The Shakespeare Book

280

A

ntony and Cleopatra are

not young “star-crossed

lovers” like Romeo and

Juliet. These are mature adults,

both past their “salad days” (1.5.72).

Antony is married to Fulvia, and

yet he is drawn to spending time

with his “Egyptian dish” (2.6.126)

away from his wife in Rome: “I’th

East my pleasure lies” (2.3.38).

Though she is unmarried, Cleopatra

has also loved before: “She made

great Caesar lay his sword to bed. /

He ploughed her, and she cropped.”

(2.2.234–235). The intensity of

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Antony and Cleopatra’s passion for

one another can be overwhelming.

Shakespeare expresses their

hunger, desire, and dependency

upon each other in some of the

most beautiful and heightened

verse to be found anywhere in the

Shakespearean canon. “Age cannot

wither” either of them, for in one

another’s eyes, they are like gods.

Even in death, Antony will remain

like Mars to Cleopatra; following

his suicide she declares that

“there is nothing left remarkable /

Beneath the visiting Moon”

(4.16.69–70). However, their

relationship is far from idyllic.

As a pair, they are heroic, majestic,

and superhuman, but they are also

mean, monstrous, cowardly, and

drunken. Shakespeare presents

IN CONTEXT

THEMES

Love, power, duty, honor,

jealousy, betrayal, death,

desire

SETTING

Rome, Alexandria, Athens

SOURCES

1579 Sir Thomas North’s

translation of Plutarch’s Lives

of the Noble Greeks and

Romans. The play compresses

events that took place over the

space of a decade. Enobarbus

speaks words taken directly

from the source in his

description of Cleopatra

sat on her barge.

LEGACY

1765 The critic Samuel

Johnson writes that the play’s

events were “produced without

any art of connection or care

to disposition.”

1890 Actress Lillie Langtry

plays Cleopatra at the

Princess’s Theatre, London.

1922 Poet T. S. Eliot adapts

Shakespeare’s description of

Cleopatra for The Waste Land.

1934 Soviet playwright

Alexander Tairov’s Egyptian

Nights draws heavily on

Shakespeare’s play.

1966 US composer Samuel

Barber’s operatic version of

the play opens in New York.

1972 American star Charlton

Heston plays Antony in a

heavily adapted film of the play.

1999 Mark Rylance plays

Cleopatra at the Globe, London.

The Egyptian court is portrayed

in the play as luxurious and exotic, and

Antony is drawn inexorably toward

it. The court is imagined here by

Italian artist Francesco Trevisani.