Antony and Cleopatra

“There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.”

In contrast to the Roman soldiers, Antony begins the play by declaring that a restrained or moderate love is a form of “beggary.” This term relates to poverty or lowly social status, indicating that he views the suggestion that he ought to restrain his love for Cleopatra as a degrading action. The term “reckoned” means both to comprehend and to count, suggesting that Antony views love as something meant to be infinite and irrational.

“The present pleasure,

By revolution lowering, does become

The opposite of itself. She’s good, being gone.”

After learning of the death of Fulvia, his wife, Antony unexpectedly mourns her. Using verbal paradoxes, he expresses the complexity of his feelings and how, while he often wished to be rid of his wife, he now sees her value. This paradoxical desire motivates Antony to try to break away from Cleopatra at last, reminding him that if he becomes too devoted to one woman, he will lose the military ambitions that are a part of his identity.

“In time we hate that which we often fear.”

Charmian warns Cleopatra that her constant attempts to test Antony’s love for her could ironically result in him no longer loving her. Charmain uses the word “fear” in the sense of mistrust or doubt, arguing that Cleopatra’s inconstant and temperamental nature will cause Antony to hate her eventually. This advice serves as a moment of foreshadowing, as Cleopatra’s final attempt to test Antony’s feelings for her leads him to die by suicide.

“​​My salad days,

When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,

to say as I said then.”

Cleopatra dismisses her previous romantic affairs with Roman generals such as Julius Caesar and claims that her feelings for Antony are more genuine. She uses the metaphor and imagery of a green salad, playing on the double meaning of green as both a color and in the sense of young and inexperienced. She also refers to herself as “cold,” meaning that her desire was calculated rather than passionate in the same way that green vegetables were seen in Renaissance medicine as causing cold humors in the body.

“We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers

Deny us for our good; so find we profit

By losing of our prayers.”

Pompey’s solider Menas advises his lord to be more cautious in his dealings with the Triumvirate. While Pompey wants to attack Caesar and Lepidus to get revenge for his father, Menas points out the irony of fate, suggesting that the gods may be denying his wish for his own good. While Menas offers this advice to Pompey, it is applicable to Antony’s situation as well. Shakespeare foreshadows how Antony’s love for Cleopatra is actually what undoes him, although he constantly seeks to return to it.

“When we debate

Our trivial difference loud, we do commit

Murder in healing wounds.”

Lepidus tries to dissuade Antony and Caesar from publicly discussing their disagreement for fear of destabilizing Rome’s political system. He uses figurative language and an oxymoron when he refers to committing murder via healing wounds. This metaphor points out the irony that open discussion is necessary to heal the wound between Antony and Caesar, yet the more openly they debate each other, the more they damage the Triumvirate’s public reputation.

“I could do more to do Antonius good,

But ’twould offend him. And in his offense

Should my performance perish.”

Antony’s commander Ventidius muses on the contradictory nature of military glory, explaining that if he continued to win battles in Antony’s name, Antony would actually be offended that Ventidius had stolen his glory rather than grateful for the victory. Ventidius’s words utilize alliteration, repeating the “p” sound in “performance” and “perish.” Ending his speech with the repeated plosive creates a hard and staccato sound, indicating the bitterness Ventidius feels for Rome’s system of values.

“Wars ’twixt you twain would be

As if the world should cleave, and that slain men

Should solder up the rift.”

Octavia uses figurative language and hyperbole to persuade Antony and Caesar not to fight. The metaphor of the world cleaving in half is not literal and is highly exaggerated to communicate how devastated she feels that such a situation would be. Octavia extends the metaphor of a break in the world when she describes soldiers being melted down to close the rift in the same way that broken metal is soldered. Her words remind both men of the impact that aristocrats have upon the common people.

“Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more,

And throw between them all the food thou hast,

They’ll grind the one the other.”

After hearing that Caesar has imprisoned Lepidus, Enobarbus declares that there is no more possibility of peace between Caesar and Antony. Enobarbus uses the metaphor of Caesar and Antony as a pair of jaws, referred to as “chaps” in Shakespeare’s time. He claims that, like biting teeth, Antony and Caesar will grind against each other without the balancing influence of Lepidus between them, and that the rest of the world will be consumed like food as a result.

“Hark, the land bids me tread no more upon ’t.

It is ashamed to bear me.”

Antony’s dialogue employs personification, ascribing a human-like will to the land in order to indicate Antony’s shame at fleeing from the battle with Caesar. By emphasizing that he feels unworthy to even walk on land after his defeat, Shakespeare indicates how important Antony’s reputation is to him, invoking The Complications of Public Identity.

“Antony only, that would make his will

Lord of his reason.”

Enobarbus personifies the concepts of will and reason, indicating that Antony is acting irrationally by suggesting that his will has become a lord. Imagining that “will,” meaning his desires and appetites, holds a position of authority, Enobarbus worries that Antony is being ruled by the wrong part of himself. This parallels the Roman soldiers’ fear that Antony is being ruled by Cleopatra, inverting the gendered hierarchy of power in Roman society and reflecting The Clash of Cultural Values in the play.

“I found you as a morsel cold upon

Dead Caesar’s trencher.”

When Antony discovers Cleopatra talking with Caesar’s ambassador, he insults her using a metaphor that compares her sexual experience to her being the leftovers of another man’s meal. This metaphor is meant to inspire a feeling of disgust, connecting the idea of sexuality to uncleanliness and undesirability. While Antony has previously desired Cleopatra and enjoyed their sexual relationship, his fear that she will be disloyal to him causes him to lash out angrily, rejecting The Subversion of Gender Roles that gave her power over him.

“Let’s have one other gaudy night.”

Before Antony goes into a battle that he is likely to lose, he decides to enjoy Egyptian luxuries for one more night. Using the term “gaudy” indicates the extravagance of Cleopatra’s court, contrasted with the somber military situation. Shakespeare makes this juxtaposition to indicate that Antony remains caught between the Egyptian and Roman worlds and The Clash of Cultural Values, even when war should be disrupting his pleasures.

“When valor preys on reason,

It eats the sword it fights with.”

Enobarbus utilizes personification and metaphor in this quote, portraying valor as a predatory animal that attacks Antony’s reason. Now, Enobarbus worries that Antony’s fury at Caesar, not just his love for Cleopatra, will cause him to make tactical errors. The image of valor eating its own sword indicates irony, suggesting that Antony will be more harmed by his own anger than Caesar will be.

“When one so great begins to rage, he’s hunted

Even to falling.”

One of Caesar’s soldiers, Maecenas, advises Caesar using a metaphor that compares the war against Antony to hunting an animal. Maecenas claims that great people, like wild animals, will grow so aggressive that they can harm themselves. A common symbol of a noble animal during this period was a boar, an animal known for rushing hunters trying to kill it and impaling itself upon spears in the process. Antony’s anger turns him into a boar, suggesting that the Romans see rationality as a humanizing trait.

“Eros! Mine armor, Eros!”

Shakespeare uses a pun and allusion in this line, playing on the name of Antony’s squire, Eros, also being the name of the Roman god of love. Although Antony intends to call out for Eros the squire, Cleopatra is confused if he means her and offers to help him put his armor on. Additionally, Shakespeare might also be playing on the similarity between the word “armor” and “amor,” meaning love in Latin. The confusion between words relating to love and words relating to war underscores the conflict in Antony’s character at this point in the play.

“Say that I wish he never find more cause

To change a master. O, my fortunes have

Corrupted honest men.”

After learning that Enobarbus has betrayed him and gone to Caesar, Antony reacts with grace and sadness rather than anger. This creates an unexpected shift in tone, showing that Antony is still a great and noble man even as he falls from power. Shakespeare portrays him blaming his fortunes for corrupting Enobarbus, rather than blaming Enobarbus for disloyalty, suggesting that Antony believes the soothsayer’s prediction that Antony is not destined to defeat Caesar.

“The time of universal peace is near.

Prove this a prosp’rous day, the three-nooked world

Shall bear the olive freely.”

Caesar’s declaration before the battle employs an allusion to Roman history. By talking about the three parts of the world bearing an olive, he references the Roman association of olive branches and peace. The “three-nooked” world refers to the three main provinces of the Roman Empire: Europe, Asia, and Africa. Additionally, his prediction that there will be universal peace if he wins alludes to the Pax Romana, a period of stability and expansion in the Roman Empire beginning during the reign of Emperor Augustus.

“She, Eros, has

Packed cards with Caesar and false-played my glory

Unto an enemy’s triumph.”

Antony uses card games as a metaphor when he accuses Cleopatra of betraying him. He refers to her and Caesar cheating by packing a deck against him, making him lose his glory through duplicitous playing. This metaphor connects back to Antony’s earlier conversation with the soothsayer, where he reveals that Caesar always beats him in games of chance even when he has the tactical advantage. Games like cards or dice are often used as symbols of fate or destiny.

“But I will be

A bridegroom in my death and run into ’t

As to a lover’s bed.”

Antony uses a simile when talking about his plan to die by suicide, comparing his desire for death to the desire of a husband going to bed on his wedding night. This continues the play’s thematic interest in comparing the world of love and the world of war.

“So it should be that none but Antony

Should conquer Antony, but woe ’tis so!”

Shakespeare employs repetition in Cleopatra’s pronouncement about Antony’s death by suicide. By repeating Antony’s name, Cleopatra emphasizes how ending his own life allowed Antony to remain himself and to keep his honor, rather than being forced to submit to Caesar.

“’Tis paltry to be Caesar;

Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave,

A minister of her will.”

Although Caesar has won the war against Antony, Cleopatra argues that his achievement is less great than Antony’s since he was only able to win due to good luck. Her words refer to Fortune as a personified concept, an allusion to the fact that Fortune was considered a goddess by Romans as well as a concept. By calling Caesar “Fortune’s knave,” Cleopatra imagines Caesar as nothing but the boy or squire serving a feminine master. In the same way that Romans derided Antony for serving a woman, Cleopatra argues that Caesar has done the same.

“If thou and nature can so gently part,

The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch,

Which hurts and is desired.”

As Cleopatra prepares to kill herself using the poison of an asp, she uses the same metaphor that Antony did previously when he decided to end his life. She compares the desire for death to erotic desire, suggesting that the snake bite will feel like a sexual pinch that inspires pleasure through pain. Shakespeare puns on the phrase “stroke of death,” referring to both the sword stroke of a grim reaper and the stroke of a lover causing orgasm, which was referred to using the euphemism “little death” during Shakespeare’s time.