Antony and Cleopatra – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Act 1, Scene 1 (983-84, Antony, enjoying his time as a man of the East with Cleopatra, won’t listen to any Roman messengers: at present, she is all that he cares about.)

Antony and Cleopatra are introduced first by Antony’s friends, but almost at once we hear a dialogue between the two lovers. What is their image at this early point? How does the dialogue and presentation of Antony capture the dual impulse that runs through the man’s character? He is both a Roman and, at the same time, a man of the Near East: “Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space” (984, 1.1.34-35). [1]

And what is the illustrious Marcus Antonius doing in this exotic space of his? Well, as he says to Cleopatra, “Tonight we’ll wander through the streets and note / The qualities of people” (984, 1.1.54-55). Neither Philo nor Demetrius, Antony’s friends, are impressed with this sort of carrying on. Demetrius complains that the iconic general, by his strange antics and attitude, “approves the common liar who / Thus speaks of him at Rome” (984, 1.1.61-62).

Act 1, Scene 2 (985-89, Antony hears that his wife Fulvia has died; he resolves to go back to Rome and deal with pressing military and political matters; Enobarbus agrees with Antony about prioritizing war and politics over women.)

Antony is clearly aware of Cleopatra’s influence on him, and admires her whimsicality, excess, and sense for the absolutism of the dilatory moment as opposed to Roman thoughtfulness and adherence to necessity. [2] Enobarbus is just as aware, and he thinks women should not be so highly esteemed in proximity to great political and military matters: as he says, “Under a compelling occasion, let women die” (988, 1.2.135).

Antony’s response to the military movements of Labienus (Roman commander of a Parthian army) and to the death of his wife Fulvia is characteristically complex. With regard to the first issue, he says “These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, / Or lose myself in dotage” (987, 1.2.115-16). As for the second, Antony is riven by genuine sympathy for Fulvia, and yet realizes that he had more or less wished this on her: “What our contempts doth often hurl from us, / We wish it ours again” (988, 1.2.122-23).

By the end of this scene, Antony is determined to make his way back to Rome. Amongst other things, there’s Sextus Pompeius [3] to deal with since this son of Pompey the Great is menacing the Second Triumvirate of Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius by sea (989, 1.2.178-87). Antony evidently feels that he must get Cleopatra’s approval to take care of business, but he admits this freely (989, 1.2.172-74).

In truth, Antony won’t have too much trouble getting that approval from Cleopatra, a fact that is apparent from her insightful remark, “on the sudden / A Roman thought hath struck him” (986, 1.2.80-81). Antony is open to the pleasures and attractions of Egypt, but it’s just as certain that “Roman thoughts” will strike him when that becomes necessary.

Act 1, Scene 3 (989-92, Cleopatra manipulates Antony by accusing him of “acting” and betraying her, but she is a savvy operator herself, and at length gives him permission to get back to Rome.)

Cleopatra manipulates Antony, calling him a dissembler and an actor when it comes to loyalty: “Good now, play one scene / Of excellent dissembling, and let it look / Like perfect honor” (991, 1.3.78-80). And throughout this scene, we see him trying to justify his decision to return to Rome to deal with pressing matters. Cleopatra knows how to speak the language of Roman honor: “Your honor calls you hence” (992, 1.3.98) she says to Antony, and to some extent seems actually to mean it: it’s time to let Antony be Antony. [4]

This scene is subtle in its revelation of what the two lovers know about each other: when Cleopatra declares, “Oh, my oblivion is a very Antony, / And I am all forgotten” (991, 1.3.91-92), Antony’s response is, “But that your royalty / Holds idleness your subject, I should take you / For idleness itself” (991, 1.3.93-95). In other words, he understands that she is just as much an actor as she claims he is: the “eastern extravagance” pose is something that this female Ptolemy (i.e. a Greek) employs to her advantage, not something she can’t help but assume. [5]

Act 1, Scene 4 (992-94, Octavius Caesar airs his complaints about Antony’s reveling and neglect of duty, but also expresses confidence in the man and wants him to return to deal with their mutual antagonists Sextus Pompeius, Menas, and Menecrates.)

Here and elsewhere, we should attend to Caesar’s (Octavius’) view of Antony’s conduct in Egypt. Caesar complains about Antony’s unseemly behavior, and suggests that he, at least (young as he is), knows how to wield power. Caesar references Antony’s longstanding reputation for valor, he feels that this reputation will shame him into returning to the field: “Leave thy lascivious wassails” (993, 1.4.56), he scolds the older man in absentia, and expresses confidence that Antony’s shame at abandoning his Roman manner will “Drive him to Rome” (995, 1.4.73).

Antony’s later admission of neglect (see 999, 2.2.97) won’t go over well with Caesar the corporation man, whose model is Aeneas, with a twist of Machiavellian guile to produce the appearance of piety. It has sometimes been said that Octavius was the leader of Rome, Incorporated. [6]

Act 1, Scene 5 (994-96, Cleopatra’s love for Antony and extravagant view of him only grows while he’s away in Rome; she receives a fine pearl and a message from him and vows to send him letters daily until he returns to Egypt.)

We see another side of Cleopatra here, the one that is truly in love with Antony and would just as well “sleep out this great gap of time” (994, 1.5.5) in his absence. Theirs is not simply a political alliance, it’s more than that, and while Cleopatra’s motives are complex, her connection with Antony is one of the world’s grandest tragic love stories. She muses fondly about him, and mentions her earlier affair with Julius Caesar, who, she is certain, considered her “A morsel for a monarch” (995, 1.5.31).

Cleopatra has an extravagant sense of Antony’s worth, one that fits his sense of himself and that he repays with similar extravagance towards her. Nowhere is this more evident than when she calls him, “The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm / And burgonet of men” (994, 1.5.23-24). We may not see this godlike Antony in action through most of the play, but a genuinely admiring mutual representation bonds the two lovers together, so much so that they will risk all in the service of this reciprocal admiration.

ACT 2

Act 2, Scene 1 (996-97, Sextus Pompeius finds fault with Caesar and Antony and feels confident in his victory against them, though he is troubled by the possibility that they might combine their forces against him.)

Sextus Pompeius, the son of Pompey the Great, thinks the people love him, while he’s convinced that Caesar wins no hearts with his soulless efficiency and that Antony is wasting his strength with Cleopatra in Egypt (996, 2.1.9-16). Sextus has an illustrious father in the late Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus or “Pompey the Great,” [7] a member of the unofficial First Triumvirate from 59-53 BCE along with Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus. The more official “Second Triumvirate” from 43-33 BCE [8] and current in this play is composed of Marcus Antonius or “Antony,” Octavius (grand-nephew and adopted son and heir of Julius Caesar), and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.

Act 2, Scene 2 (997-1003, Octavius confronts Antony over his shortcomings; Agrippa proposes a match between Antony and Octavius’s sister Octavia; Enobarbus describes Cleopatra grandly and forecasts that Antony will return to Egypt for love of her.)

Caesar and Antony confront each other, each bringing his own grievances and assumptions to the table. Caesar’s claims are very ponderous: he tasks Antony with the fact that Fulvia and Antony’s brother stirred up wars against him in Antony’s name (998, 2.2.48-50) and that Antony ignored his messengers while carousing in Alexandria (999, 2.2.78-81).

But worst of all, says Caesar, in refusing to assist him with military supplies and money when required, he has broken faith (999, 2.2.87-89, 95-96). Antony’s admission that he “Neglected, rather” (999, 2.2.97) to keep his word doesn’t go over well with Caesar as Rome’s ultra-steady, responsible corporation man, so to speak: his model is Virgil’s Aeneas, with a twist of Machiavellian guile to produce the appearance of piety.

While Antony goes around behaving like a wild Greek or luxurious Egyptian, Octavius is a high-level antecedent of the 1950s-era boss of “the man in the gray flannel suit”: [9] he thinks of Rome first and does what’s needed to keep the machinery of state running and the coffers full, and thinks others should always bear in mind the same concerns.

Enobarbus is mildly rebuked for trying to butt in, but Agrippa helps resolve the tension between them, at least for the present, by successfully proposing a match between Caesar’s sister Octavia and Antony: “Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side …” (1000, 2.2.126). Dynastic obligation will bring these two men of very different character together and keep them from tearing the country apart, or at least that’s the plan.

Enobarbus then talks with Agrippa and Maecenas, offering us a new image of the famous Cleopatra, one that Shakespeare has borrowed from the historian Plutarch’s Lives, specifically “The Life of Marcus Antonius,” which is Shakespeare’s main source. [10] He describes her almost as a goddess, as a woman beyond description: “The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne / Burned on the water…. / … / For her own person, it beggared all description” (1002, 2.2.203-04, 209-210; see 202-217).

Enobarbus also mentions how savvy Cleopatra is, how well she plays her charms to her advantage, making Antony visit her rather than the other way around (1003, 2.2.231-33). Cleopatra, he knows, exercises a strong hold over Antony’s imagination and passions. She instills a kind of desire that doesn’t lead to satiation (1003, 2.2.249-50), and sanctifies things that would otherwise be vile, beyond the strict Roman sense of appropriateness and inappropriateness: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety” (1003, 2.2.247-48). That capacity is a big part of her attraction—Cleopatra is charismatic and larger than life.

Act 2, Scene 3 (1003-04, Antony promises Octavia that he will behave like a proper husband; a soothsayer tells Antony to stay away from the lucky Octavius Caesar; uneasy, Antony resolves to return to Egypt.)

Antony speaks to a soothsayer, who tells him to stay away from Caesar because this opponent is bound to rise higher than Antony: “If thou dost play with him at any game, / Thou art sure to lose …” (1004, 2.3.24-25). Caesar is almost as much an “evil spirit” for Antony as Julius Caesar was for Brutus on the plain at Philippi in Julius Caesar. [11] In his presence, the great Roman is afraid, unmanned.

Antony knows this, and says of Caesar that “the very dice obey him” (1004, 2.3.32). Fortune seems to be on the younger man’s side, even though Antony is a ladies’ man and ought to be on better terms with Dame Fortune. Antony resolves to return to Egypt: “though I make this marriage for my peace, / I’th’ East my pleasure lies” (1004, 2.3.38-39).

Act 2, Scenes 4-5 (1004-08, Lepidus goes after Sextus Pompeius, and must be late to Misenum and his meeting with the other two triumvirs; Lepidus also tells Maecenas and Agrippa move up the departure dates of Antony and Octavius Caesar; Cleopatra teases absent Antony about their fishing trips, but is then stricken with jealousy when she hears about his marriage to Octavia: she strikes the messenger who gives her this news.)

In the fourth scene, we learn that Lepidus will be late on his way to Misenum where the triumvirate will meet. No doubt we are to understand his lateness as symptomatic of his weak position within the second triumvirate (1004-05, 2.4.1-10).

In the fifth scene, Cleopatra has fun at Antony’s expense, saying that he’s like the great fish she proposes to catch in the Nile: “I’ll think them every one an Antony” (1005, 2.5.14; see lines 10-14). And Charmian reminds Cleopatra of the time when she tricked Antony while they were fishing together, hanging an already dead fish on his hook for him to haul in (1005, 2.5.15-18).

Cleopatra seems to delight in stealing from Antony his masculine symbolic power (the sword with which he earned victory against the conspirators Brutus and Cassius, who killed his friend Julius) and donning it herself: she recounts how she drank him to bed and then “put my tires and mantles on him, whilst / I wore his sword Philippan” (1005, 2.5.22-23).

Cleopatra soon learns that Antony will marry Octavia, and this causes her to strike the messenger (1006, 2.5.62), but then invites him to inform her about Octavia’s looks (1007, 2.5.112-15).

Act 2, Scene 6 (1008-11, Sextus Pompeius reconciles with Octavius Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus and accepts their peace terms; Menas and Enobarbus trade wisdom on Sextus as well as Octavius Caesar and Antony—they don’t see Antony’s marriage to Octavia bringing these two men closer together.)

Sextus Pompeius makes a deal with Caesar in which he’s to take Sicily and Sardinia, but rid the seas of piracy and send wheat to Rome (1009, 2.6.34-39). He reconciles with Caesar and Antony, and Menas says to Enobarbus, “Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune” (1010, 2.6.103). Enobarbus, for his part, says that Antony “will to his Egyptian dish again. Then shall the / sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar” (1011, 2.6.122-23; see 121-26). Enobarbus realizes that the marriage with Octavia is purely a matter of convenience. Antony’s heart is in Egypt with Cleopatra, and that is where he will return.

Act 2, Scene 7 (1011-14, Antony wins a drinking contest with Lepidus and Octavius; Sextus Pompeius puts honor before power and loses the respect of Menas, who has suggested to him that if only he would murder his guests, he could be master of Rome and much of the rest of the world besides.)

Lepidus, the weakest member of the second triumvirate, is made quite drunk at the meeting between the three and their attendants at Misenum. Antony makes sport of him by answering his silly questions about crocodiles with ludicrous tautologies: he tells Lepidus, the crocodile “is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath / breadth” (1012, 2.7.43-44).

Meanwhile, Sextus Pompeius shows himself to be so indebted to the concept of Roman honor that it prevents him from taking Menas’ advice: why not simply invite the triumvirs on board his ship and kill them? (1013, 2.7.71-74) Pompeius says that the man ought to have done this without telling him about it (1013, 2.7.75-77). Menas loses faith in Pompeius because of this rigidity—such an opportunity, he knows, will not come again: “Who seeks and will not take when once ‘tis offered / Shall never find it more” (1013, 2.7.83-84).

Scene 7 shows the triumvirs’ attitude towards drinking. As the saying goes, in vino veritas. We find out that Lepidus can’t hold his liquor, which suggests that he lacks self-mastery and is a follower, not a leader. Antony, by contrast, bows to nobody as a wassailer, and Caesar would just as well stay sober (1013, 2.7.98-100, 102-03). It’s obvious that he is determined to keep his wits about him, and is more responsible in his relationship to power than Antony. Judgments are being made in this scene about who is a “real Roman” and who is most likely to succeed.

We have seen how other Romans accuse Antony of “turning on, tuning in, and dropping out,” to adapt a line from the 1960’s guru Timothy Leary. [12] But at this point in the play, Antony seems the strong master of revels. His range of experience and his appeal to others extends beyond Roman austerity and severity. In his openness to experience, Antony is more of an Odyssean Greek than a Roman. [13]

But as T. S. Eliot writes in his 1921 essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” “only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” [14]

ACT 3

Act 3, Scene 1 (1014-15, Ventidius, victorious for Antony’s cause, tells us about the Roman political star system: subordinates must not upstage their commanders; Antony is coming to Athens.)

We might take the first few scenes as a commentary on Roman values. Ventidius in Syria has returned in triumph, having defeated the Parthians who had done so much harm to Roman armies. But he doesn’t pursue the Parthians simply because doing so would mean upstaging his commanding officer, Antony: “I have done enough. A lower place, note well, / May make too great an act” (1015, 3.1.12-13). In a fiercely competitive Roman political universe, there is something like a star system in place: subordinates do not upstage their betters, if they know what’s good for them.

Act 3, Scene 2 (1015-17, Caesar and Octavia express their sadness at parting; Antony sets out for Athens with Octavia; Enobarbus, a realist, says he believes that Antony’s grief over Julius Caesar’s and Brutus’s death alike was sincere, but also that the man acts now with savvy political objectives.)

Octavia weeps, and Caesar is sad at parting (1015, 3.2.3-6). Enobarbus undercuts the notion put forth by Agrippa that Antony wept without complication not only at the death of Julius Caesar but even at the death of the assassin Marcus Brutus: he says, “What willingly he did confound he wailed, / Believe’t, till I wept too” (1017, 3.2.58-59). Shakespeare seems concerned to remind us that we are dealing with historical events that have become shaded over with mythology, and the view he prefers at some points is the practical Roman perspective we find in Enobarbus’s clear-eyed statements. [15]

What Enobarbus is suggesting is that Antony’s grief over the death of Caesar was no doubt sincere but also that his political wheels were spinning all the while, and the subject to be determined was how, exactly, Antony was going to position himself in the wake of this sad event.

Act 3, Scene 3 (1017-18, Cleopatra rewards the messenger for reporting that she’s better looking than Octavia.)

Cleopatra finds out that Octavia isn’t as beautiful as she—in fact, interprets Cleopatra from what the messenger says, she is “Dull of tongue, and dwarfish” (1018, 3.13.16). Cleopatra now rewards the messenger she had earlier struck.

Act 3, Scene 4 (1018-19, War begins to brew between Antony and an increasingly oppositional Octavius Caesar; Antony allows Octavia to head for Rome so she can try to mend this tear in the fabric of his partnership with Octavius.)

War is brewing between Caesar and Antony, the latter of whom details his grievances to Octavia: Caesar, he says, has “waged / New wars ’gainst Pompey; made his will and read it / To public ear; spoke scantly of me …” (1018-19, 3.4.3-5). Antony agrees that Octavia might be helpful as a go-between, and he seems genuine in his desire that she should follow her heart in choosing sides, if that should become necessary: “Make your soonest haste, / So your desires are yours” (1019, 3.4.27-28, see 20-28).

Act 3, Scene 5 (1019-20, Caesar has arrested Lepidus, so he and Antony determine their areas of control of the Roman Empire; Antony prepares his navy to sail to Italy.)

Lepidus and Caesar have made war against Pompeius, and then Caesar has arrested Lepidus (1019, 3.5.10-11).

Act 3, Scene 6 (1020-22, Caesar is angry at Antony’s outrageous Egyptian self-crowning and at his treatment of Octavia: she arrives in Rome and only then is she informed that Antony has left Athens and gone back to Egypt.)

In the sixth scene, Caesar is outraged when Antony and Cleopatra crown themselves in Asiatic splendor (1020, 3.6.3-5). The Roman people know of this, says Caesar (1020, 3.6.23-24), who also declares himself annoyed that Octavia has come to visit him without the appropriate ceremony. (1021, 3.6.43-47)

Caesar’s contempt for Antony’s conduct shows most when he says of the man, “He hath given his empire / Up to a whore” (1021, 3.6.67-68). Well, Caesar had agreed to the match between his rival and Octavia readily enough in spite of his reservations about Antony’s character. Now he invites Octavia to stay on his side, suggesting that Antony has betrayed her: “You are abused / Beyond the mark of thought” (1022, 3.6.88-89).

Act 3, Scene 7 (1022-24, Cleopatra takes offense at Enobarbus’ suggestion to stay out of the wars; Antony goes against the advice of his military commanders and, with Cleopatra’s encouragement, he decides to fight Octavius Caesar by sea; Antony is surprised at the speed and efficiency of Caesar’s forces.)

Enobarbus tells Cleopatra to stay out of the wars, and she’s insulted at the suggestion, especially his remark that her “presence needs must puzzle Antony” (1022, 3.7.10). She insists, all the same, that she will take part in Antony’s wars, and, she says, “A charge we bear i’th’ war, / And as the president of my kingdom will / Appear there for a man” 1023, 3.7.16-18). She is a ruler and doesn’t accept the role of a “weak woman.”

Antony now makes the disastrous decision to fight Caesar by sea because the latter has dared him to do so. Enobarbus is aghast at this un-Roman impracticality, at this preference for chance and hazard instead of security (1023, 3.7.35-41).

Perhaps Antony is foolhardy, but he’s also honorable and noble; power sits lightly upon his shoulders. The hair of wise and responsible rulers turns gray quickly, but one senses that such a transformation isn’t likely to overtake Mark Antony. He’s too reckless to be weighed down by the demands of power, and prefers an unstable alliance between honor and hazard to a more stable one of the sort Enobarbus would counsel, and Caesar would certainly maintain. [16]

At the end of the scene, Antony seems surprised at how briskly Caesar’s forces are moving into position (1023-24, 3.7.57-61). The men around Antony (Camidius in particular) feel that since he’s led by a woman, so are they: “we are women’s men” (1024, 3.7.71).

Act 3, Scenes 8-10 (1024-26, Caesar keeps his forces from starting any land battles; Antony prepares his navy squadrons for the offshore fight; Cleopatra’s fleet turns around and flees the battle, and Antony follows her back to land; Camidius decides to desert, but Enobarbus stays on for the time being.)

Caesar and Antony strategize, and it’s clear that the former is all about maintaining control over events: “Strike not by land… / … Do not exceed / The prescript of this scroll” (1024, 3.8.3-5). By the tenth scene, we hear that the Egyptian fleet has cut and run (1025, 3.10.1-3).

Scarus laments that Antony’s Romans have “kissed away / Kingdoms and provinces” (1025, 3.10.7-8) The charge is that Antony is irresponsible in his deployment of military power. He has allowed his love of Cleopatra to blind him to sound counsel, and Scarus laments, “Experience, manhood, honor ne’er before / Did violate so itself” (1025, 3.10.22-23). Incredibly, Antony has followed Cleopatra’s shameful retreat at the first sign of danger. [17]

This kind of mistake has consequences. Camidius decides that he might as well go over to Caesar since Antony has lost control over his own destiny (932, 3.10.32-34). Enobarbus knows what Camidius knows, but still can’t bring himself to abandon his commander: “I’ll yet follow / The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason / Sits in the wind against me” (1026-27, 3.10.34-36).

Act 3, Scene 11 (1026-27, a despairing Antony recognizes his grave mistake and the loss of his identity as the legend “Marc Antony”; he is furious with Cleopatra, but pardons her for a kiss.)

Antony is horrified—“I have fled myself…” (1027, 3.11.7) and “I have offended reputation, / A most unnoble swerving” (1027, 3.11.48-49), he says, understanding that he has thrown away everything he worked for. What makes the situation even more intolerable is Caesar’s relative lack of martial skill and experience. Antony reminds us that it was he who killed his friend Julius’ assassins while the fledgling stood by: “He at Philippi kept / His sword e’en like a dancer …” (1026, 3.11.35-36). Antony has been a world-historical actor, and now his star is eclipsed by a lesser man, at least in his view.

Antony is at first furious with Cleopatra, but reconciles with her almost immediately. When she asks pardon, he grants it, considering himself well repaid with a kiss (1027, 3.11.69-71). He evidently places Cleopatra above victory on the battlefield.

Act 3, Scene 12 (1027-28, Antony petitions Caesar to allow him to live in Egypt, but Caesar turns his petition down; Cleopatra behaves submissively towards Caesar, who, sending Thidias to negotiate with her, demands that she send Antony into exile or kill him outright.)

Antony sends his schoolmaster to treat with Caesar (1027, 3.12.2-6). Cleopatra says she will submit to Caesar and wishes only to remain Queen of Egypt, and while Caesar disregards Antony’s request to live in Egypt, he orders that the queen be comforted and promised all she wants, so long as she either exiles or kills Antony (1028, 3.12.19-24). He supposes this shift will work because women, as far as he is concerned, are infinitely malleable under the pressure of circumstance. [18]

Act 3, Scene 13 (1028-33, Enobarbus blames Antony for the military disaster, but still can’t bring himself to desert his commander; Antony offers Caesar an absurd challenge to single combat; Cleopatra cooperates with Caesar; Antony tries to recover what Caesar “knew [he] was,” orders Caesar’s messenger whipped, and rages at Cleopatra, though he again reconciles with her; Enobarbus finally decides to desert Antony.)

Enobarbus won’t blame Cleopatra. He says Antony has made “his will / Lord of his reason” (1028, 3.13.3-4). Antony absurdly challenges Caesar to single combat (1029, 3.13.25-28). Enobarbus is stunned, and feels that Antony has been entirely bereft of sound judgment: “Mine honesty and I begin to square” (1029, 3.13.41).

Enobarbus continues to mull his relationship with Antony, and thinks his loyalty will earn him a place in the story books, so to speak: by sticking with Antony, he’ll “conquer” the man who defeated that noble Roman. The loyal friend who does this, he suggests, “earns a place i’th’ story” (1029, 3.13.46; see 41-46). This might be labeled a metadramatic concern because Shakespeare himself is clearly interested in how legends become enmeshed with history.

Much of this play (to borrow a phrase from the New Historians) [19] is about a kind of “self-fashioning” that, if successful, becomes the narrative by which we know the boldest among the ancients. Even in Antony and Cleopatra’s own time, mythmaking was at work, and so were its critics.

Cleopatra seems to be going along with Caesar’s program, flattering him with the words “He is a god and knows / What is most right” (1030, 3.13.60-61), while her lover is still saying “I am / Antony yet” (1031, 3.13. 93-94). Antony wants to re-embrace his identity as a valorous Roman commander, and orders Caesar’s messenger soundly whipped (1031, 3.13.94).

Soon, Antony’s anger again turns towards Cleopatra in the memorable line, “You have been a boggler ever” (1031, 3.13.111), whom he accuses of latching onto and manipulating famous Roman men like Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and himself to enhance her own power, which rests on the different and most un-Roman basis of alliance with divine splendor and awe. “I found you as a morsel cold upon / Dead Caesar’s trencher” (1031, 3.13.117-18), he scolds Cleopatra.

Without a doubt, the Queen of Egypt is the leader of an ancient personality cult, and while her stylistic affinity with Antony’s grandiose dimension is obvious, he now professes to find the whole affair disgusting. Above all, he says, Cleopatra lacks “temperance” and indeed that she doesn’t even know the meaning of the word (1031, 3.13.122-23).

Antony’s anger also flows toward Caesar for “harping on what I am, / Not what he knew I was” (1032, 3.13.144-45). Antony supposes that the reputation he has justly won entitles him to the continued respect and esteem of those who have overcome him. The scene’s conclusion shows Antony reconciling yet again with Cleopatra (who after all seems to represent a tendency within him), and regains his composure: “I am satisfied,” he declares (1033, 3.13.169).

Antony calls for a night of drinking and celebration on the eve of the final battle to recover his lost glory: “I and my sword will earn our chronicle. / There’s hope in’t yet” (1033, 3.13.177-78). He may yet win at Alexandria.

This strange recovery on Antony’s part is the last straw for Enobarbus: “When valor preys on reason, / It eats the sword it fights with” (1033, 3.13.200-01), says Enobarbus, and decides it’s time to desert his old commander at the earliest opportunity.

ACT 4

Act 4, Scenes 1-6 (1033-38, Caesar scorns Antony’s personal challenge, and readies his forces for battle; Antony is elegiac but resolute, asking his servants to stay with him yet a while; Antony’s guards hear music and believe it means his patron Hercules is now abandoning him; Cleopatra and Eros help Antony don his armor; Antony is told that Enobarbus is gone, but he is magnanimous towards him, even sending the man’s treasure to Caesar’s camp; Caesar shows the nature of his new world order by his ruthless military arrangements; Enobarbus now despises himself for leaving Antony, and determines to die.)

These brief scenes convey the contrasting attitudes and reactions on the part of Antony and Caesar to towards the coming battle. Antony is at times elegiac in tone, as in the second scene: “Perchance tomorrow / You’ll serve another master” (1035, 4.2.27-28), he tells his men, and “I hope well of tomorrow…” (1035, 4.2.42), to the dismay of Enobarbus.

In the third scene, a soldier takes a noise to be Hercules abandoning Antony (1035, 4.3.21-22), which is especially significant since Antony’s family claimed descent from that demigod. [20]

In the fourth scene, Antony seems resolute: he will bring the willing to the battle, and wishes Cleopatra could behold him in all his splendor: “That thou couldst see my wars today, and knew’st / The royal occupation” (1036, 4.4.16-17).

In the fifth scene, Antony learns that Enobarbus has deserted him, and realizes that his “fortunes have / Corrupted honest men” (1037, 4.5.16-17). He says these words to Eros and not in soliloquy, but they seem heartfelt.

In the sixth scene, Caesar declares that “the time of universal peace is near” (1038, 4.6.5), yet without compunction he also betrays the true nature of this new world order: he advises his lieutenant to place units recently revolted from Antony at the forefront, so that in the first rounds of the battle, Antony will be killing his own men (1038, 4.6.8-11).

Enobarbus has now come to realize that he has destroyed his self-image in abandoning Antony: “I am alone the villain of the earth …” (1038, 4.6.31). When Antony generously sends him his treasure from camp, the desolation of Enobarbus is complete. He resolves to die as quickly and wretchedly as possible: “I will go seek / Some ditch wherein to die” (1038, 4.6.38-39).

Act 4, Scenes 7-11 (1038-41, Antony enjoys a win and marches through Alexandria to celebrate; Enobarbus dies, filled with bitter remorse; Caesar will fight Antony by sea again.)

So far, Antony’s desperate gambit shows signs of success since, Caesar seems to have overextended his forces (1038, 4.7.1-3), and Eros is able to announce to Antony, “They are beaten, sir” (1039, 4.8.11). For the moment, Caesar has been driven back to his camp, a fact that Antony trumpets in the ninth scene, with special instructions to inform the queen of this great feat (1039, 4.8.2).

In Scene 9, Enobarbus dies reasserting his admiration for Antony: “Forgive me in thine own particular, / But let the world rank me in register / A master-leaver and a fugitive,” he prays, and his beloved general’s name is the last word he utters. (1040-41, 4.10.21-23). Friendship between men, or amicitia perfecta, [21] was among the highest Roman values, and it is this value that Enobarbus realizes he has sordidly betrayed.

In Scene 11, Caesar announces that he will fight Antony at sea one last time (1041, 4.11.1-4).

Act 4, Scene 12 (1041-42, the Egyptian fleet again cuts and runs, deserting Antony, who becomes enraged with Cleopatra and even says he means to kill her.)

The Egyptian fleet again deserts Antony (1042, 4.12.9-13), even going over to Caesar’s side. Upon this betrayal, Antony declares Cleopatra a “Triple-turned whore” (1042, 4.13.13) and himself betrayed and finished, defeated by a cowardly queen and a journeyman politician: “O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more. / Fortune and Antony part here” (1042, 4.13.18-19). He is so infuriated with her that he seethes, “The witch shall die” (1042, 4.13.47) and for a moment imagines her at the mercy of the Roman plebeians (1042, 4.13.33-34).

Act 4, Scenes 13 (1043, Charmian advises the frightened Cleopatra to hide inside one of her monuments and play dead to avoid Antony’s wrath.)

Charmian advises Cleopatra to hide in a monument, and send false word of her death. The Queen agrees. (1043, 4.13.3-4).

Act 4, Scene 14 (1043-46, Antony hears, and believes, that Cleopatra has committed suicide, and botches his own suicide attempt when Eros refuses to follow his order to assist him; he now learns that Cleopatra is still alive, and requests that he be conveyed to her; Dercetas takes Antony’s sword to ingratiate himself with Caesar.)

Antony continues to lament what he considers Cleopatra’s betrayal, admitting that he “made these wars” for no one but Egypt and her (1043, 4.15.15). When he hears that she has supposedly committed suicide, however, he is again instantly reconciled: “I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and / Weep for my pardon” (1044, 4.15.44-45). She has shown him the way in conquering herself, he thinks (1044, 4.15.57-62), and thereupon makes a botched attempt to fall on his sword after his servant Eros commits suicide rather than assist his master in dying (1045, 4.15.93-94).

Nobody will help Antony end his life, and Dercetas even takes his sword as a token with which to ingratiate himself with Caesar (1046, 4.15.112-14).

Act 4, Scene 15 (1047-49, Antony is hoisted into the monument, and he and Cleopatra are together one last time; while he is dying, she plans to leave the world in the Roman way.)

Antony and Cleopatra are together for one final scene, and when he tries to get her to seek safety and honor in Caesar, she bravely points out that “honor” and “safety” don’t go together (1048, 4.15.49). That has long been the creed Antony has followed, for better or for worse. Antony falls back on the classical notion that glory is a matter of what your peers and descendants think of you. [22] His wretched present, he trusts, will not blot out the glorious remembrance he has earned by his brave deeds in the past: “please your thoughts / In feeding them with those my former fortunes …” (1048, 4.16.54-55; see 53-61).

Moments later, Antony dies. Cleopatra says that she and Charmian, too, will evade the clutches of Caesar. They will exit the world instead “after the high Roman fashion / And make death proud to take us” (1049, 4.16.91-92).

ACT 5

Act 5, Scene 1 (1049-51, Caesar, though ruthless, is genuinely saddened by Antony’s death; he tells Proculeius to deceive Cleopatra and thereby preserve her for an eventual spot in his triumph.)

When Dercetas informs Caesar that Antony is dead, he seems genuinely saddened: “The breaking of so great a thing should make / A greater crack!” (1049, 5.1.14-15) Antony lived prodigiously, and yet his passing has been noted as if it were a thing of nothing, no ceremony. Caesar may not be much of a pageantry promoter, but he shows some regard for the rites due to honor. His sense of loss seems sincere, and he regrets what his need to maintain and increase his power has supposedly forced him to do (1050, 5.1.35-48). Which doesn’t, of course, mean that he wouldn’t do it again in a heartbeat.

Caesar serves political expediency as his master, but this doesn’t give us the right to say he’s a mere hypocrite: it is not unreasonable to suggest that his strength consists partly in the attitude he takes up towards what his station as a public man leads him to do. His ruthless actions are taken in the name of “universal peace” and the greater glory of Rome. He sometimes deceives others about the nature of what he does, but he doesn’t deceive himself about the disjunction between his ideals and his deeds. [23]

We see all this in the way he treats Cleopatra: he bids Proculeius to treat the queen kindly and make her what promises he finds suitable, but this is only a shift to bring her in triumph to Rome, where she will be an object of mockery for the rabble: “For her life in Rome / Would be eternal in our triumph” (1050, 5.1.65-66; see 61-68).

Act 5, Scene 2 (1051-60, Cleopatra exalts Antony as a hero; Proculeius gives her Caesar’s reassuring message, but then Roman soldiers capture her; Dolabella warns her of Caesar’s plan to bring her in triumph to Rome, and she determines to meet Antony in death; Caesar asks Cleopatra for an inventory of her wealth, which she lies about, only to be exposed; a rustic clown brings Cleopatra a basket of figs that conceals a poisonous asp; she makes the snake bite her; Iras dies by snakebite, and then Cleopatra succumbs; guards come in as Charmian dies; Caesar says Antony and Cleopatra should be buried alongside each other.)

Cleopatra is refashioning herself as heroic in the Roman manner, as one determined to take her own life. We might suppose this is a matter of adopting a style; but then, Cleopatra takes style quite seriously, and her Pharaonic self-fashioning is no light matter. It wouldn’t be right to take that quality away from her. She is surrounded by Caesar’s soldiers, and now determines that she willnot become the sport of the vulgar in Rome: “Shall they hoist me up / And show me to the shouting varletry / Of censuring Rome?” (1052, 5.2.54-56)

In the presence of Dolabella, Cleopatra refashions and aggrandizes Antony to the point of deification, musing, “I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony” and “His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm / Crested the world …” (1053, 5.2.75, 81-82; see 81-91, 95-99). She has always shown this propensity to exalt the deeds and reputation of Antony, but now that death is closing in, her efforts intensify and take on heightened significance. This is the “Antony” to whom Cleopatra will soon attempt to return in Elysium, reunited there as an even grander couple than they were on earth.

Dolabella plays an honorable role, forewarning Cleopatra of the shameful fate that awaits her in just three days (1053-54, 5.2.99ff).

Caesar enters and plays both gracious conqueror and vicious threatener of Cleopatra’s progeny, if she should follow Antony’s self-destructive course (1054, 5.2.123-32). When Seleucis betrays Cleopatra over holding back some treasure from Caesar (1054, 5.2.147), she is shocked, which reaction suggests that she still doesn’t understand the dynamics of power: people obey those in whom they find real, actionable strength. They don’t long obey those who have only majesty and divine pomp to back their rule.

Cleopatra resents being “worded” by Caesar (1055, 5.2.190-91), and loathes the prospect that he will, as she puts it, let “Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness, / I’th’ posture of a whore” (1056, 5.2.218-19). [24] She has always been an actor, but in her proper sphere as Egyptian Queen, acting the part of a goddess correlated with the exercise of power. In Rome, what had been world-historical drama would be reduced to an entertaining farce for the multitude.

Cleopatra declares that there will be a final meeting with Antony in death. She declares, “I am again for Cydnus / To meet Mark Antony” (1056, 5.2.227-28). It is noteworthy that the place name refers to her initial seduction of Antony in 41 BCE, when he summoned her to Tarsus and she floated down the river Cydnus on that famous barge we recall from Enobarbus’ description. [25] Cleopatra will achieve this meeting—essentially a return to an initial triumph—by casting off the supposed weakness of her sex: “I have nothing / Of woman in me” (1057, 5.2.237-38).

In comes the Clown, with his prayer that Cleopatra may find “all joy of the worm” or Nile serpent he has brought her (1057, 5.2.257). It’s worth considering why—aside from the obvious, which is that such an unimportant fellow should easily avoid the attentions of the Roman guards—Shakespeare has chosen to present Cleopatra with her death in this semi-comic, bizarre rustic. Perhaps it has something to do with the utter strangeness of each person’s ending, at least to that person.

The Clown’s presence may also have to do with the fact that as Cleopatra lived and risked all for an erotic affair, the Clown’s patently phallic references (his puns on “dying” as orgasm in particular at 1057, 5.2.244-46, 248-55) end up being as relevant as they are indecorous and impertinent on his part. A third consideration is that the Clown presents the queen with one last challenge to her royal and wished-for divine dignity.

Be all that as it may, Cleopatra meets her death bravely, calling upon Antony to witness her masculine courage, saying, “I have / Immortal longings in me,” and “I am fire and air. My other elements / I give to baser life” (1058, 5.2.276-77, 285-86). [26] She dies at (1058, 5.2.309), Iras having preceded her just moments before. [27]

Caesar, whom Cleopatra considers almost with her last breath an “ass / Unpolicied” (1058, 5.2.303-04) for allowing her to make away with herself, enters the scene after her death and declares it noble and an act of loyalty to Antony. He ratifies Charmian’s dying words that Cleopatra’s death is “well done and fitting for a princess / Descended of so many royal kings” (1059, 5.2.322-23), and agrees to bury her next to Antony, apparently recognizing the high tragedy of their doomed love match, the “pity” of which equals the “glory” of his current status as military victor and his future as Rome’s sole ruler (1060, 5.2.354-62).

There’s dignity in sublime failure, it seems, as well as in the establishment of peace and long-continued rule. “Rome, Incorporated” will have its shiny new CEO, and for Augustus Caesar, apotheosis to heaven can wait. Both Antony and Cleopatra and Octavius Caesar are great in their respective ways, but the former are crushed by the modern world in which Octavius moves more deftly, if not with the same tragic glory.

Antony and Cleopatra’s manner of dying, and Caesar’s of living and governing, together show a clash of value systems, a fissure in the concept of Romanness. The play doesn’t condemn either system, although it shows the consequences and historical import of both: modern, material politics wins. We should bear in mind the strangeness of the final two acts’ tragic arc: Antony’s sudden condemnations and reconciliations, Cleopatra’s dissembling and final adoption of Roman heroism, Caesar’s recognition of the lasting narrative value of the great pair he has hounded to their demise.

Throughout the play, Antony and Cleopatra have been both each other’s downfall and salvation: in the end, Cleopatra’s initial false suicide taught Antony to do the right thing in earnest, and that suicide, in turn, led Cleopatra to exit the world’s stage like the hybrid Egyptian Queen and antique Roman she had become.

There is just the hint of an imperfectly realized romance pattern in Antony and Cleopatra: we might say that this hint is to be found in the fourth act when the royal couple are forced to attempt a transition from the loss of supreme power to a more perfect union as lovers. It’s true that this play, in terms of Shakespeare’s chronology, is crafted at the tail end of his so-called dark period and on the cusp of the romance plays that round off his career. [28]

Romance, however, entails selective survival: even as it provides second chances and near-miraculous reconciliations, instilling in us a sense that the world isn’t quite as harsh as we thought it was, romance requires us to accept the reality that recovery comes only with partial loss and the admission of alterations wrought by time and foolishness. The romance pattern can’t altogether annihilate time or decay, and it doesn’t seem to allow for straightforward exaltation or apotheosis to perfection. In the end, its miracles are profoundly human, and tinged with sorrow and mortality.

The historical record in the case of Antony and Cleopatra, of course, makes the romance pattern impossible: that record tells us of the liquidation of a famous couple at the hands of a power-consolidating ruler in Octavius. Shakespeare takes the two lovers in a different direction more consonant with tragedy. Their persistent, impressive self-mythologizing and image-projecting lends them a measure of larger-than-lifeness, and they place their love beyond any power that Caesar’s politics and armies can wield against them. They ask for immortality, which is more than Shakespearean romance can or will grant.

Antony and Cleopatra remains firmly in the tragic camp since the relentless pursuit by Caesar at last yields the results he’s been aiming for: sole possession of the world’s first superpower, the Roman Empire.

If there’s success for Antony and Cleopatra, it’s that audiences during and since Shakespeare’s time have probably found it difficult to decide between the romantic status of the two great lovers and the historical achievements of the enigmatic Octavius, thereafter to be known as Augustus Caesar.

What we are treated to, then, is not the bittersweet survival and renewal that we encounter in plays such as The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, but instead Antony and Cleopatra’s classical attempt by means of soaring words and exuberant perspectives to attain a new and marvelous love beyond the wreckage that was the end of the Roman Republic, with its proscriptions, assassinations, wars and internecine rivalries, and beyond even the birth of the Empire.

This sounds like a classical apotheosis to the heavens in the manner of ancient Greek heroes who became demigods after their deaths. Such an apotheosis would involve the transposition of a perfect love into another and diviner key: this attempted transformation, at least if we do not grant Cleopatra her metaphysical reunion with Antony, fits the tragic pattern, and we are left with the crushing of a magnificent couple’s last-minute attempts at projecting themselves to a perpetual match in the heavens and thereby escaping their failure in the material world dominated by its “Caesars.”

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93860-9.

ENDNOTES

*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.

[1] It might be said, in anticipation of a contrast between Octavius and Antony, that Antony’s contrarian model of Romanness embraces the supposedly wild, exotic aspects of Egypt without suffering any diminution or deformation on that account. Or at least, that seems to be the case early in the play. But as Rachel Kelly points out in “The Iconography of Mark Antony” a direct download available from the open-access Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network at https://www.ojs.meccsa.org.uk, the ancients, as reflected in Plutarch’s narrative of Antony, might have seen in Antony’s behavior an unacceptable softness (mollitia) and lack of self-control (incontinentia).

[2] On Cleopatra as a Hellenistic Ptolemaic queen, see “Cleopatra the Great: Last Power of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.” ARCE: American Research Center in Egypt. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[3] On Sextus Pompeius, see “Sextus Pompeius: Pirate King.” Ancient Roman History 31 BC – AD 117: Roman Imperial History Teaching Resource. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[4] “Honor” would have been encompassed within the several concepts operative in the unwritten mos maiorum code that reaffirmed traditional Roman values. Wikipedia’s entry mos maiorum aptly covers concepts such as virtus, dignitas, and fides.

[5] For a general study, see Millar, Fergus. The Roman Near East: 31 BC – AD 337. Harvard UP, 1995. ISBN-13: 978-0674778863. On the Internet, see “Roman Egypt.” World History Encyclopedia at worldhistory.org. Accessed 8/23/2024. See also Edward Said’s key postcolonialist study, Orientalism. Vintage, 1979. ISBN-13: 978-0394740676.

On the ancient Roman notion of the east as exotic and undisciplined, see.

[6] The phrase appears in a work by humorist and novelist Stanley Bing. Rome, Inc.: The Rise and Fall of the First Multinational Corporation. W. W. Norton, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0393329452.

[7] On Pompey the Great, or Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, see “Pompey.” World History Encyclopedia at worldhistory.org. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[8] See “First Triumvirate” and “Second Triumvirate.” World History Encyclopedia at worldhistory.org. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[9] Wilson, Sloane. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Da Capo Press, 2002, orig. 1955. ISBN-13: 978-1568582467.

[10] See Plutarch’s Life of Marcus Antonius, 33 Temple Edition Vol. 9, pp. 33-349.

[11] Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 288-343. 334, 4.3.286.

[12] See “Timothy Leary” on Harvard University’s psychology faculty page.

[13] The term “openness to experience” has a Nietzschean quality—the German philosopher valued the wilder, more Dionysian element in the ancient Greeks, seeing it as indispensable for the flourishing of the bright Apollonian element that was more celebrated among nineteenth-century classicists. In this Nietzschean sense, then, Antony seems more “Greek” than Roman.

[14] Eliot, T. S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” (poetryfoundation.org.)

[15] Shakespeare may have had very limited knowledge of the Greeks and Romans in comparison with what is known and reasonably surmised by modern historians, but he made the most of what he had, often casting his ancient characters and societies with an impressive understanding of their political sophistication and complex relationship with their own origin-stories. T. J. B. Spencer’s Shakespeare: The Roman Plays (Longmans, Green & Co., 1976) is a perceptive study of the subject.

[16] Antony’s career poses something of a challenge to the Aristotelian “golden mean” as the touchstone of virtue. For that concept, see Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. Becker 1106a26–b28. The basic point is that a “virtue” is to be located at the mean or mid-point between excess of a quality and deficiency. Excessive courage amounts to foolhardiness, for example, and deficiency of it amounts to cowardice. The “golden mean” indicates just the right amount of the relevant quality in one’s actions. Antony, of course, seems more prone to act in accordance with the extremes of his own character and desires, and yet for much of his life, that way of proceeding seems to have served him well.

[17] See “Battle of Actium” at livius.org. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[18] See “The Role of Women in the Roman World.” World History Encyclopedia. Worldhistory.org. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[19] See Veeser, H. Aram, ed. The New Historicism Reader. Routledge, 1993. ISBN-13: 978-0415907828.

[20] Antony’s connection to Hercules. See “The Iconography of Mark Antony.” (This is a direct download to a paper by Rachel Kelly, 2009.) Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, an open access journal. See https://www.ojs.meccsa.org.uk. See Ovid, Fasti II.81, or Feb. 15, Lupercalia (poetryintranslation.com) for the story of Omphale and Hercules.

[21] Amicitia perfecta. See Shakespeare’s Globe essay “Shakespeare and Friendship.” April 6, 2018. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[22] On Classical notions of the afterlife, see, for example, “The Afterlife in Ancient Greece.” World History Encyclopedia. Worldhistory.org. Accessed 8/23/2024.

[23] Leaders such as Octavius have “always already” familiarized themselves with the Renaissance political writer Niccolò Machiavelli: shrewd leaders will take care to maintain a reputation for qualities such as fairness, moderation, and piety, though they seldom limit their actual policy and personal conduct to those parameters. Above all, Machiavelli would suggest that naively trusting in the goodness of others opens a ruler up to all sorts of manipulation and eventually leads to disaster.

[24] This metadramatic line about a boy actor playing a famous Egyptian woman was obviously intended to draw a robust laugh from Shakespeare’s audience since, in his time, women were not allowed to become stage actors. In the larger sense, however, Shakespeare thereby underscores the distance between the complex reality of a Cleopatra and his necessarily much more limited, fictive representation of her.

[25] Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 982-1060. See 1002, 2.2.202-217.

[26] The Norton editors make this point about Cleopatra’s claim to supposedly masculine virtues on 1058, in footnote 9.

[27] On the elements and the four humors—Cleopatra’s invocation of “fire and air” belongs to this complex of ideas—see “The Story of the Four Elements.” See also the guide available at the present site, “The Theory of the Humours.”

[28] For an introduction to Shakespeare’s romance mode, see the present site’s commentary on The Tempest. In a sense, Antony and Cleopatra “wants” to become a romance play, but the actual history of the main characters prevents that dramatic or story arc.

Commentaries onShakespeare’s Tragedies

ACT 1

ACT 2

ACT 3

ACT 4

ACT 5

ENDNOTES

Commentaries on
Shakespeare’s Tragedies