magic” (3.10.23). The slurs accumulate throughout the play: “gypsy” (1.1.10),
“wrangling queen” (1.1.56), “slave” (1.4.18), “Egyptian dish” (2.6.156), and
“whore” (3.6.77). In contrast to this flattening and derogatory view, we also
get the perspective of characters like Enobarbus, who, though skeptical of
Cleopatra, also admires her. Indeed, it is Enobarbus who delivers the justly
famous description of Cleopatra drifting down the Cydnus River:
The barge
she sat in like a burnished throne
Burned on the water. . . .
For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold, of tissue—
O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature. (2.2.227–38)
Enobarbus
can’t help but compare Cleopatra to Venus, the goddess of love, whom in fact
the Egyptian “o’erpictur[es]” in her majesty. It is this picture of herself as
a resplendent and indomitable queen that Cleopatra ensures as her legacy when
she flouts Octavius’s attempt to keep her as a trophy and embraces the asp’s
fatal yet “immortal” bite (5.2.301).
Octavius Caesar
The
nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar. Octavius rules the Roman Empire with
Antony and Lepidus. Relations between Octavius and Antony are strained
throughout the play, for the young triumvir believes that Antony squanders his
time and neglects his duties while in Egypt. Ambitious and extremely pragmatic,
Octavius lacks Antony’s pedigree as a general, but his careful and stoic
reasoning enables him to avoid Antony’s tendency toward heroic or romantic
folly. Destined to be the first Roman emperor (later renamed Octavius
Augustus), he symbolizes “Western” values in the play, which stand opposed to
the exotic lures of Cleopatra’s “East.”
Octavius
Caesar is the chief adversary that Antony faces in the play. Octavius is,
alongside Antony and Lepidus, one of the three triumvirs who collectively rule
the Roman Empire. As the nephew and adopted son of the recently assassinated
Julius Caesar, Octavius belongs to a different generation than Antony, who had
served and fought for the previous Caesar. Octavius greatly admires the stories
of Antony’s past heroism, but he also laments what he perceives to be
Cleopatra’s emasculating effect on the older general. This disappointment,
paired with the personal and political weakness of their co-ruler Lepidus,
provides Octavius with an opportunity to pursue his youthful ambition to take
the empire for himself. Octavius is the play’s supreme embodiment of Roman
militancy, with its associated desire for consolidation and control. We see his
drive for power in his sudden conquest of Pompey as well as his fierce battles
with Antony’s forces. We also see his desire for control in the play’s final
act, where he tries to prevent Cleopatra’s suicide so he can take her back to
Rome and display her like a trophy. Just as his predecessor, Julius, once
possessed Cleopatra sexually, Octavius evidently longs to do the same.
Though
Octavius offers a rigid representation of Roman law and order, he is not a
two-dimensional villain. For one thing, his frustration with the ever-neglectful
Antony seems justified. When he complains to Lepidus that he resents having to
“bear / So great weight in [Antony’s] lightness” (1.4.28–29), we certainly
understand his concern. He does not emerge as a particularly likable
character—his treatment of Lepidus, for instance, betrays the cruel underside
of Octavius’s aggressive ambitions—but he is a complicated one. He is, in other
words, convincingly human. There is, perhaps, no better example of Octavius’s
humanity than his conflicted feelings about Antony. For a good deal of the
play, Octavius seems bent, rather ruthlessly, on destroying Antony. Yet when he
achieves this desired end, he doesn’t relish the moment as we might expect.
Instead, he mourns the loss of a great soldier and musters enough compassion to
be not only fair-minded but also fair-hearted, commanding that the lovers be
buried beside one another.
Enobarbus
Antony’s
most loyal supporter and advisor. Worldly and cynical, Enobarbus is friendly
with the subordinates of both Pompey and Octavius, yet he stays faithful to his
master even after Antony makes grave political and military missteps. He
abandons Antony only when the general appears to have given up on himself.
Enobarbus
is Antony’s chief confidant and advisor. Though he clearly loves and admires
the man he serves, Enobarbus is like many other outside observers in the play
in his feeling that Antony’s Egyptian sojourn has caused him to lose his way.
Enobarbus frequently expresses his concerns in asides, which makes him a
chorus-like figure who comments on the events of the play. Significantly, his
comments often have an aphoristic quality and carry a prophetic force. For
example, following the disaster at the Battle of Actium in act 3, Enobarbus
observes while alone onstage: “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” (3.13.37–40). Along with other similar statements, this one
ultimately comes to fruition. As Antony increasingly loses his sense of self,
his poor “judgments” inevitably reflect his doomed “fortunes.” This situation
causes the events of “outward” reality to reflect his chaotic “inward quality,”
which in turn leads to widespread “suffer[ing].”
Enobarbus’s
sense of impending doom eventually motivates him to abandon Antony’s service
and defect to Octavius, but he gets the timing wrong. Indeed, he defects to
Caesar just before Antony wins a surprising victory. But even before Antony’s
victory, Enobarbus recognizes his mistake. In his haste to leave, Enobarbus
left behind a chest filled with treasure. Antony has this chest sent to his
former advisor along with a message of good wishes. For Enobarbus, Antony’s
expression of kindness and munificence stands in stark opposition to Octavius’s
cruel and pitiless ambition. It is in this way that, through the doubting
Enobarbus, we get a powerfully affirming perspective on Antony. For all that he
may have been transformed by his affair with Cleopatra, he displays a characteristically
Egyptian generosity of spirit that makes him far more admirable than the harsh,
militant Romans. Horrified by his betrayal, Enobarbus condemns himself to death
and seems to die from the sheer force of his regret. Enobarbus is ultimately a figure
who, despite his tragic fate, contributes to the immortalization of Antony. It
is also Enobarbus who, despite his skepticism, most explicitly mythologizes
Cleopatra: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety”
(2.3.276–77)
Marcus Aemilius
Lepidus
The
third member of the triumvirate of Rome and the weakest, both politically and
personally. Lepidus’s rather desperate attempts to keep the peace between
Octavius and Antony fail when Octavius imprisons him after the defeat of
Pompey.
Pompey
The son
of a great general who was one of Julius Caesar’s partners in power. Pompey is
young and popular with the Roman people, and he possesses enough military might
to stand as a legitimate threat to the triumvirs. He fancies himself honorable
for refusing to allow one of his men to kill the unsuspecting Octavius, Antony,
and Lepidus when they are his guests.
Octavia
Octavius
Caesar’s sister. Octavius marries Octavia off to Antony to cement an alliance
between the two triumvirs. She is a victim of Antony’s deception, and her
meekness, purity, and submission make her the paradigm of Roman womanhood—and
Cleopatra’s opposite.
Charmian and Iras
Cleopatra’s
faithful attendants.
The Soothsayer
An
Egyptian fortune-teller who follows Antony to Rome and predicts that his
fortune will always pale in comparison to Octavius’s.
Dolabella
One of
Octavius Caesar’s officers. Dolabella is assigned to guard the captive
Cleopatra.
Agrippa
One of
Octavius Caesar’s officers. Agrippa leads the retreat from Antony’s unexpectedly
powerful forces.
Camidius
A
general in Antony’s army. After the battle in which Antony follows Cleopatra’s
lead and flees, Camidius surrenders and defects to Octavius’s side.
Ventidius
A Roman
soldier under Antony’s command. Ventidius leads the legions to victory against
the kingdom of Parthia. Although a competent fighter, he cautiously decides not
to push his troops further into battle for fear that winning too much glory
would sour his relationship with Antony.
Scarus
A brave
young soldier serving under Antony. Scarus is seriously wounded in the battle
against Octavius’s army, but he begs for the opportunity to earn more battle
scars.
Proculeius
One of
Octavius’s soldiers, who proves untrustworthy.
Diomedes
Cleopatra’s
servant. She employs Diomedes to bring to Antony the message that she has not
committed suicide but is still alive.
Eros
An
attendant serving Antony. Eros’s love for his master compels him to refuse
Antony’s order to kill him. Instead, Eros kills himself.
Menas
An
ambitious young soldier under Pompey. During the dinner party that Pompey hosts
for the triumvirate, Menas asks for permission to kill Octavius, Antony, and
Lepidus, which would result in the control of the world falling into his
master’s hands.
Seleucus
Cleopatra’s
treasurer, who betrays his master.
An
Egyptian who brings a basket of figs containing poisonous snakes to Cleopatra.
In some editions of the play, this character is known as “Clown.”
Dercetus
One of
Antony’s soldiers.
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