Antony and Cleopatra #

Cleopatra is one of the strongest female characters Shakespeare portrays. Why did he wait until Queen Elizabeth I had died? In many ways they were similar. Like Cleopatra, Elizabeth was strong, used her sexual instincts for politics, has a sharp temper and can be witty.

In the ruthless, ever-expanding empire of Rome, Shakespeare creates an astonishing portrait of a love too great for the world. ’ It is difficult to pigeon hole this play. Is it a romantic comedy, a tragic comedy, a historical tragedy? Perhaps all.

It can be viewed as part of a Roman trilogy: Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra. It is also one of three plays with dual names in Shakespeare’s Plays, the other two, Troilus and Cressida and Romeo and Juliet

Coriolanus, explores the power of military prowess, Julius Caesar, of the power of persuasion, Antony and Cleopatra, the power of love.

The play contrasts the Roman Apollonian culture with the more luxuriant Bacchanalian Egyptian one. In this relaxed carefree atmosphere when Antony become serious, Cleopatra accuses him –

A Roman thought has struck him.

Eternity was in our lips and eyes #

In the ruthless, ever-expanding empire of Rome, Shakespeare creates an astonishing portrait of a love too great for the world. Coriolanus and Julius Caesar assume a finite world with no afterlife. The only way was to gain glory and honour as your legacy.

When Cleopatra wants Antony to tell her how much he loves her:

CLEOPATRA If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

MARK ANTONY There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d.

CLEOPATRA I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

MARK ANTONY Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety:

Cleopatra is defined by her wildly fluctuating mood swings which keep Antony on edge. At times she is coquettish, an enchantress who bewitches Antony throug her wiles, taunts, furious melting, laughter and tears.

She compares My salad days,/When I was green in judgment: cold in blood, later a blown rose, then Antony calls her “a morsel, cold upon Dead Caesar’s trencher, fragment/Of Cneius Pompey’s;”

Octavious promises Cleopatra:

She do defeat us; for her life in Rome
Would be eternal

However, rather than be a trophy for him to display in his triumph in Rome, Cleopatra has the strength and courage to decide how sho wants to die.

There are few scenes of the common people in the play. In Coriolanus, they had agency, in Julius Caesar, participants, but in Antony and Cleopatra we see a decommissioning of human agency and they are reduced to the passivity of spectators.

CLEOPATRA

Now, Iras, what think’st thou?
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
In Rome, as well as I mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
Rank of gross diet, shall be enclouded,
And forced to drink their vapour.

Of the trilogy, this is the only play to assume an afterlife. When Antony is conned to believe Cleopatra is dead he moans:

I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
Weep for my pardon.

Mark Antony #

Shakespeare tends to open his plays with dramatic expositions of other people talking about the main characters. Here one of his friends describes the situation:

PHILO

Nay, but this dotage of our general’s
O’erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o’er the files and musters of the war
Have glow’d like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front: his captain’s heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy’s lust.

[Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her Ladies, the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her]

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.

When a message arrives from Rome, Antony refuses to receive it.

MARK ANTONY

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: the nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair

[Embracing]

And such a twain can do’t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.

John Donne makes a similar point in his famous poem The Sunne Rising where he claims lovers are superior to monarchs:

She’s all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;

This raises the question of how is the world contracted? Social contracts vary. What is ours?

Antony appears to realise that Cleopatra has ensnared him when he says:

I must from this enchanting queen break off

Antony’s dimining stature is evidenced by much of the humour of the play directed against him. While he is cavoting in Egypt, his wife Fulvia proves more heroic in combating the increasing power of Octavious. All allusions to Julius Caesar remind us that Antony doesn’t match up to him. Enobarbarus back chats him. Octavius dominates all negotiations, with Antony giving weak evasive answers and allows himself to marrying Octavia. He is merely an actor with gestures and poses, indicating the stripping of his power. His fleeing the naval battle following Cleopatra’s retreat is pathetic.

MARK ANTONY

The miserable change now at my end
Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
In feeding them with those my former fortunes
Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o’ the world,
The noblest; and do now not basely die,
Not cowardly put off my helmet to
My countryman,–a Roman by a Roman
Valiantly vanquish’d. IV. 15. 51 - 57

CLEOPATRA’S speech on his death does sound genuine:

Noblest of men, woo’t die?
Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty? O, see, my women,

[MARK ANTONY dies]

The crown o’ the earth doth melt. My lord!
O, wither’d is the garland of the war,
The soldier’s pole is fall’n: young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.

Antony is a hero in a post-heroic world. He is torn between duty and love; his responsibility to Rome and his new life in Egypt; to the world he helped conquer; and his passion for Cleopatra.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR Octavious is the youngest in the second triumvirate, in his early thirties here and derives his power from his aides, MECAENAS and AGRIPPA. Mecaenas becomes the patron of the arts and enlists various writers and artists to patriotically promote the image of Rome.

He calls me boy; and chides, as he had power
To beat me out of Egypt; my messenger
He hath whipp’d with rods; dares me to personal combat,
Caesar to Antony:

The times have changed as Octavious refuses to fight with him one on one. Octavious Caesar depends on his subordinates and army to do his work for him.

MARK ANTONY He will not fight with me, Domitius.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS No.

MARK ANTONY Why should he not? IV.2. 1 - 5

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,
He is twenty men to one.

Antony vacillates between hope and dispair - not sure if Cleopatra is with him or has betrayed him:

O! thy vile lady!
She has robb’d me of my sword. IV, vi

Does he feel emasculated?

CLEOPATRA when she realises Antony is dying:

Noblest of men, woo’t die?
Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty? O, see, my women,

[MARK ANTONY dies]

The crown o’ the earth doth melt. My lord!
O, wither’d is the garland of the war,
The soldier’s pole is fall’n: young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.

Suicide is a Roman trait, so Cleopatra has a problem with it:

CLEOPATRA

All’s but naught;
Patience is scottish, and impatience does
Become a dog that’s mad: then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death,
Ere death dare come to us?

Complex, charismatic, fierce. Cleopatra is a mother, a lover, a Queen. A woman not to be defied.

Variously described as an Egyptian dish -

“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood

or in sensual terms of:

Venus or Isis, the goddess who could not die:

As AGRIPPA describes her Octavious’ cruder terms:

“Royal wench She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed: He plough’d her, and she cropp’d”.

This is a play on the biblical words of Isaiah: “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks”. - Making love, not war. Cleopatra dismisses Augustus’ triumph as “owner of so much clay” and refuses to put herself under his shroud choosing a noble death by her own hand.

Powerplays #

Studying Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra, can influence the way we see power. Politics is an arena of power mongering between the two extreme poles; idealistic altruists or self serving plutocrats. In between lie the Pragmatists. The play explores the conflicts in history, politics and love. Did Cleopatra die for love or politics?

Both characters agonise their conflicts in public, rather than privately in a play that has the most scene changes of all Shakespeare’s plays.

We become aware of the role of powerplay in personal dynamics, in national and international governance, We can discern the various strategies practitioners use; tortuous machinations of Realpolitiks, chicanery employed to execute their powerplays.

We also gain a recognition of the importance of language in powerplay as well as the language of love in contrasting passages used by Antony and Cleopatra.

Octavius Caesar is a stringent, disciplined, cunning political strategist, which ultimately leads to his triumph.

The contrast between Apollonian Rome and Bacchanalian Egypt is make quite clear:

CLEOPATRA about Antony:

He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him.

Antony, though once a skilled military leader, is distracted by Cleopatra, which becomes his political downfall. Cleopatra uses her physical beauty and seductive charm to execute her powerplays, wielding power through Antony by proxy.

Quotes from Antony and Cleopatra: #

This play is broad in geographical scope, fast moving, with between 56 -58 widely diverse scene changes.

On Cleopatra: #

AGRIPPA’s crude take:

Royal wench! She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:
He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS more aesthectic taste:

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

On Antony: #

CLEOPATRA:

He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!

MARK ANTONY

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.

I must from this enchanting queen break off:
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch.

ENOBARBUS: on why he should not waste his tears on the death of his former wife who died after assisting her brother in rising up against the tyranny of Octavious.

…and indeed the tears live in an onion
that should water this sorrow.

ANTONY on why he needs to go back to Rome:

our slippery people,
Whose love is never link’d to the deserver
Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
Pompey the Great and all his dignities
Upon his son; who, high in name and power,

CLEOPATRA acknowledging that you can’t trust lovers you have seduced from former wives.

Why should I think you can be mine and true,
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
Which break themselves in swearing!

MARK ANTONY Another reason he needs to return to Rome.

Our Italy
Shines o’er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius
Makes his approaches to the port of Rome:
Equality of two domestic powers
Breed scrupulous faction: the hated, grown to strength,
Are newly grown to love: the condemn’d Pompey,
Rich in his father’s honour, creeps apace,
Into the hearts of such as have not thrived
Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;
And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
By any desperate change: my more particular,

CLEOPATRA after Antony swears his eternal love:

So Fulvia told me.
I prithee, turn aside and weep for her,
Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears
Belong to Egypt: good now, play one scene
Of excellent dissembling; and let it look
Life perfect honour.

CLEOPATRA Threatening Charmian against comparing Antony to Caesar:

By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
If thou with Caesar paragon again
My man of men.

CLEOPATRA Comparing her love of Caesar with that of Antony.

My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then!

Act II Sc. 1 #

POMPEY: confident his cause is just.

If the great gods be just, they shall assist
The deeds of justest men.

POMPEY: Playing on the grievances of the public and unpopularity of the second triumvirate.

I shall do well:
The people love me, and the sea is mine;
My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
Says it will come to the full. Mark Antony
In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make
No wars without doors: Caesar gets money where
He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,
Of both is flatter’d; but he neither loves,
Nor either cares for him.

POMPEY: Confident that Eros will keep Antony from his duty.

But all the charms of love,
Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!
Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both!
Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks
Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite;
That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
Even till a Lethe’d dulness!

POMPEY: On hearing that Antony has come back. Concludes that his threat is enough to lure Antony from the lap of Cleopatra.

I could have given less matter
A better ear. Menas, I did not think
This amorous surfeiter would have donn’d his helm
For such a petty war: his soldiership
Is twice the other twain: but let us rear
The higher our opinion, that our stirring
Can from the lap of Egypt’s widow pluck
The ne’er-lust-wearied Antony.

Scene 2 #

[Enter DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS]

LEPIDUS : Attempts to moderate the rift between Antony and Octavious Caesar:

Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,
And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
To soft and gentle speech.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

I shall entreat him
To answer like himself: if Caesar move him,
Let Antony look over Caesar’s head
And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
Were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard,
I would not shave’t to-day.

LEPIDUS

‘Tis not a time
For private stomaching.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

Every time
Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.

LEPIDUS

But small to greater matters must give way.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

Not if the small come first.

LEPIDUS urges diplomatic language to heal any enmity between the triumvirate.

Noble friends,
That which combined us was most great, and let not
A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss,
May it be gently heard: when we debate
Our trivial difference loud, we do commit
Murder in healing wounds: then, noble partners,
The rather, for I earnestly beseech,
Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
Nor curstness grow to the matter.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS attempts mediate in the dispute, but is quickly silenced by Antony.

when you hear no more words of
Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to
wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

MARK ANTONY Thou art a soldier only: speak no more.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

This situation is parallel to that in King Lear when the Fool is told to stop his advice to the king:

Truth’s a dog must to kennel;
he must be whipped out when
the Lady Brach may stand by th’fire and stink.

AGRIPPA suggests a marriage between Caesar’s sister Octavia and Antony to resolve the conflict:

To hold you in perpetual amity,
To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
With an unslipping knot, take Antony
Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of men;
Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
That which none else can utter. By this marriage,
All little jealousies, which now seem great,
And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
Would then be nothing: truths would be tales,
Where now half tales be truths: her love to both
Would, each to other and all loves to both,
Draw after her.

MARK ANTONY

What power is in Agrippa,
If I would say, ‘Agrippa, be it so,’
To make this good?

OCTAVIUS CAESAR

The power of Caesar, and
His power unto Octavia.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS describes to Agrippa the impression Cleopatra made on Antony’s first meeting. The passage is a near appropriation from Plutarch.

I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion–cloth-of-gold of tissue–
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

AGRIPPA’s crude response is characteristic of militaristic Rome:

Royal wench!
She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:
He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS declaring Antony will never leave Cleopatra:

Never; he will not:
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.

Scene 3 #

Soothsayer to Antony when questioned whose career will prosper:

Caesar’s.
Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:
Thy demon, that’s thy spirit which keeps thee, is
Noble, courageous high, unmatchable,
Where Caesar’s is not; but, near him, thy angel
Becomes a fear, as being o’erpower’d: therefore
Make space enough between you.

MARK ANTONY’s Soliloquy before he sends for his commander, VENTIDIUS

He shall to Parthia. Be it art or hap,
He hath spoken true: the very dice obey him;
And in our sports my better cunning faints
Under his chance: if we draw lots, he speeds;
His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
Beat mine, inhoop’d, at odds. I will to Egypt:
And though I make this marriage for my peace,
I’ the east my pleasure lies.

VENTIDIUS knows his place; that as a subordinate he must not take glory from his superiors.

O Silius, Silius,
I have done enough; a lower place, note well,
May make too great an act: for learn this, Silius;
Better to leave undone, than by our deed
Acquire too high a fame when him we serve’s away.
Caesar and Antony have ever won
More in their officer than person: Sossius,
One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,
For quick accumulation of renown,
Which he achieved by the minute, lost his favour.
Who does i’ the wars more than his captain can
Becomes his captain’s captain: and ambition,
The soldier’s virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
Than gain which darkens him.
I could do more to do Antonius good,
But ’twould offend him; and in his offence
Should my performance perish. III. 1. 13 - 29

Scene 5 #

CLEOPATRA reacts the messenger who tells her that Antony is married to Octavia.

What say you? Hence,

[Strikes him again]

Horrible villain! or I’ll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me; I’ll unhair thy head:

[She hales him up and down]

Thou shalt be whipp’d with wire, and stew’d in brine,
Smarting in lingering pickle.

Messenger Don’t blame the messenger.

Gracious madam,
I that do bring the news made not the match.

CHARMIAN attempts to protect the messenger:

Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:
The man is innocent.

CLEOPATRA Justice is capricious.

Some innocents ‘scape not the thunderbolt.
Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again:
Though I am mad, I will not bite him: call.

Scene 6 #

When the triumvirate and Pompey negoitiate a deal, their advisors reveal their suspicions:

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

There I deny my land service. But give me your
hand, Menas: if our eyes had authority, here they
might take two thieves kissing.

MENAS

All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

But there is never a fair woman has a true face.

MENAS

No slander; they steal hearts.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS

We came hither to fight with you.

MENAS

For my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS predicts that the marriage is doomed.

I think so too. But you shall find, the band that
seems to tie their friendship together will be the
very strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a
holy, cold, and still conversation.

Act III 1 #

VENTIDIUS is aware of hierachies and so avoids outshining his superiors. He has just defeated the Parthians, something Crassus died attempting and Caesar failed to do but Ventidius knows when to stop.

O Silius, Silius,
I have done enough; a lower place, note well,
May make too great an act: for learn this, Silius;
Better to leave undone, than by our deed
Acquire too high a fame when him we serve’s away.
Caesar and Antony have ever won
More in their officer than person: Sossius,
One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,
For quick accumulation of renown,
Which he achieved by the minute, lost his favour.
Who does i’ the wars more than his captain can
Becomes his captain’s captain: and ambition,
The soldier’s virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
Than gain which darkens him.
I could do more to do Antonius good,
But ’twould offend him; and in his offence
Should my performance perish.

Scene 2 #

AGRIPPA [Aside to DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS] showing us Antony’s softer side:

Why, Enobarbus,
When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,
He cried almost to roaring; and he wept
When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.

Scene 4 #

MARK ANTONY confides in Octavia that he feels Agustus is slighting him publically.

Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that,–
That were excusable, that, and thousands more
Of semblable import,–but he hath waged
New wars ‘gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it
To public ear:
Spoke scantly of me: when perforce he could not
But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly
He vented them; most narrow measure lent me:
When the best hint was given him, he not took’t,
Or did it from his teeth.

MARK ANTONY depends on his honour to survive:

Gentle Octavia, Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks Best to preserve it: if I lose mine honour, I lose myself: better I were not yours Than yours so branchless.

Scene 5 #

EROS

Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

EROS tells of how treacherous Caesar has become by failing to keep his oath to both Pompey and Lepidus and plans to take total control.

Caesar, having made use of him in the wars ‘gainst
Pompey, presently denied him rivality; would not let
him partake in the glory of the action: and not
resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly
wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him: so
the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

Scene 6 #

A Quick Cut to Rome

OCTAVIUS CAESAR hears reports that Antony has flown to Cleopatra again.

Contemning Rome, he has done all this, and more,
In Alexandria: here’s the manner of ’t:
I’ the market-place, on a tribunal silver’d,
Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
Were publicly enthroned: at the feet sat
Caesarion, whom they call my father’s son,
And all the unlawful issue that their lust
Since then hath made between them. Unto her
He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
Absolute queen.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR rejects Octavia’s claim that she left Antony willingly to return to Rome.

No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra
Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire
Up to a whore; who now are levying
The kings o’ the earth for war; he hath assembled
Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus,
Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king
Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;
King Malchus of Arabia; King of Pont;
Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king
Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,
The kings of Mede and Lycaonia,
With a more larger list of sceptres.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR attempts to console his sister:

Cheer your heart;
Be you not troubled with the time, which drives
O’er your content these strong necessities;
But let determined things to destiny
Hold unbewail’d their way. Welcome to Rome;
Nothing more dear to me. You are abused
Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods,
To do you justice, make them ministers
Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort;
And ever welcome to us.

Scene 10 #

SCARUS: After many unheeded warnings against a sea battle, Cleopatra, with her sixty sails, flees, soon followed by Antony:

On our side like the token’d pestilence,
Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,–
Whom leprosy o’ertake!–i’ the midst o’ the fight,
When vantage like a pair of twins appear’d,
Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,
The breese upon her, like a cow in June,
Hoists sails and flies.

IV. sc. 8

CLEOPATRA

Lord of lords!
O infinite virtue,

MARK ANTONY

We have beat them to their beds. What, girl!
though grey
Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha’ we
A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
Get goal for goal of youth.

IV. 14.

MARK ANTONY

Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish;
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A tower’d citadel, a pendent rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t, that nod unto the world,
And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen
these signs;
They are black vesper’s pageants.

EROS

Ay, my lord,

MARK ANTONY

That which is now a horse, even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
As water is in water.

Scene 11 #

MARK ANTONY at first feels utterly defeated and accuses Cleopatra of betraying him, but suddenly turns and accepts her as a better reward.

Now I must
To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
With half the bulk o’ the world play’d as I pleased,
Making and marring fortunes. You did know
How much you were my conqueror; and that
My sword, made weak by my affection, would
Obey it on all cause.

CLEOPATRA Pardon, pardon!

MARK ANTONY

Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
All that is won and lost: give me a kiss;
Even this repays me.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR rudely rejects any overtures from Antony or Cleopatra

For Antony,
I have no ears to hs request. The queen
Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she
From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,
Or take his life there: this if she perform,
She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.

THYREUS offers Cleopatra Caesar’s protection if she abandons Antony:

Shall I say to Caesar
What you require of him? for he partly begs
To be desired to give. It much would please him,
That of his fortunes you should make a staff
To lean upon: but it would warm his spirits,
To hear from me you had left Antony,
And put yourself under his shrowd,
The universal landlord.

Antony thanks his soldiers for their personal loyalty to him rather than the Roman Empire.

I thank you all;
For doughty-handed are you, and have fought
Not as you served the cause, but as ’t had been
Each man’s like mine;