ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Historical context: A drama published in 1608, in the reign of King James I. England was about to embark on what would become the most successful colonization of other places in history.

Act I, Scene 1

Egypt. Structurally the scene is framed by the discussion of Philo and Demetrius about the state of their commander, Antony. Before we even see Antony, Philo describes him unflatteringly as “become the bellows and the fan/To cool a gypsy’s lust.” (9-10) He sees Antony as debasing himself for love.

Thus the audience is invited to share another’s view of Antony before they see him for themselves. The central piece of the scene revolves around the messenger newly arrived from Rome. Antony claims he will not hear the messenger and Rome be damned, he loves Cleopatra so much: “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch/Of the ranged empire fall!” (33-4) This is ironic, as in the end he does lose Rome and the empire, all for love.

However, Antony’s passionate words are tempered by Cleopatra’s reply: “Excellent falsehood!” (40), which tells us she is aware they are just words, and no more.

Words are mentioned again by Demetrius at the end of scene, when he says Antony is proving the bad gossip about him in Rome is true. As continues in the play, few of the Roman characters around Antony and Cleopatra have much of positive nature to say about their relationship.

How is this meant to effect our view of the lovers? And why does Shakespeare want us to be effected in this way?

The first scene shows us:

1. Antony’s direct and passionate way of speaking, and the power of his language.2. Cleopatra’s distrust of language, and by implication her shrewd understanding of the limits of words.3. The idealistic value Antony places on his love, against the reality of Rome and its empire. Of the two love

seems the most important, which sets up his ‘tragic flaw’ for the events to follow.4. The loss of reputation Antony is suffering among those men loyal to him, and among the public in Rome – his

self-serving interests do not match his public interests. This introduces the theme of public versus private self.

Act I, Scene 2

Egypt. Structurally the scene is divided into two parts.

In the first Cleopatra’s attendants - Charmian, Iras and Alexas, along with Antony’s friend Enobarbus - interview a visiting soothsayer (fortuneteller) about their respective futures.

The scene uses contrast to show different levels of perceiving reality. The soothsayer sees events in the future – and though his words are ambiguous to the minor characters, their meaning is clear to us who know the outcomes for all the characters. The minor characters respond only to their immediate circumstances. They make bawdy jokes, and trivialize the soothsayer’s sometimes grim foresights:

SOOTHSAYERYou have seen and proved a fairer former fortuneThan that which is to approach.

which Charmian interprets that her children “will have no names” (will be bastards), and proceeds to ask how many.

Dramatic irony occurs here because the audience, with the benefit of hindsight, knows what is going to happen to these characters.

In the second half of the scene we find Antony contradicting his words in scene 1 by speaking to the messengers.. From the messengers he learns his wife, Fulvia, is dead. He resolves to return to Rome. Not attending her last rites would dishonour him, and while in Rome he also resolves to help the empire deal with Sextus Pompeius “whose quality, going on,/The sides o’th’world may danger.” (192-3) These things are matters of reputation, which shows Antony is still much concerned with his public self.

However, we are reminded that his contrary desires from scene 1 to scene 2 show us a man at war within himself, a war between his private and public selves. This is represented dramatically by the play’s antithetical structure, where one scene is juxtaposed by another that illustrates the contradictions in Antony’s nature.

Act 1, Scene 4

Rome. This scene introduces us to the character of Caesar, but again the focus of the conversation between him and Lepidus is Antony.

Caesar’s view of Antony is “A man who is the abstract of all faults/that all men follow.” (9-10), and later Antony is compared to “boys who, being mature in knowledge,/Pawn their experience to their present pleasure/And so rebel to judgement.” (31-3) So Caesar sees Antony’s drinking, and making love to Cleopatra in Egypt as irresponsible, because he must bear the weight of power in Rome: “we do bear/so great weight in his lightness.” (24-5)

Note that Caesar too, shares Demetrius’ and Philo’s negative view of Antony’s love for Cleopatra.

However, Caesar also remembers Antony’s glorious soldiering, and suggests that it is Antony’s care for his reputation which will bring him home, especially with the messenger’s news of what Pompey’s pirates have been up to: “Let his shames quickly/drive him to Rome.” (72-3)

Caesar shows himself to be a realist. In his comments about Antony’s self-indulgence we are left in no doubt that Caesar does not suffer to the same extreme in a conflict between his own private and public selves.

Structurally this scene is also here to remind us of the vast distances involved in the play, and in the movements of its characters. They move across a truly epic canvas.

Act I, Scene 5

Egypt. Cleopatra and her attendants. In this scene we see the insecurity of Cleopatra without Antony. Time itself becomes an enemy because without love it seems to take so long to pass: “That I might sleep out this great gap of time/My Antony is away.” (5-6) This recalls her words at Antony’s departure in I.3: “O, my oblivion is a very Antony,/And I am all forgotten.” (90-1) Her mind, being all absorbed in Antony, is left a blank.

This recalls Antony’s mention of time in I.3: “The strong necessity of time commands/Our services a while.” (42-3) Here it is the pressure of time which drives Antony away from his love. In both senses time appears the enemy. The pressure of the real world, and the events taking place in it, force apart the lovers.

Cleopatra, in the absence of Antony’s presence, fills her time with talk of Antony, and her conquests of Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. This reminds us that she, and through her as queen, Egypt, has commanded the attention of great Romans before – so how could Antony escape? It also sets us up for another theme in the play – the clash of cultures, and Cleopatra’s defiance of the imperialistic expansion of the Roman empire.

Also note that again in a scene without Antony, the focus of the conversation is on him.

Act II, Scene 1

Introduces us to Sextus Pompey, the other contender for power in the unstable world of the Roman empire. We hear from Varrius that Antony is almost in Rome, this just after Pompey has contributed yet another view of Antony, claiming his bewitchment by Cleopatra “may prorogue his honour/Even till a Lethe’d dullness.” (25-6) Antony confounds his expectation by arriving in Rome. This reminds us again of the inconsistency of human nature. The very thing Pompey relies upon in Antony – his desire to stay in Egypt - turns out to be proved wrong.

Note how Pompey’s view of Antony’s indulgence of Cleopatra is also disparaging. It prorogues, or suspends, Antony’s honour and leads him to forgetfulness. His love is again portrayed to us in a negative light.

Act II, Scene 2

The most substantial scene in the play so far has three principal functions:

1. To highlight the conflict between private and public self.2. To emphasize the fragility of the agreement reached by Antony and Caesar, and thus the instability of

political alliances when placed against personal feelings.3. To illustrate the cultural divide between Rome and Egypt – Rome’s rulers seek honour among themselves,

and the approval of each other; Egypt’s rulers show extravagant lifestyles of indulgence.

The act opens with Enobarbus and Lepidus debating how Antony should behave to Caesar. Lepidus says twice that Antony should speak gently – in other words be diplomatic with Caesar. Enobarbus says he “shall entreat him/To answer like himself.” (3-4) This reminds us again of the conflict between private and public self, and that what will follow is the world of politics.

However, Enobarbus shows us that any alliances to preserve peace between Rome’s men of power are hinged on a precarious framework – and that after the present circumstances the needs of the private self will prove stronger: “Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the/instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again . . .” (107-9)

We are reminded that the exchange between Caesar and Antony is just words, words demanded by circumstances. And again promises made will be broken because Antony’s “full heart remains in use” by Cleopatra.

The instability of the Roman empire is thus emphasised by the undercurrent to Antony and Caesar’s politicking, an undercurrent Enobarbus reminds us of – that any alliance will be temporary because of Antony’s true, inner feelings.

Enobarbus says: “That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.” In other words in political situations and matters of reputation, personal feelings should remain unsaid. Just because they remain unsaid does not make them go away.

Caesar acknowledges the truth of what Enobarbus says (116-121), and acknowledges that there are insurmountable personal differences between himself and Antony – however not even the marriage Agrippa proposes between Octavia (Caesar’s sister) and Antony will mend the breach. It will be a political marriage, and does not change Antony’s heart being in Egypt.

It is interesting to hear Caesar say “if I knew /What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge/O’th’world I would pursue it.” (119-21) Is this more “gentle” talk, or is this a genuine view of Caesar’s that engages our sympathies?

At the start of the scene Lepidus describes Enobarbus’s speech: “Your speech be passion; But pray you stir no embers up.” (12-13) Expressing your passions in a situation of political delicacy can be dangerous, and threaten the stability hoped for. Passion has the power to destroy “gentle” words of diplomacy – but the stability aimed at in what proceeds remains threatened by personal passion whether it is spoken or not – Antony’s for Cleopatra.

Once the main players have exited the minor characters discuss Cleopatra and Egypt, and how Antony’s love began. This illustrates the cultural gulf between Rome and Egypt – the differences in their levels of self restraint.

Enobarbus says to Maecenas: “we did sleep day out of countenance/and made the night light by drinking.” (182-3) Egypt is a land of self indulgence, where life is full-bodied and dissolute.

Cleopatra’s famous entry on her barge is described almost as in Plutarch. There is an emphasis in the imagery on Cleopatra’s power to transform nature itself into love: “Purple the sails, and so perfumed that/The winds were lovesick with them” (198-9) and the oars “made/The water which they beat to follow faster,/As amorous as their strokes” (200-2). The sensuality of Enobarbus’s description is further brought out by the heavy use of rich colours: gold, purple and silver.

Cleopatra’s talent for showmanship, and her innate passion (“And, breathless, power breathe forth”) combine to make life so colourful and fanciful that in its description it takes on the power of myth and legend: “Her gentlewomen, like the Neriedes,/So many mermaids . . .” (211-12)

This is a completely different power than that Rome offers, and the scene contrasts nicely with the political “gentle” words of Caesar and Antony. They talk of Rome and power, while Cleopatra is power: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety.” (240-1)

The very fact Enobarbus uses such voluptuous language to describe her to Maecenas and Agrippa shows her being made into legend by others’ words.

Maecenas’s praise of Octavia’s virtues “beauty, wisdom, modesty” is brief and pale by comparison.

Act II, Scene 3

Antony and Octavia. Antony assures Octavia “that to come/Shall all be done by th’rule.” (6-7) Again, his “gentle” words and good intentions seem a matter dependent on circumstance. How long will they last?

The soothsayer’s appearance in this scene recalls that in I.2 – and reminds us of the two levels operating as far as perception goes. (See notes on I.2)

The soothsayer warns Antony to go back to Egypt because Caesar’s fortunes shall rise higher (17-24). Antony replies for him to keep quiet, and then when the soothsayer persists he dismisses him.

Antony limits his own perceptions by failing to stop and consider the soothsayer’s warning more seriously. Again we see the incapacity of characters within their circumstances to adequately deal with the more cosmic level.

Act II, Scene 5

Egypt. This scene is notable for two reasons:

1. In Antony’s absence Cleopatra is left with little to do but imagine him (8-15). He occupies all her fancies, as in I.5.

2. Cleopatra’s enraged abuse of the messenger who brings news of Antony’s marriage to Octavia shows the unleashing of pent up frustration at Antony’s absence – and what seems like another betrayal of their love. Possibly it is the rage at events that are beyond her control. Her rage proves brief, perhaps because expunged in her maltreatment of the messenger, and she is soon scheming again to have the messenger find out whether Octavia can compete with her own charms.

3. Note also Cleopatra’s words: “Melt Egypt into Nile . . .” (78) This echoes Antony’s sentiments about nations and empires in I.1: “Let Rome in Tiber melt . . .” The rivers of both great nations become in the lovers’ language the source of their dissolution. Love, “the nobleness of life” which “is to do thus”, finds the materiality of nationhood, and rulership, an inconvenience to passion. Antony and Cleopatra’s words, both said in reaction to the presence of a messenger with news of the outside world, highlight the way the lovers’ public selves are consumed by private passions.

Act II, Scenes 6-7

The meeting between Caesar, Antony and Pompey.

The minor characters in the scenes expose the instability of the alliance, and of the future for Rome. This is reinforced by the alliance being sealed on water, the element of dissolution: “We’ll speak with thee at sea.”

For instance, in a moment alone Menas proposes to Pompey the assassination of the triumvirs: “Let me cut the cable . . .” (II.7.70-80)

Enobarbus and Menas discuss the security of the pact, and Enobarbus – again as the voice of honesty – predicts Antony “will to his Egyptian dish again . . . He married but his occasion here.” (II.6.123-129)

The first servant, who begins scene 7, says: “Some o’their/plants are ill-rooted already; the least wind i’th’world/will blow them down.” (1-3) He refers here to the growing drunkenness at the banquet of the men of power, but this drunkenness is itself a symbol of instability and dissolution. The servant’s metaphor can thus equally apply to the alliance, and the Roman empire, as well.

In this scene the “gentle” words continue, and the men flatter each other’s honour. Antony’s words again respond to the present circumstances only: “the beds I’th’East are soft; and thanks to you,/That called me timelier than my purpose hither;/For I have gained by’t.” (II.6.50-2) He here claims to be grateful to Pompey because the threat he posed forced Antony back to Rome, and he has gained honour by it. Antony here shows his concern for his reputation – his public self. However, Enobarbus reminds us Antony will return to Cleopatra.

Much of the talk beyond this mutual flattery turns to Egypt – as Antony will do again soon – and again we see the cultural gulf between Egypt and Rome. It is not just a geographical distance. At the banquet Lepidus asks Antony about the serpent of Egypt, and is made to look foolish. The serpent here could be the crocodile they talk of, or Cleopatra, but whatever the case Lepidus, in his drunkeness, seems to feel awe at it. This highlights its unfamiliarity to him, and the cultural gap:

LEPIDUS What colour is it of?ANTONY Of its own colour too.LEPIDUS ‘Tis a strange serpent. (II.7.46-8)

Something having its own colour. How strange is this? Metaphorically this reflects the strangeness to Lepidus of something being itself. Or, in other words, Cleopatra, and Egypt, being themselves – separate identities from Rome.

Imperialistic powers are unable to see reality outside their own frame of reference. Egypt is the ‘other’.

Act III

This act is divided into thirteen short scenes, so structurally the movement of the unfolding drama conveys a sense of the instability and dissolution of the empire. The rapid scenes emphasise the rapid deterioration of all alliances, and the shifting and unstable nature of power and politics. We are reminded of Caesar’s metaphor in I.4:

This common body.Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,To rot itself with motion. (I.4.44-7)

Indeed rot is a good word to describe the act, before the dissolution to come.

Act III, Scene 1

Ventidius, victorious in Parthia, returns wishing to bring the news to Antony who is now in Athens. The geographical scope of the drama is again emphasized. Also, he shows the self-restraint needed to avoid conflict with his master.

Act III, Scene 2

The nobility of Caesar and Antony’s exchanges of gentle words, and the pathos of Octavia’s dilemma, are undermined by the satirical flourishes of Enobarbus.

This begins in his exchange with Agrippa which opens the scene. They make fun of Lepidus’s flattery of both Caesar and Antony, which ends in Enobarbus’s joke: “They are his shards, and he their beetle.” (20) In other words, Caesar and Antony are the dung heaps the beetle Lepidus crawls between.

The opening also foreshadows the end of Lepidus (III.5), leaving the two dungheaps of Antony and Caesar with nothing between them.

Later in the scene Agrippa’s reminiscence for Antony’s past glories is again mocked by Enobarbus:

AGRIPPA (aside to Enobarbus)When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,He cried almost to roaring; and he weptWhen at Philippi he found Brutus slain.

ENOBARBUS (aside to Agrippa)That year indeed he was troubled with a rheum. (54-58)

Antony’s excesses of emotion in public are put down to a head cold (rheum). The nostalgic and noble value Romans place on the past (for instance, see Caesar’s remembering Antony’s great soldiering in I.1.55-71) is made unromantic.

Act III, Scenes 4-5

The hostility diplomatically buried by Caesar and Antony in Act II, becomes open in these scenes. In I.4 the pathos of Octavia’s situation, caught between the two remaining contenders for the empire, is in contrast with Antony’s resolve to fight Caesar. Caesar has harmed Antony’s reputation: “when perforce he could not but/But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly/He vented them” (III.4.6-8). Antony is also threatened by Caesar’s victory over Pompey, and by his forcing Lepidus out of his command. He dismisses Octavia’s desire for harmony, and suggests she choose sides.

Shakespeare’s reduction of a significant length of time into two short scenes emphasises the suddenness of imminent war. Events and time conspire against stability.

Act III, Scene 6

Back in Rome Octavia returns, and we learn Antony has rejoined Cleopatra. Caesar is unimpressed by Octavia’s quiet return: “You come not/Like Caesar’s sister”, and emphasises the threat Antony poses to Rome by listing the foreign kings Antony has enlisted in his cause. He says “let determined things to destiny/Hold unbewailed their way.” (84-5) In other words, let predestined events move to their fated conclusion without lamenting them. What’s

done is done, Caesar advises – let’s get on with it. Caesar once again emphasises what a man of worldly affairs he is.

Act III, Scene 7

The scene begins with Enobarbus’s questioning Cleopatra about the wisdom of her desire to fight by Antony’s side. He rightly sees her presence might prove destructive and “Take from his heart, take from his brain, from’s time . . .” (11). Cleopatra replies that she has a stake in the war, and thus should be present. This is admirable on one level, especially since Roman women by custom would never be present at a battle, and so Cleopatra undermines the Roman attempt to stereotype her in their mould.

However, the words she uses to assert her identity remind us of the vocabulary of rot and dissolution that builds through the play: “Sink Rome, and their tongues rot/That speak against us!” (15-16)

The water and rot imagery is continued by Antony’s order to fight by sea: sea is the element of dissolution. It is the first decision where Antony has fled himself (as he will claim in scene 11). Enobarbus stresses to his master: “you therein throw away/The absolute soldiership you have by land” (41-2). It is Antony’s insistence on choosing Actium and by sea that brings disaster. As the Soldier says: “Trust not to rotten planks.” (62)

Compare this to the efficiency by which Caesar causes amazement in Enobarbus: “Is it not strange . . . he could so quickly cut the Ionian sea” (21-3).

Act III, Scene 10

The repeated use of a vocabulary of dissolution becomes literal at the battle of Actium. Here a literal melting and sinking take place: “Our fortune on the sea is out of breath/And sinks most lamentably.” The battle taking place at sea is a symbol of Antony’s inability to belong on the land of either Egypt or Rome – the situation of Kenneth Parker’s ‘colonizer who refuses.’

That Antony has fled himself is further emphasised by the battle’s taking place offstage: “heard the noise of a sea fight.” (stage direction)

What the audience receives is the commentary of Antony’s generals, who condemn Cleopatra as the principal cause of the catastrophe. She is referred to variously as the “ribaudred nag of Egypt” (10), “the tokened pestilence”(9), and “a cow in June”(14) – while Antony is “the noble ruin of her magic” (18), and “like a doting mallard” (19).

Scarus, the vendor of this language, goes on to say “Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before/Did violate so itself.” (22-3) The audience is left in no doubt who Scarus blames for the defeat, and the resulting picture of Antony. This builds to a climax the negative views given by Roman characters of Antony’s love for Cleopatra. But we must remember that the honour Antony has lost is a Roman ideal of masculinity only – if we agree with Scarus are we too seeing the drama from a Roman point of view only?

Canadius says “Had our general/Been what he knew himself” (25-6). However, the commander Canidius knows and approves of is the Roman one, who upholds masculine ideals of the noble soldier and man.

In a sense this is now only half of who Antony is – his love for Cleopatra is his other half, and although this love has ‘unmanned’ him in battle it still remains.

A modern explanation could say that Antony, through his love, has got in touch with his feminine side – and the conflict between masculine desire for fame in battle, and feminine desire for love tears up his identity.

Act III, Scene 11

Actium. We see Antony’s response to his own defeat. His speeches are concerned with the impact of the loss on his identity (“I have fled myself”, III.11.7).

However, in Antony’s defeat we also see his marvellous generosity. He orders his generals to take leave of him, and then offers them his treasure: “My treasure’s in the harbour.” (11) This bounty of Antony’s combines with his earlier actions and paints an ambivalent picture for the audience. His lack of concern for his men in the battle, where he fled after Cleopatra, contrasts with his generosity to them afterwards. We see quickly the worst and best of his impulses, his selfishness and generosity. Implied to us here is that people are seldom just simply their worst or their best characteristics. Inconsistency of human nature is illustrated, and the dangers of being caught up in the passion of the moment.

We see that Antony too feels he has lost his honour, his manhood. He says ambiguously “I have lost command.” (23) The command here might be taken literally – Caesar has won. It also might refer to his command of his senses: “I am so lated in the world I/have lost my way for ever.” (3-4)

Like the other Roman characters he nostalgically looks back to his former glories at Philippi (35-40), yet ends with “Yet now – no matter.” He feels the honour of past victories has deserted him now – and yet Caesar in I.4 harps on Antony’s former greatness, before Cleopatra. Both judge identity according to masculine ideals of self.

Even when Cleopatra asks him to forgive her fearful sails (55), Antony still blames himself: “My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’strings” (57). He speaks as if his being led by love was unmanly, but in I.1 said love was “the nobleness of life”.

We see the tragic conflict within Antony between two sets of apparently incompatable values – the ‘colonizer who refuses’.

His loss of self, or that self Roman men adore, after Actium is a result of his allowing love to be his master in a time of war. His betrayal of his loyal soldiers we might damn, and his timing, but the key question hinges on Antony’s apparent inability to reconcile his ideals and acts of passion and desire (and his love for an Egyptian) with his ideals of the Roman man.

Antony ends the scene saying: “Love, I am full of lead.” (72) He feels heavy, which reminds us of sinking.

III.12

This scene contrasts the defeated with the victor. While Antony laments his fortunes, Caesar plans his next move – to sway Cleopatra away from Antony through offers of peace. Again we see Caesar’s efficiency in seizing the opportunity, and pursuing it with vigor.

However, while we admire his efficiency, this does not make him sympathetic – more robotic, his identity is that of victorious colonizer, powerful but shallow.

III.13

The longest scene closes Act III. It is framed by Enobarbus’s commentary on Antony’s fortunes, and as he observes he changes his mind about his own direction.

He begins by lamenting Antony’s timing in being swayed from battle by love “The itch of his affection should not then/Have nicked his captainship” (7-8) when the whole world was at stake: “When half to half the world opposed, he being/The mered question.” (9-10)

Then he contemplates the reasons for Antony’s fall:

I see men’s judgements areA parcel of their fortunes, and things outwardDo draw the inward quality after themTo suffer all alike. (III.13.31-34)

Enobarbus sees Antony’s judgement has become subject to his immediate circumstances . He refers subsequently to the Stoic philosophy that outward events could not affect the inward condition of the virtuous man, governed as it was by reason to the exclusion of all passion. Renaissance moralists insisted that to be affected by circumstances was to surrender one’s inner self to the passions, whose erratic activity matched the whimsical activity of fortune in the outer world.

So, from the point of view of a moralist in Shakespeare’s time, Antony has abandoned his self to the randomness of events in the outside world.

However, even seeing his commander’s unstable condition, Enobarbus resolves “To follow with allegiance a fallen lord” because this “earns a place I’th’story.” (41-6) In other words, Enobarbus initially resolves to stay with Antony as a matter of reputation, and that he might earn by his loyalty a part in the legend of Antony and Cleopatra. In this way his comment transcends the boundaries of the play, and sets us thinking once again about the role of nostalgia for the past in the play. It also reminds us that history is a story, a construct made of words, as are its individuals.

By the end of the scene Enobarbus has reversed his decision, opting to abandon Antony for Caesar because to stay with Antony is foolish: “When valour preys on reason,/It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek/Some way to

leave him.” (198-200). The idealist and realist fight within Enobarbus, and the realist wins out. We are reminded that even though Enobarbus’s is mainly a choric role, he is still a party to the epic events and subject to them as much as the others – and tragically as we shall see.

Throughout the scene Enobarbus acts as a commentator on Antony’s fortunes, state of mind, and on his own entanglement with his defeated lord. As we witness Antony’s passage through emotional states in the scene our view of these is filtered by Enobarbus’s analysis.

The rest of the scene revolves around Antony and Cleopatra’s responses to the ambassadors from Caesar.

Antony’s will has returned, and insulted by the ambassador he responds by refusing Caesar’s requests and challenging the younger man to single combat. Of course this is a futile and rather silly demand, and we might bear in mind Enobarbus’s words “Antony . . . would make his will/Lord of his reason.” (3-4) However, we might marvel at the energy of Antony’s defiance – he is not willing to lie down.

Next the exchange between Caesar’s ambassador Thidias, and Cleopatra, ensues. Cleopatra’s response to Caesar’s offer of peace is diplomatically ambiguous: “Mine honour was not yielded/But conquered merely.” (61-2)

Enobarbus then returns with Antony who asserts his authority again with another act of questionable merit – he orders the ambassador whipped. Antony is unwilling to subject his self to Caesar – indeed in these somewhat empty gestures of war Antony appears to reclaim some sense of his masculine identity: “I am /Antony yet.” (92-93) He reminds the ambassador, and through him Caesar, to think on “what he knew I was.”

Antony stands up for himself through the glory of his past deeds, but how appropriate is this in the present circumstances? Again, nostalgia for the past is dwelled on to add glory to the present, and to help a man who has “fled himself” reclaim a sense of identity., like clinging to the wreckage of a sinking ship.

Antony shifts in the space of two scenes from despair to determined resistance. In III.11 he seemed ready to abandon it all, and now we see his will, if not his reason, armed again. It is as if Antony sees the mess he is in but doggedly perseveres anyway:

The wise gods seel our eyes,In our own filth drop our clear judgements, make usAdore our errors, laugh at’s while we strutTo our confusion. (112-15)

Is this what lends his tragedy nobility, and makes it human? This passage sums up the whole play – is life just a confused mess? However, contrast Antony’s experience with Caesar’s perspective.

However, embedded in this language of resistance is the imagery and vocabulary of catastrophe and dissolution. Enobarbus says of Antony: “Thou art so leaky/That we must leave thee to thy sinking.” (63-4). Cleopatra says “Dissolve my life!” (162) and claims she’ll never give in to Caesar until “my womb,/Together with my brave Egyptians all,/By discandying of this pelleted storm,/Lie graveless . . .” (163-66) And Antony? He curses the fickleness of fortune with cosmic imagery of an armageddon: “my good stars that were my former guides/Have empty left their orbs and shot their fires/Into th’abysm of hell” (145-7), and says “I’ll make death love me.” (193) This entanglement of love with death in the language recalls Shakespeare’s other love tragedy, Romeo + Juliet, and foreshadows the end in Cleopatra’s tomb. Also, this grand use of language elevates the tragedy of his life to legend. We use language to inflate our self-importance and dramatize our lives.

Antony’s wish to have “one other gaudy night” and to “Fill our bowls once more” gives the impression of making life a celebration still, even on the edge of ruin. It is this willingness to live it up – to make life into a kind of pageant – which makes the lovers seem so much larger than the mechanism of empire Caesar represents. Or is it just madness and chaos brought about by senseless passion?

This kind of self-indulgence, with its alcohol and abandon, is also a systematic dissolution reflecting the loss at Actium – and the sinking of Antony’s fortunes.

ACT IV

Emrys Jones (editor of the Penguin Classics edition) says: “The sequence of short scenes from IV.2 to IV.12 focuses on the last stages of Antony’s disintegration . . . Antony’s resurgence of high spirits and final military success are in this way interwoven with the desertion and death of the man (Enobarbus) closest to him. The final impression made by this brilliant sequence is one of dizzying instability and ultimate dissolution: Fortune is at her most treacherously inconstant, but within the individual personality there are equally volatile shifts of mood.”

Scene 1

Egypt. This scene with Caesar and his followers takes place between two scenes where we see the emotional Antony – in this way it acts to contrast the mood of Antony’s tent with that of Caesar’s. Caesar focuses on facts and practical matters. Caesar rejects Antony’s challenge to single combat (“I . . . laugh at his challenge”) and we are informed Antony’s deserters have joined ranks with Caesar.

In contrast with the high emotion of Antony’s tent the mood of Caesar’s seems somewhat deficient, sterile even. This is reinforced in the BBC production by the predominantly white and blue colours in Caesar’s tent.

Scene 2

Egypt. Antony, Cleopatra, Enobarbus and Antony’s generals. Antony’s defiance is underlined by his laughing off of Enobarbus’s worries about his commander’s moving his men to tears. Antony here seems buoyant and positive: “I’ll expect victorious life/Than death and honour.” (43-4) However, the scene ends with “Let’s to supper, come,/And drown consideration.” (44-5) This reminds us of alcohol, instability and dissolution.

The verb “drown” especially has such connotations. Antony’s optimistic persuasion is again laced with a vocabulary suggesting instability. “Consideration” is “drowned” out of existence. This shows again how life is for the moment, to be lived, without worries about the impending battles to come.

Scene 3

Three soldiers discuss the sound of music “under the earth” (14), and its meaning. The suggestion made is that the sound is that of Antony’s patron deity, Hercules, leaving him. However, the last words of the scene are “’Tis strange.” Perhaps the event again shows the human limitations in dealing with the immensity of the world and its phenomena. We are left with the thought that something monumental has quietly occurred “under the earth.”

On the structural level the sound coincides with Enobarbus’s desertion.

Scene 4

We see again Antony’s sense of identity emerge. He calls war “the royal occupation” (17), and wishes Cleopatra could have seen him in battle. He says: “Whate’er becomes of me/This is a soldier’s kiss.” (29-30) Antony seems to feel empowered as a man by his identity as soldier. We might admire him for this confidence in his sense of self but we are also reminded by how torn this sense of self was at the battle of Actium, where he acted like a lover more than a soldier.

Scene 5

Antony is informed by a soldier of Enobarbus’s desertion. Instead of responding angrily to the departure of the man closest to him, he acts (as he does after his defeat at Actium) with enormous generosity: “send his treasure after” (12). We see Antony not only as a man of shifting impulses, but also as a man of immense giving.

Scene 6

Caesar and his followers. We see Caesar’s brutal practicality in his orders to have Antony’s deserters fight for him in the front line so that Antony wastes his energy on them, those who used to be his own men (9-11). We hear Caesar’s confidence in himself, which from hindsight we can affirm to be prophetic words: “The time of universal peace is near.” (5) Augustus was famous as a civilizer and peacemaker. This is the last civil war between Romans for decades.

Also in this scene Enobarbus arrives before Caesar and is informed his treasure has been sent after him. This makes him feel his betrayal intensely:

I fight against thee? No, I will go seekSome ditch wherein to die; the foul’st best fitsMy latter part of life. (IV.6.37-9)

Enobarbus talked of earning his “place i’th’story” in III.13, by staying to fight to the end by Antony’s side. Traditionally, deserters were regarded as the worst of men by posterity – Enobarbus has reversed the role he will play in the story that is to be written. It is ironic that it is Antony’s generosity that undermines the resolve of his former companion.

Scene 8

We see Antony’s excitement and majesty after his victory on land over Caesar’s troops. His generosity is again evident in showing Cleopatra the soldier who has won renown in this battle, and she promises the man golden armour as a reward. Wealth is tossed around expansively by the lovers, foreshadowing Cleopatra’s later description of Antony as a “mine of bounty” (V.2).

This literal spending of wealth is matched by the showmanship Antony commands in his speech: “trumpeters,/. . .Make mingle with our rattling tambourines,/That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together.” (35-7) This pageantry is nothing less than the will to bring the divine and human together, heaven and earth. Through language and splendid display Antony invests the moment, and those involved, with the promise of connection to another plane, to something bigger than themselves.

We are reminded of Enobarbus’s description of Cleopatra’s entry on her golden barge – and how her showmanship transformed not only Enobarbus’s normally prosaic speech into poetry, but also how it led to her entry being associated with mythological figures like mermaids and nereids (II.7)

Scene 9

However Shakespeare, in a piece of deliberate anti-climax, immediately follows this loud scene of trumpets and generous sentiments with the quiet of night. This is deliberate contrast, and the quiet reminds us that the noise is made by Antony only – and that his position is still precarious.

The dark mood of this scene is further reinforced by its purpose – to show us the suicide of Enobarbus, Antony’s former closest follower. This illustrates the instability in the fortunes of men, the very instability we know is so much a part of Antony.

Enobarbus, in his final choric comment, says life “is a very rebel to my will” (15). This sad comment might apply to the lives of Antony and Cleopatra as well. The control we seek over our lives through willpower is seen as the reverse by Enobarbus. Life is rebellious, he has no control over it, in spite of his will. We are reminded of the precariousness of attempts to control circumstances – like the alliance forged in Act II on the sea – these are revealed as merely temporary.

Caesar’s success, as well as Antony’s failures, even Cleopatra’s “fortunes”(IV.14.24) are put down to Fortune, or fate.

Scene 10

Antony, Scarus, and their army. Antony says “I would they’d fight i’th’fire or i’th’air” (3). Antony wishes that the battle, being contested already on earth and water, take to the realms of fire and air as well, thus involving all the elements. Fire and air are the elements of passion and spirit – Caesar’s element is the earth.

Again fire imagery is associated with Antony. The elements of passion and spirit are his. Later Cleopatra says “I am fire and air” (V.2.88). Fire and air are the elements the lovers revere. We are reminded of their references to the earth as “kingdoms are clay” (Antony) or “this dull world . . . no better than a sty” (Cleopatra).

Because fire and air are the insubstantial elements, symbolising spirit and passion, they also have associations with the imagination. Antony and Cleopatra seem ‘larger than life’ because they are creatures of the imagination – we might recall here Cleopatra’s obsessive imaginings of Antony when he was in Rome (I.5 or II.5), or Enobarbus’s description of Cleopatra’s grand entrance (II.2). Through the imaginative power of language they are made, or make themselves, seem much bigger than this “dungy earth”.

Scene 11

Brief scene with Caesar outlining his strategy. The efficient practicality of his plan is revealed, and this man of earthly matters is again contrasted with Antony directly after the latter’s defiance.

Scene 12

Antony believes Cleopatra has betrayed him, and his feelings collapse into incompatible impulses: “Antony/is valiant, and dejected, and by starts/His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear” (6-8). The inconstancy of human feeling is again outlined. Antony’s love turns to spite and rage. To live on the edge, to “outstare the lightning” in the name of passion only, is revealed as truly tragic.

We hear his fleet has joined with Caesar’s before the battle has even begun, and Antony sees Cleopatra as behind this because she has changed her political allegiances according to her sexual whims before – Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, Mark Antony.

He refers to Cleopatra as a witch (47) thereby resorting to that language other Romans have used to describe her.

Also note the language he uses to describe his forces’ defection; they “do discandy, melt their sweets/On the blossoming Caesar” (22-3).

Scene 14

Note the figurative language Antony uses to describe himself to Eros:

That which is now a horse, even with a thought/The rack dislimbs, and makes it indistinctAs water is in water . . . now thy captain isEven such a body. Here I am Antony,Yet cannot hold this visible shape . . . (9-14)

The image we get is of a man whose body is being torn apart limb from limb on the rack of the world, and this makes it “indistinct”. Antony suggests identity and self, in the physical sense, are insubstantial – they cannot hold “this visible shape.” Note again the presence of the element of water, of dissolution.

Of course Antony’s belief in Cleopatra’s betrayal is false, as we learn through the entrance of her servant Mardian, again showing that perceptions can rest on assumptions and momentary passions, and prove inaccurate.

Mardian tells Antony of Cleopatra’s ‘death’ – a death she is willing to allow Antony to believe in order to make him believe she did not betray him.

Antony’s reaction is to say “Since Cleopatra died/I have lived in such dishonour that the gods/Detest my baseness” (55-7), and he resolves to kill himself to escape Caesar’s triumph, which would be even further humiliation (72-75). The dishonour Antony feels here is the shame of believing his love betrayed him, and the only honourable course left seems suicide which he claims in asking Eros to help him do the deed: “’tis Caesar thou defeat’st.” (68) Suicide is portrayed to us by Antony as a defiance of conquest, as a self-assertive act to preserve reputation, and therefore a sense of self: “If I lose mine honour I lose my self.” (III.4.22-3) At least, that is how he justifies suicide – but to preserve honour “in the high Roman fashion” shows defeated honour becomes a dissolution. This is different from Cleopatra who escapes the conquest by the colonizer Caesar and his desire to turn her into an exhibit of his triumph.

So in the very act of saying he cannot hold “this visible shape”, his sense he is being torn apart, Antony defies conquest of his self by willing a physical dissolution through suicide. The body dies but he may yet achieve, like he later says of Eros and Cleopatra’s suicides, “a nobleness in record.” (99)

For time now seems long and drawn out without Cleopatra, without love, “All length is torture; since the torch is out” (46) - the torch of passion, of life. Antony invests his death with the timelessness of myth, referring to the Roman legend of other ill-fated lovers Dido and Aeneas:

we’ll hand in hand,And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:Dido and Aeneas shall want troops,And all the haunt be ours. (51-4)

These noble words contrast with the clumsiness of his suicide in its act; the power of poetry and the imagination is contrasted with the bungling quality of the dream of death put into action. Antony’s initial blow does not finish him off; you can invest suicide with all the grandeur you want – but the deed in his case is very messy indeed.

The further instability of events is highlighted when Diomedes arrives at the end of the scene to tell Antony that Cleopatra is not in fact dead, that she has just locked herself away in her monument. Antony is carried there.

Scene 15

This scene brings together a number of themes.

1. Cleopatra invests Antony’s death with cosmic imagery, as though a great Armageddon should take place: “O Sun,/Burn the great sphere thou mov’st in . . .” 9-10) Through language, and the imagination, she aspires to a

cosmic level – which contrasts with “Our strength is all gone into heaviness”, a reminder of the physical body, the burden of the physical world, and mortality.

2. The emphasis the lovers place on suicide as a means of preserving one’s self, of defying conquest by another and its accompanying dishonour: “So it should be that none but Antony/Should conquer Antony” (Cleopatra, 16-17). It is seen by the pair as a way of owning themselves at their last moments – not being owned by Caesar.

3. The final bringing together of sex and death, and the connection seemingly being made between the two, in the pun “Die when thou hast lived;/Quicken with kissing.” (Cleopatra, 38-9, my italics) Sex = self-destruction?

4. The generosity of Antony, when at the last he bids Cleopatra seek her safety with Caesar, and tells her who to trust. (46-8)

5. The role of nostalgia in the construction of identity, when Antony like so many Romans in the play, looks back into the past for more glorious days as a comfort to the present: “please your thoughts/By feeding them with those my former fortunes . . .” (52-3)

6. The sense of the physical world as dull in the absence of love – it becomes a place to hate, where all seems disordered and wanting. Cleopatra calls it “dull” (61) and “there is nothing left remarkable” (67) because “The crown o’th’earth doth melt.” (63) “All’s but naught.” (77)

In these circumstances, she asks, is it wrong to consider death? (77-81) Echoing Antony’s words in the previous scene (“the torch is out”), Cleopatra says “Our lamp is spent, it’s out.” (84) Acceptance of fortune = tragic nobility.

Act V, Scene 1

This scene focuses us on Caesar’s reaction to Antony’s death.

1. Note how Decretas brings Caesar the symbol of Antony’s vanquished manhood – his bloodied sword.2. Note how Caesar and Decretas differ in the feeling, and language, the give the event. Decretas simply says

“Antony is dead” (13), whereas Caesar sees it as a catastrophe: “the breaking of so great a thing should make/a greater crack” (14-15). Caesar thinks the news of Antony’s death is too understated by Decretas. Antony’s passing should not be such a quiet thing. A “greater crack” reflects better on Caesar.

3. Maecenas sums up the tragic nature of Antony’s character – his tragic flaw – by saying: “His taints and honours/waged equal with him.” (30-1). He refers to the war within Antony’s self between desire for Roman honour in combat and politics, and his love for Cleopatra. The word “taint’ shows us Maecenas’s view of this love and of a colonizer who resists.

4. Caesar seems to show genuine grief at Antony’s passing, calling him “friend and companion”, and saying that Antony’s fire kindled his own. (45-6) He ascribes their division to “stars/unreconciliable” (46-7). As nowhere else in the play do we see much evidence of this we are encouraged to be sceptical. This point is further emphasised by the closing of the scene, where Caesar offers to show evidence in letters that will prove he never wanted to pursue this war with Antony. Of course the audience never gets to see this evidence (unlike in Plutarch, who displays it) which encourages our scepticism. We can either see Caesar in this scene as torn between public self, and private grief (he cries in the BBC production). Or we can see it mostly as political, the grief and holding of himself up as the reluctant winner as political ploys to gain support, and win over Cleopatra.

Certainly Agrippa tells us “Caesar is touched” but perhaps Maecenas explains Caesar’;s emotions to us with “When such a spacious mirror’s set before him/He needs must see himself”. Both he and Antony shared an empire, and struggled for mastery in it, so he sees himself in Antony’s death: “strange it is/That nature must compel us to lament/Our most persisted deeds.” (28-30)

Act V, Scene 2

The scene opens with Cleopatra diminishing Caesar’s victory by calling him the minister of fortune’s will, and inflating the nobility of suicide which “shackles accidents and bolts up change” (6). Suicide is a way to escape the inconsistency of the world.

She then tells Caesar’s men she will accept his wishes, but Proculeius stops her killing herself with a dagger and says: “let the world see/his nobleness well acted.” The implication here is that if Cleopatra kills herself Caesar’s noble actions will not shine forth – her death will spoil his triumph, which is of course exactly what Cleopatra intends to do.

Her suicide is not just because she has lost Antony, but also is an act of defiance, resistance against Rome and imperialism. It is both personally and politically motivated. She says she’d rather die and let the flies of the Nile have her, than live and be paraded in Rome (55-62).

She then, as she did so often when Antony was away in Rome (Acts I and II), dreams of Mark Antony. The power of the imagination takes over, and the poetry that goes with it.

She asks Dolabella: “Think you there was, or might be such a man/As this I dreamnt of?” (94) Dolabella replies in the negative, but she says he lies for Antony was such a man – a man who exceeds her dreams:

Nature wants stuffTo vie strange forms with Fancy, yet t’imagineAn Antony were nature’s piece ‘gainst Fancy,Condemning shadows quite. (97-100)

In other words normally nature can’t make what fancy imagines, but in Antony’s case he exceeded even fancy in his design. Already her words build the legend of Antony. Note the nostalgic looking back into the past for greatness too.

Caesar enters and offers her his generosity (125). She then misleads Caesar by making a pact with him and formally surrendering – a pact she has no intention of keeping. So we see the shifting currents of the world again, and of the people in it. We also see that Cleopatra’s public deeds in no way match what she will do privately.

Ironically a Clown brings the figs in, and underlines the tragedy with bawdy humour, such as his pun on dying by snake bite: “she died . . . o’th’worm” (252-4). “Die’ here is used in the sexual sense, and the worm is a phallic symbol.

The down to earth attitude of the clown contrasts with Cleopatra’s high aspirations for the deed. It also undercuts them, perhaps making her suicide more anti-climactic. Shakespeare, as he does so often, combines tragedy with a sense of life’s ridiculousness.

She says of her self: “I am fire and air – my other elements/I give to baser life” (288-9). This plays on the idea that at death man’s higher nature and life giving properties of the soul (fire and air) separate with the lower elements of the body (earth and water). She leaves the dungy earth behind.

Charmian reminds us of the theme of dissolution in the play, as Cleopatra prepares to die: “Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain, that I may say/The gods themselves do weep.” (298-9)

What is preferable, Caesar’s pragmatism and imperialistic ambition or a world of the imagination, dissolute but passionate and inspiring? Why can’t we have both?