Antony and Cleopatra // Shaketember

Welcome to the last play of Shaketember 2023, Antony and Cleopatra. I used the Oxford School edition and watched National Theatre’s 2018-19 production via their online streaming platform. I like Ralph Fiennes as Antony, I also liked Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus. Antony and Coriolanus are very different men and Fiennes played both roles as if he WAS Coriolanus and he WAS Antony. I like the actress playing Cleopatra as well. She managed to make her funny, childlike and vulnerable, which was a pleasant surprise. Because when I read the play, she just sounded over the top and manipulative. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with a brief summary and the overall structure of the story.

Overall story and structure

Antony and Cleopatra lived blissfully together in Alexandria in Egypt at the beginning of the play, which is a vile sight to many of Antony’s army officers and a vile thought to Octavius Caesar in Rome. As I said, they lived together blissfully but also very briefly, because by Act 1 Scene 2, Antony has already decided to leave her and Egypt.

Act 2 mostly happens in Italy and deals with the situation with Pompey. This Pompey here is the outlawed son of Pompey the Great after Pompey the Great was defeated by Julius Caesar. Now Pompey is causing headaches to the rulers of the Roman Empire, Octavius Caesar, Lepidus and Mark Antony. So Antony goes back to Italy to see to the matter. Two results come out of this trip. The two sides achieve an agreement so that there’s no more fighting with Pompey. And Antony agrees to marry Octavius Caesar’s sister Octavia, to strengthen the bond between himself and Caesar.

The highest point of Antony’s fortune in this play is at the feast on Pompey’s barge in the last scene of Act 2 (A2S7). There’s solidarity between the three rulers, marriage to Octavia, peace with Pompey, and immediately afterwards in A3S1, a victory in Syria. All is well, except Antony is away from Cleopatra. It’s the high point of Antony as a Roman.

Act 3 has a whopping 13 scenes and a lot of things happen in quick succession. Between A3S4 and S6, Pompey is dead, Lepidus is locked up, Octavia leaves Antony for Caesar – the three people that keep the peace between Caesar and Antony are all gone. Caesar’s behaviour enrages Antony; Antony’s behaviour enrages Caesar. War breaks out between them straightway.

Compare to Romeo and Juliet

I only realised recently that Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra are the only two tragic love stories in Shakespeare’s canon. I thought there must be more, but when I counted them one by one, there aren’t any others. There’s a similar love story in Troilus and Cressida but most of the play is about the Trojan War. When I started to put Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra side by side, I saw many parallels.

• Antony and Cleopatra are from two hostile families. Not literal families like Montague and Capulate but in their case, two warring nations. The play is mostly set in Alexandria and Rome as two distinct locations, the characters are either Egyptians or Romans. Caesar and the Romans clearly despise the Egyptians, especially the Queen. And Cleopatra returns the hatred with equal measure.

• Romeo and Juliet both use cosmic vocabulary to describe each other, for example, Romeo compares Juliet to the sun. Their love for each other is like worship of the gods. We see the same kind of worshipful love language in Antony and Cleopatra, especially Cleopatra’s speech after Antony dies.

• The couples also have the same ending. Not just that they all died. They all commit suicide. Not even just suicide, both couples end their lives in a monument or a tomb. There’s also the miscommunication that triggers the death of the men. Romeo thinks Juliet is dead and kills himself; Antony also thinks Cleopatra is dead and tries to kill himself. But Cleopatra turns out not dead just like Juliet. Within this similarity though, there’s a major distinction. Juliet kills herself to follow Romeo for love. Cleopatra doesn’t kill herself only because Antony is dead and now she’s nothing to live for. There’s another reason. Antony and Cleopatra also get to say a few last words. Which I think it’s an example of terrible communication.

It’s like a parallel universe where Romeo and Juliet didn’t meet each other at that party when they were 14. They went on living normally, grew up, got married respectively and then suddenly met in their 30s and 40s. However that same all-consuming passion that says ‘give me my Romeo!’ hasn’t changed at all. Now, in order to measure their love, they need to “find out new heaven, new earth”.

However this increase in age and life experience hasn’t made their relationship any easier. They are not two teenagers trying to shake off the chains from their families – if they could just escape and be together, they’ll be free and happy. Antony and Cleopatra are adults, they don’t have to obey or rebel against their parents and families to get together. Moreover they’re the rulers of their worlds. In theory, they can do whatever they like. And for a lot of the play they do live together and do whatever they like. They have achieved what Romeo and Juliet fought and died for. But it still ends in tragedy. Why?

There are many reasons, I’ll talk about two specifically in a bit. But on a large scale, what holds Romeo and Juliet back are external factors, families and laws of Verona. They don’t care about the world. But Antony and Cleopatra do care about the world. They have to now, being adults and rulers. What’s holding Antony and Cleopatra back is internal.

Although the two worlds, the Romans and the Egyptians can’t stop Antony and Cleopatra from coming together, the nations are just as hostile towards each other as the Montagues and the Capulates. I believe this is one of the key reasons for the tragedy. Antony is caught between the two worlds: The Roman world represented by Octavius Caesar and Rome, and the Egyptian world represented by Cleopatra and Alexandria. We see Antony cross between worlds, interact with both separately in their own location. He himself has two images, one a tough and valiant general, the other a soft and idle lover. He behaves differently depending on where he is and who he’s with. But he is not completely comfortable and at peace with either identity, and his desires are at war with each other. He wants Cleopatra and the luxurious and lazy lifestyle in Alexandria. But he also wants to hold on to the land and power from Rome. Caesar and Cleopatra do not meet until the very end. The two worlds collide only after Antony is crushed to death.

Introducing Enobarbus

One character I had never heard of before and now greatly admire is Enobarbus, a follower and friend of Antony from Rome. I like him because he understands people and situations with crystal clear insight and razor sharp intelligence, and he dares speak his mind. He also seems to know and is able to get on with everyone, while speaking honestly and daringly. In a world that is full of political tensions, he’s completely at ease talking with friends and enemies. When Octavius Caesar and Antony meet up in Rome, Enobarbus greets Caesar’s followers like old friends and gives them an elaborate account of Cleopatra’s beauty and glory. When they meet Pompey the rebel for peace talks, Enobarbus stays behind with a follower of Pompey and they enjoy a round of ranting about their masters behind their backs.

He’s also able to cross between the two hostile worlds of Rome and Alexandria. He’s the first one and often the only one who hears Antony’s mind in private. Most of the Romans from officers to soldiers despise Cleopatra and Cleopatra ignores them or hates them as she pleases. But she speaks to Enobarbus just as she speaks to her Egyptian companions and she asks him for opinions and advice without any formality or ceremony, and explicitly calls him a friend.

Among all the Romans, he’s one of the few if not the only one who genuinely admires her. You can tell from his famous account of the time when she first appeared on her barge and ‘pursed up [Antony’s] heart upon the river’. The colour of the throne, the oars and the sails. How the wind and the water seem to come alive and adore the barge. The beautiful people that surround her and serve her. I can kind of imagine the scene as a still shot captured in a painting.

After that description of a perfect, unapproachable, high and mighty goddess, Enobarbus contrasts it with a surprisingly childlike image of an ordinary young woman from your neighbourhood.

ENOBARBUS
I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street
And, having lost her breath, she spoke and panted,
That she did make defect perfection,
And, breathless, pour breath forth.
… Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.
(Act 2 Scene 3)

’Riggish’ means wanton, or whorish. This is high praise. The vilest things become themselves in her. Antony says very similar things about her,

Fie, wrangling queen,
Whom everything becomes—to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admir’d!

It’s lovely when a man compliments you like that. But we know Antony is hopelessly in love with Cleopatra so we don’t fully believe him. But when Enobarbus says it, I believe him. Partly because Enobarbus is not bewitched, partly because he repeatedly proves to us that he judges people wisely. Which makes a stronger case for the charm of Cleopatra.

If she’s actually a decent charming woman, why do all the Romans hate her so much? I believe it’s because they don’t know her. The world of Rome stays separate to the world of Alexandria. No one comes near her except Enobarbus. And Enobarbus loves her because he spends time there and knows her. Actually Enobarbus is not the only Roman who stands in her presence. Towards the later part of the play, the world of Rome starts to close in on the world of Alexandria. At the very end (there are only two scenes in Act 5) the two worlds collide, Cleopatra and Caesar stand face to face. After calling her a whore, hating her for corrupting Antony, plotting and scheming against her all along, Caesar meets her in person for the first time in Act 5 Scene 1. And just after this one meeting, he is able to say

CAESAR
… but she looks like sleep,
As she would catch another Antony
In her strong toil of grace.
…
She shall be buried by her Antony.
No grave upon the earth shall clip in it A pair so famous.

So when Caesar sees Cleopatra with his own eyes and gets to know her just for a few minutes, he can understand why Antony would live and die for her.

Antony’s tragedy: This dotage of our general’s

Without exaggeration, Antony literally lives and dies for Cleopatra. At first, I thought it rare and refreshing to see a man so explicit and verbal about how much he loves a woman, but very quickly I felt like there’s something unhealthy about this. I like him devoted to Cleopatra, but I don’t like him losing all judgement and neglecting his duty. This is not the young, dashing and valiant Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, who stirred the blood of the Roman citizens singlehandedly and pressured Brutus and Cassius to committing suicide. The first words we hear from this play?

Nay, but this dotage of our general’s
O’erflows the measure.

They are from a Roman army officer talking to a fellow soldier. They’re talking about the dotage of Antony for Cleopatra.

According to Johnson’s Dictionary, dotage firstly means loss of understanding, weakness of mind or even deliriousness. The second meaning is excessive fondness. Interesting to note, the first words of the play are ‘Nay, but’. I wonder what’s the conversation before that. Maybe one of them says something like, ‘I think our general does love this Egyptian Queen very much’. And the other officer replies, no but his love for Cleopatra has overflowed the measure, it has gone too far, it has caused him to lose understanding and made his mind weak.

The officer continues to say Antony’s eyes used to shine like a war god when he looked at the assembled ranks of soldiers. Now he only looks at Cleopatra’s face. Antony’s heart used to beat so violently and courageously in the midst of fighting, it could have burst the buckles on his breastplate. Now it goes completely soft to satisfy Cleopatra’s fancies.

Look where they come:
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transform’d
Into a strumpet’s fool. Behold and see.

Antony is one of the three rulers that governs the Roman empire at the time. That’s what he means by ‘the triple pillar of the world’. This is an invitation to the audience to watch and judge for ourselves. Has Antony’s love for Cleopatra turned into dotage? Has his love for her overflowed the measure? What consequences will this lead to? Behold and see.

Shakespeare shows us many examples of how Antony’s love for Cleopatra messes up his judgement in various situations. One most obvious example, is Antony’s first naval defeat by Caesar when Antony disgracefully chases after Cleopatra as she flees the battle.

SCARUS
The nobel ruin of her magic, Antony,
Claps on his sea-wing and, like a doting mallard,
Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.
I never saw an action of such shame.
Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before
Did violate so itself.
(Act 3 Scene 10)

When Antony and Cleopatra face each other after this disaster, Antony has the cheek to blame her for HIS fleeing:

ANTONY
O, whither has thou led me, Egypt?
See How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
By looking back what I have left behind
’Stroy’d in dishonour.

CLEOPATRA
O, my lord, my lord,
Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
You would have follow’d.

ANTONY
Egypt, thou knewst too well
My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’ strings
And thou shouldst tow me after. O’er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knewst, and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me.

CLEOPATRA
Oh, my pardon!
(Act 3 Scene 11)

It’s not your fault woman! And in a war as well, this is not something I want to hear from a military leader, an emperor or a man. ‘I ran away from the frontline and the battlefield, because my heart was tied to you. It was all your fault.’ We see the soldiers grumble against him. But he’s ‘the nobel ruin’ of Cleopatra’s witchcraft, they worship him even when he fails, so they blame Cleopatra instead.

But again, we see how Enobarbus responds to the situation fairly. He’s devastated by the result of the naval battle obviously. But he doesn’t abuse and blame Cleopatra like other officers do. He’s the ONLY one who blames Antony. And in this little conversation, you see the easy relationship without formality between the Egyptian queen and the Roman officer as I mentioned earlier.

CLEOPATRA
What shall we do, Enobarbus?

ENOBARBUS
Think, and die.

CLEOPATRA
Is Antony or we in fault for this?

ENOBARBUS
Antony only, that would make his will
Lord of his reason. What though you fled
From that great face of war, whose several ranges
Frighted each other? Why should he follow?
The itch of his affection should not then
Have nick’d his captainship, at such a point,
When half to half the world oppos’d, he being
The mered question. ’Twas a shame no less
Than was his loss, to course your flying flags
And leave his navy gazing.
(Act 3 Scene 13)

Well said Enobarbus! Antony’s dotage HAS overflowed the measure and I believe this is one the key reasons for the tragedy. This kind of dotage might cause a certain amount of damage to an ordinary man’s daily life, he might lose his phone on a bus daydreaming or anger his mother by not phoning her for a year. But as a ruler of the Roman world, who is supposed to navigate through delicate political situations, and as a general, who commands thousands of soldiers in war, it has disastrous consequences.

Antony’s tragedy: The identity crisis

This dotage eventually leads Antony to commit suicide. When he tries to kill himself, his guard says, ‘The star is fallen.’ The star has been falling for a long while. Throughout the whole of Acts 3 and 4, Antony is having an identity crisis. The tragedy of Antony in a sense is not mainly that he dies unhappily in the end. The tragedy is to watch a once great man losing himself. I watched Greta Gerwig’s Little Women again recently and Beth said something that was a really fitting description for Antony, “It’s like the tide, when it turns it goes slowly—but it can’t be stopped”. Antony’s fortune has turned. It’s like the tide going out and cannot be stopped.

• He’s losing ability as a soldier. Caesar was a child with no experience in war when they fought together against Cassius and Brutus. Yet now he has completely defeated Antony.

• He feels that authority is slipping through his fingers and he’s losing command. Antony sends his children’s schoolmaster as an ambassador to Caesar after the defeat. Not long ago Antony would have ordered kings around and sent them unnecessarily as messengers. Now he only has a humble schoolmaster to send. He also gets angry because even his own servants wouldn’t obey his command. He has lost his authority over kings and the Roman empire.

• There is a lot of emphasis on the youth of Caesar. Antony as a middle-aged man is acutely aware of himself getting old.

• He loses the loyalty of many followers to Caesar.

His men leave him one by one throughout the play. Ultimately Caesar wants to alienate Antony and Cleopatra, ‘From Antony win Cleopatra’. He does it obviously for political reasons. But emotionally, this is Antony’s weakest point. He’s been extremely patient, kind and generous to his soldiers and officers who betray him. But when it comes to Cleopatra, it’s a completely different matter. When his schoolmaster comes back from Caesar, this is the message:

ANTONY
Is that his answer?

AMBASSADOR
Ay, my lord.

ANTONY
The queen shall then have courtesy, so she
Will yield us up.

AMBASSADOR
He says so.

ANTONY
Let her know’t.
To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,
And he will fill thy wishes to the brim
With principalities.
(Act 3 Scene 13)

It’s super interesting just to compare those two short speeches of Antony – they’re right next to each other. The message literally says that Caesar promises to treat Cleopatra with compassion provided that she gives Antony up. Antony immediately interprets it as, send this ‘grizzled head’ as in this head with grey hair, to the ‘boy Caesar’, he emphasises age twice in direct contrast, then Caesar will fulfil your every queenly wish. A plain message from Caesar gets elaborated immediately with Antony’s greatest fears – he’s getting old and he’s losing power and glory. Antony is insecure. Will Cleopatra love him and be loyal to him? Or will she give him up to the boy Caesar for her own future and safety?

The heaviest blow comes when Antony believes Cleopatra has actually betrayed him to Caesar. He becomes REALLY angry. Antony is angry twice in the play, both because he believes that Cleopatra is unfaithful to him. He calls her ‘This foul Egyptian’, ‘Triple-turn’d whore’, ‘this false soul of Egypt’, ‘the greatest spot of all thy sex’.

ANTONY
The witch shall die.
To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall
Under this plot. She dies for’t.
(Act 3 Scene 14)

Many people have betrayed him by this point, even Enobarbus. But he’s not angry with any of them. He’s mad with anger here because he’s really hurt. It hurts him deep because he really loves her and he thinks he has lost everything to the Roman boy. When his anger is spent, he looks at the clouds in the sky and says,

ANTONY
My good knave Eros, now thy captain is
Even such a body. Here I am Antony,
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen—
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,
Which, whilst it was mine, had annex’d unto’t
A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has
Pack’d cards with Caesar, and false-play’d my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph.
Nay, weep not, gentle Eros. There is left us
Ourselves to end ourselves.
(Act 4 Scene 14)

This is way sadder than when he dies in Cleopatra’s arms. I think this is the lowest point in Mark Antony’s life; he is defeated, lost and unloved.

• He’s also losing judgement.

Here’s an example from my favourite scene, Act 3 Scene 13. Just to be clear, it’s not my favourite because it’s lovely, but because it’s fascinating! This is after the first naval defeat, Antony sends his schoolmaster to Caesar to beg for mercy but as we have seen, he only gets uncertainty. Caesar does an excellent job of alienating Antony and Cleopatra, firstly by sending that message to say ‘the queen shall have courtesy, if she will yield you up’; secondly by sending a messenger called Thidias.

Thidias says to Cleopatra, Caesar is merciful and he wants to be your friend. Cleopatra as the queen of a nation recently defeated, replies submissively and I think politically wisely, that

CLEOPATRA
Most kind messenger,
Say to great Caesar this in deputation:
I kiss his conqu’ring hand. Tell him I am prompt
To lay my crown at’s feet, and there to kneel
Till from his all-obeying breath I hear
The doom of Egypt.
(Act 3 Scene 13)

Thidias is very pleased to hear it and thinks he has accomplished his mission.

THIDIAS
Give me grace to lay
My duty on your hand.
(Act 3 Scene 13)

As Thidias kisses her hand, Antony storms in, sees it and immediately asks Thidias to be whipped. I thought poor guy, it’s probably because Antony thinks Cleopatra is doing business with the enemy behind his back. But, not quite, he says the reason three times:

ANTONY
Moon and stars! Whip him.
Were’t twenty of the greatest tributaries
That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them
So saucy with the hand of she here—
(Act 3 Scene 13)

While Thidias is whipped off stage, Antony turns his fury to Cleopatra and abuses her saying really hurtful things by digging up her history with previous lovers.

CLEOPATRA
Wherefore is this?

ANTONY
To let a fellow that will take rewards
And say “God quit you!” be familiar with
My playfellow, your hand, this kingly seal
And plighter of high hearts!
(Act 3 Scene 13)

You let an inferior person kiss your hand! It’s mine! No one else is allowed to touch it! After Thidias is whipped, Antony says

ANTONY
If that thy father live, let him repent
Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry
To follow Caesar in his triumph, since
Thou hast been whipped for following him.
Henceforth
The white hand of a lady fever thee;
Shake thou to look on’t.
(Act 3 Scene 13)

You are whipped because you follow Caesar. From now on, seeing the white hand of a lady will put you into a sweat and make you tremble. What logic. Thidias is whipped, not because he follows Caesar. Enobarbus betrays Antony and follows Caesar, Antony sends all his money after him. Thidias is whipped because his lips touch the wrong hand!

Enobarbus is extremely sharp. As soon as Antony sees Thidias kissing Cleopatra’s hand, Enobarbus has an aside to the audience, “You will be whipped”. And Antony immediately follows with “Take hence the jack and whip him!” And immediately after that, Enobarbus talks to us directly again:

ENOBARBUS
’Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp
Than with an old one dying.

Antony is an old lion dying. He’s angry, he’s frustrated, he fights and he fails. It’s really hard to watch. But to be ruthless for a moment, as a ruler, a defeated ruler, if he still possesses any sense and judgement, would he whip the messenger from the victor on whom his survival depends? Let alone for a pretty legit reason of kissing the hand of a queen.

This is not the only case of Antony losing judgement. This kissing of Cleopatra’s hand comes back in Act 4 Scene 8, which shows again how he cannot judge situations correctly. Antony has an officer called Scarus, who witnesses Cleopatra’s fleeing ships and pours some of the vilest names and curses on her in Act 3 Scene 10. In Act 4 Scene 8, the same Scarus wins a victory for Antony and as they come back to Alexandria, Antony says

ANTONY
Behold this man.
Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand.
Kiss it, my warrior. He hath fought today
As if a god, in hate of mankind, had
Destroy’d in such a shape.

Now Antony’s giving her hand out for his soldier to kiss as a reward. Would Scarus appreciate the honour? Scarus fights for him Antony, the fearless warrior who might have been the idol of Scarus since he was a child. He’s a Roman and he hates this Egyptian woman for the naval defeat, for bewitching his general, for his downfall. He is probably disgusted having to kiss her hand. But Antony thinks it a great honour. The tide of his fortune goes out unstoppably. Antony is an old lion dying. Shakespeare uses the term ‘fortune’ for this downfall. The word appears in the play nearly as often as the word ‘love’. But at the end of the day, what is fortune? Is it something that goes up and down as it wishes and is out of our reach and control? Is Antony’s tragedy inevitable because that’s his fortune? Where does one’s free will come in?