Antony and Cleopatra

By William Shakespeare and Paul Werstine

Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a major event in world history: the founding of the Roman Empire. The future first emperor, Octavius Caesar (later called Augustus Caesar), cold-bloodedly manipulates other characters and exercises iron control over himself.

At first, he shares power with Mark Antony, Rome’s preeminent military leader, and the weaker Lepidus. Caesar needs Antony to fend off other Roman strongmen like Pompey; he even offers his sister Octavia to him as a bride, despite Antony’s reputation as a libertine and his past rivalry with Caesar. Once Caesar defeats Pompey, however, he needs no allies. He brings charges against Lepidus, denies Antony his spoils from Pompey’s defeat, and seizes cities in the eastern Roman colonies that Antony rules.

The play’s emphasis, however, is on those whom Caesar defeats: Antony and his wealthy Egyptian ally, Queen Cleopatra. The play does not sugarcoat Antony and Cleopatra’s famous love affair, including her calculated attempts to seduce Antony from his duties and his rage when he thinks she has betrayed him to Caesar. Nonetheless, the lovers find such sensual and emotional satisfaction that Caesar’s world conquest seems smaller than what they find in each other.

The authoritative edition of Antony and Cleopatra from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes:

-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

-Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

-Scene-by-scene plot summaries

-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases

-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language

-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books

-An annotated guide to further reading

Essay by Cynthia Marshall

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781501128844

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

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THE NEW FOLGER LIBRARY

SHAKESPEARE

Designed to make Shakespeare’s great plays available to all readers, the New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare’s plays provides accurate texts in modern spelling and punctuation, as well as scene-by-scene action summaries, full explanatory notes, many pictures clarifying Shakespeare’s language, and notes recording all significant departures from the early printed versions. Each play is prefaced by a brief introduction, by a guide to reading Shakespeare’s language, and by accounts of his life and theater. Each play is followed by an annotated list of further readings and by a Modern Perspective written by an expert on that particular play.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English at the Graduate School and at King’s University College at Western University. He is a general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare, as well as many papers and essays on the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s plays.

The Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is a privately funded research library dedicated to Shakespeare and the civilization of early modern Europe. It was founded in 1932 by Henry Clay and Emily Jordan Folger, and incorporated as part of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, one of the nation’s oldest liberal arts colleges, from which Henry Folger had graduated in 1879. In addition to its role as the world’s preeminent Shakespeare collection and its emergence as a leading center for Renaissance studies, the Folger Shakespeare Library offers a wide array of cultural and educational programs and services for the general public.

EDITORS

BARBARA A. MOWAT

Director of Research emerita

Folger Shakespeare Library

PAUL WERSTINE

Professor of English

King’s University College at Western University, Canada

From the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library

It is hard to imagine a world without Shakespeare. Since their composition more than four hundred years ago, Shakespeare’s plays and poems have traveled the globe, inviting those who see and read his works to make them their own.

Readers of the New Folger Editions are part of this ongoing process of taking up Shakespeare, finding our own thoughts and feelings in language that strikes us as old or unusual and, for that very reason, new. We still struggle to keep up with a writer who could think a mile a minute, whose words paint pictures that shift like clouds. These expertly edited texts are presented as a resource for study, artistic exploration, and enjoyment. As a new generation of readers engages Shakespeare in eBook form, they will encounter the classic texts of the New Folger Editions, with trusted notes and up-to-date critical essays available at their fingertips. Now readers can enjoy expertly edited, modern editions of Shakespeare anywhere they bring their e-reading devices, allowing readers not simply to keep up, but to engage deeply with a writer whose works invite us to think, and think again.

The New Folger Editions of Shakespeare’s plays, which are the basis for the texts realized here in digital form, are special because of their origin. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is the single greatest documentary source of Shakespeare’s works. An unparalleled collection of early modern books, manuscripts, and artwork connected to Shakespeare, the Folger’s holdings have been consulted extensively in the preparation of these texts. The Editions also reflect the expertise gained through the regular performance of Shakespeare’s works in the Folger’s Elizabethan Theater.

I want to express my deep thanks to editors Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine for creating these indispensable editions of Shakespeare’s works, which incorporate the best of textual scholarship with a richness of commentary that is both inspired and engaging. Readers who want to know more about Shakespeare and his plays can follow the paths these distinguished scholars have tread by visiting the Folger either in person or online, where a range of physical and digital resources exist to supplement the material in these texts. I commend to you these words, and hope that they inspire.

Michael Witmore

Director, Folger Shakespeare Library

Contents

Editors’ Preface

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

Reading Shakespeare’s Language: Antony and Cleopatra

Shakespeare’s Life

Shakespeare’s Theater

The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays

An Introduction to This Text

Characters in the Play

Antony and Cleopatra

Text of the Play with Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Act 2

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Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Act 3

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Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Scene 8

Scene 9

Scene 10

Scene 11

Scene 12

Scene 13

Act 4

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Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Scene 8

Scene 9

Scene 10

Scene 11

Scene 12

Scene 13

Scene 14

Scene 15

Act 5

Scene 1

Scene 2

Longer Notes

Textual Notes

Antony and Cleopatra: A Modern Perspective by Cynthia Marshall

Further Reading

Key to Famous Lines and Phrases

Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Act 2

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Act 3

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Scene 8

Scene 9

Scene 10

Scene 11

Scene 12

Scene 13

Act 4

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Scene 8

Scene 9

Scene 10

Scene 11

Scene 12

Scene 13

Scene 14

Scene 15

Act 5

Scene 1

Scene 2

Editors’ Preface

In recent years, ways of dealing with Shakespeare’s texts and with the interpretation of his plays have been undergoing significant change. This edition, while retaining many of the features that have always made the Folger Shakespeare so attractive to the general reader, at the same time reflects these current ways of thinking about Shakespeare. For example, modern readers, actors, and teachers have become interested in the differences between, on the one hand, the early forms in which Shakespeare’s plays were first published and, on the other hand, the forms in which editors through the centuries have presented them. In response to this interest, we have based our edition on what we consider the best early printed version of a particular play (explaining our rationale in a section called An Introduction to This Text) and have marked our changes in the text—unobtrusively, we hope, but in such a way that the curious reader can be aware that a change has been made and can consult the Textual Notes to discover what appeared in the early printed version.

Current ways of looking at the plays are reflected in our brief introductions, in many of the commentary notes, in the annotated lists of Further Reading, and especially in each play’s Modern Perspective, an essay written by an outstanding scholar who brings to the reader his or her fresh assessment of the play in the light of today’s interests and concerns.

As in the Folger Library General Reader’s Shakespeare, which the New Folger Library Shakespeare replaces, we include explanatory notes designed to help make Shakespeare’s language clearer to a modern reader, and we hyperlink notes to the lines that they explain. We also follow the earlier edition in including illustrations—of objects, of clothing, of mythological figures—from books and manuscripts in the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. We provide fresh accounts of the life of Shakespeare, of the publishing of his plays, and of the theaters in which his plays were performed, as well as an introduction to the text itself. We also include a section called Reading Shakespeare’s Language, in which we try to help readers learn to break the code of Elizabethan poetic language.

For each section of each volume, we are indebted to a host of generous experts and fellow scholars. The Reading Shakespeare’s Language sections, for example, could not have been written had not Arthur King, of Brigham Young University, and Randal Robinson, author of Unlocking Shakespeare’s Language, led the way in untangling Shakespearean language puzzles and shared their insights and methodologies generously with us. Shakespeare’s Life profited by the careful reading given it by the late S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Theater was read and strengthened by Andrew Gurr and John Astington, and The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays is indebted to the comments of Peter W. M. Blayney. We, as editors, take sole responsibility for any errors in our editions.

We are grateful to the authors of the Modern Perspectives; to Leeds Barroll and David Bevington for their generous encouragement; to the Huntington and Newberry Libraries for fellowship support; to King’s College for the grants it has provided to Paul Werstine; to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which provided him with a Research Time Stipend for 1990–91; to R. J. Shroyer of the University of Western Ontario for essential computer support; to the Folger Institute’s Center for Shakespeare Studies for its fortuitous sponsorship of a workshop on Shakespeare’s Texts for Students and Teachers (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and led by Richard Knowles of the University of Wisconsin), a workshop from which we learned an enormous amount about what is wanted by college and high-school teachers of Shakespeare today; and especially to Steve Llano, our production editor at Pocket Books, whose expertise and attention to detail are essential to this project.

Our biggest debt is to the Folger Shakespeare Library: to Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, who brings to our work a gratifying enthusiasm and vision; to Gail Kern Paster, Director of the Library from 2002 until July 2011, whose interest and support have been unfailing and whose scholarly expertise continues to be an invaluable resource; to Werner Gundersheimer, Director of the Library, who made possible our edition; to Deborah Curren-Aquino, who provides extensive editorial and production support; to Jean Miller, the Library’s Art Curator, who combs the Library holdings for illustrations, and to Julie Ainsworth, Head of the Photography Department, who carefully photographs them; to Peggy O’Brien, former Director of Education at the Folger and now Director of Education Programs at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who gave us expert advice about the needs being expressed by Shakespeare teachers and students (and to Martha Christian and other master teachers who used our texts in manuscript in their classrooms); to Allan Shnerson and Kevin Madden for their expert computer support; to the staff of the Academic Programs Division, especially Rachel Kunkle, Mary Tonkinson, Kathleen Lynch, Keira Roberts, Carol Brobeck, Kelleen Zubick, Toni Krieger, and Martha Fay; and, finally, to the generously supportive staff of the Library’s Reading Room.

Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

Title page of the primary source for Antony and Cleopatra.

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare dramatizes a major event in world history, the founding of the Roman Empire around 30 BCE. Rome’s first emperor, Octavius Caesar (later to be called Augustus Caesar), has a prominent role in the play. In Shakespeare’s presentation of Octavius Caesar’s steady and, from our point of view, inevitable rise to supreme power, the future emperor controls much of the play’s action by skillfully and cold-bloodedly manipulating the other characters. This control is matched in its relentlessness only by the iron control that he exercises over himself, banishing from his life both conviviality and emotion. When the play begins, Caesar, as a member of Republican Rome’s second and last triumvirate, shares the governance of the city-state and its European, Asiatic, and African colonies. His fellow rulers are Mark Antony, Rome’s preeminent military leader, and the much weaker Lepidus. As long as Caesar needs Antony’s forces and military reputation in order to fend off other Roman strongmen, like Pompey, Caesar seeks to bind Antony to him. Caesar goes so far as to offer his widowed sister Octavia to Antony as a bride to cement the men’s alliance against Pompey, even though Antony’s notorious reputation as a libertine makes the success of such a marriage doubtful and even though the rivalry between the new brothers-in-law is of long standing and threatens to break out again whenever they may later disagree.

As soon as Caesar manages to defeat Pompey, the future emperor no longer needs allies. So he brings charges against Lepidus and denies Antony a share in the spoils acquired in Pompey’s defeat. Once Octavia returns to Caesar, he suddenly turns against Antony and quickly seizes cities in the eastern Roman colonies that Antony rules. Now Shakespeare’s stage is set for the final conflict between the soon-to-be-supreme Octavius Caesar and the once-preeminent Antony.

Perhaps because the outcome of this conflict was so familiar to Shakespeare’s audience, the dramatist does not give its representation much emphasis. Instead he directs attention toward those whom Caesar defeats, Antony and the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, Antony’s wealthy ally who pays for a great part of their costly war against Caesar. While Shakespeare in no way mitigates either the flaws in Antony and Cleopatra that contribute to their defeat or the bitterness of the loss, he also grants his defeated heroes opportunities to best their conqueror Caesar. He first has them rise above the self-repressed Caesar in their love for each other. Antony is the envy of the Roman military caste because he has enjoyed the woman whom earlier Roman great men, like Julius Caesar, had loved. Cleopatra is an object of enduring fascination to the Romans: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety. The play does not sugar over their famous love affair; instead Shakespeare puts on stage Cleopatra’s calculated attempts to seduce Antony from his responsibilities in Rome, as well as Antony’s jealous rages and threats against Cleopatra’s life when he thinks she has betrayed him to Caesar. Nonetheless, Antony and Cleopatra are represented as finding together such sensual and emotional satisfaction in their love for each other that each yearns for an afterlife in which they may renew their union. Shakespeare lavishes such rich figurative language on his heroes’ recollection of their shared past and dreams of a future together that Caesar’s success in the business of world conquest seems a smaller thing than what Antony and Cleopatra have found in each other.

Shakespeare also has Antony and Cleopatra rise above their conqueror in a second way as they attempt to frustrate his dearest wish. It is not enough for Caesar that he has beaten Antony and Cleopatra in war. He wants to capture for himself the fame of the defeated heroes by dragging them as captives at his chariot wheels through the streets of Rome in a triumphal procession that will be remembered forever because of their role in it. Much of what is presented in the concluding acts of Shakespeare’s love tragedy concerns the struggle not over who will win the military contests but over which images of Antony and Cleopatra are going to be handed down throughout subsequent history—images of humiliated captives or of triumphant lovers.

After you have read the play, we invite you to read "Antony and Cleopatra: A Modern Perspective," written by Professor Cynthia Marshall of Rhodes College, contained within this eBook..

Reading Shakespeare’s Language: Antony and Cleopatra

For many people today, reading Shakespeare’s language can be a problem—but it is a problem that can be solved. Those who have studied Latin (or even French or German or Spanish), and those who are used to reading poetry, will have little difficulty understanding the language of Shakespeare’s poetic drama. Others, though, need to develop the skills of untangling unusual sentence structures and of recognizing and understanding poetic compressions, omissions, and wordplay. And even those skilled in reading unusual sentence structures may have occasional trouble with Shakespeare’s words. More than four hundred years of static intervene between his speaking and our hearing. Most of his immense vocabulary is still in use, but a few of his words are not, and, worse, some of his words now have meanings quite different from those they had in the sixteenth century. In the theater, most of these difficulties are solved for us by actors who study the language and articulate it for us so that the essential meaning is heard—or, when combined with stage action, is at least felt. When reading on one’s own, one must do what each actor does: go over the lines (often with a dictionary close at hand) until the puzzles are solved and the lines yield up their poetry and the characters speak in words and phrases that are, suddenly, rewarding and wonderfully memorable.

A map of the Roman Empire.

Stephen Llano; based on John Speed, A prospect of the most famous parts of the world . . . (1631).

Rome, bounded on the right by the Tiber River.

From Alessandro Donati, Roma (1694).

Alexandria.

From Pierre Belon, Les observations de plusieurs singularitez . . . (1588).

Shakespeare’s Words

As you begin to read the opening scenes of a play by Shakespeare, you may notice occasional unfamiliar words. Some are unfamiliar simply because we no longer use them. In the opening scenes of Antony and Cleopatra, for example, you will find the words dismission (i.e., discharge), homager (i.e., tenant or vassal to a feudal lord), belike (i.e., perhaps), and methinks (i.e., it seems to me). Words of this kind are explained in notes to the text and will become familiar the more of Shakespeare’s plays you read.

In Antony and Cleopatra, as in all of Shakespeare’s writing, more problematic are the words that we still use but that we use with a different meaning. In the opening scene of Antony and Cleopatra, for example, the word property has the meaning of distinctive quality, full is used where we would say very, ambassadors is used where we would say messengers, and still where we would say always. Such words will be explained in the notes to the text, but they, too, will become familiar as you continue to read Shakespeare’s language.

Some words are strange not because of the static introduced by changes in language over the past centuries but because these are words that Shakespeare is using to build dramatic worlds that have their own space, time, and history. In the first two acts of Antony and Cleopatra, for example, Shakespeare conjures up two such worlds. The first is Rome, which is vigorously engaged in empire building by files and musters of the war and whose god is plated Mars. But Rome is also the site of political strife, stirs and garboils, contriving friends and scrupulous faction. In this strenuous exertion to extend Rome’s empire and govern the state, Romans imagine that pleasure must lie in another world, i’ th’ east, specifically in Egypt with Cleopatra, who can make defect perfection and whose holy priests bless her when she is riggish. Yet this pleasure is never dramatized in the play. It is only remembered, anticipated, and imagined—even by Cleopatra and the Egyptians. The Romans remember how in Egypt they did sleep day out of countenance and made the night light with drinking, but we never see them do so. Antony himself looks forward to an evening with Cleopatra in which they wander through the streets and note the qualities of people, but such an evening never comes, for he must leave for Rome. Cleopatra calls for the narcotic mandragora to drink and speaks of listening to an eunuch sing, and her eunuch Mardian can think what Venus did with Mars, but for both Cleopatra and Mardian these pleasures remain only imagined. Shakespeare relies wholly on brilliant language to present the Romans’ and his play’s fascination with the east.

Shakespeare’s Sentences

In an English sentence, meaning is quite dependent on the place given each word. The dog bit the boy and The boy bit the dog mean very different things, even though the individual words are the same. Because English places such importance on the positions of words in sentences, on the way words are arranged, unusual arrangements can puzzle a reader. Shakespeare frequently shifts his sentences away from normal English arrangements—often to create the rhythm he seeks, sometimes to use a line’s poetic rhythm to emphasize a particular word, sometimes to give a character his or her own speech patterns or to allow the character to speak in a special way. When we attend a good performance of the play, the actors will have worked out the sentence structures and will articulate the sentences so that the meaning is clear. In reading for yourself, do as the actor does. That is, when you become puzzled by a character’s speech, check to see if words are being presented in an unusual sequence.

Shakespeare often, for example, rearranges subjects and verbs (e.g., instead of He goes we find Goes he). In Antony and Cleopatra, when Caesar says "to that end assemble

Reviews for Antony and Cleopatra

[petroglyph_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this so-so. Both Antony and Cleopatra are portrayed as fickle individuals absorbed in their love-making to the exclusion of everything else. Cleopatra in particular is whiny and manipulative; Antony plainly gives up on all duties. The play only becomes tragic and imbued with grandeur once I allow myself to not think of these people as, well, humans but as larger-than-life figures, household names straight out of Great (Wo)Man History. I’m not sure I want to do that. The quality picks up towards the end, but the earlier acts contain some good back-and-forth banter and penis jokes.

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare here writes about two historical characters far more famous and important that Lear or Macbeth but he doesn't treat them in a monumental tragic fashion. He instead portrays them as rather ordinary mortals: Antony, a pliable politician and unfocused warrior; Cleopatra, a passionate but insecure cougar. The most interesting scene is a on-boat banquet where the shrewd politicos of Rome persuade a young revolutionary to abandon a rebellion he is winning. The most memorable character (to me) is Enobarbus, a close, intelligent friend of Antony who betrays him when he decides he has no chance to win and then cannot live with himself.

[wealhtheowwylfing · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cleopatra: the fiercest, most fabulous queen in Shakespeare.
Marc Antony: can't even commit suicide right.

[katieloucks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've never read the play before, and it was really interesting.

[david.alfred.sarkies · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is truly a play of epic proportions, moving from the centre of Rome to her periphery, including places such as Egypt and the borders of Parthia. It is one of Shakespeare's later works, and the skill in which he brings so much together onto the stage simply goes to show how skillful he was at producing historical drama. Now, some scholars like to argue that Shakespeare could not have been responsible for so many plays of such high quality, however I personally find such research and argument to be quite useless. In the end, I tend to, and have always tended to, lean towards the mythological than the scientific, and while it may be the case that Shakespeare was not responsible for the plays, I personally see no benefit in such argument and speculation.One of the things that I struggle with these plays is that they can be difficult to follow at times with the poetical language of the 17th Century and the difficulties in determining which character is who (which in some cases involves flipping back to the dramatis personae). I have also been watching the series Rome, and the characters of Mark Antony and Cleopatra seem to invade my mind from that show making it a little difficult differentiating Shakespeare's characters. The Mark Antony of the TV series is a much more brutal and despotic character than is Shakespeare's. However, we must remember two things, and they are that Shakespeare is not attempting to give us an insight into the culture and lifestyles of Ancient Romans, while Bruno Heller is not trying to produce, or even rewrite Shakespeare. In fact it is very clear that Heller, in his TV series, is giving Shakespeare a very wide berth.I find the topics of Shakespeare's plays quite interesting though because I have noted that Shakespeare seems to steer clear of writing any plays based upon biblical stories, even tragedies (and there are many stories in the bible that a skillful playwright could transform into a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions), but rather he seems to lean much closer to the secular world of Ancient Rome. Further, he does not seem to go to rewrite the ancient tragedies, even those of Seneca (Shakespeare did not know Greek therefore he only had access to Greek texts that had been translated, such as Plutarch's Lives). Even then, Shakespeare only borrowed three stories from Plutarch's Lives, that being Coriolanus, Julius Ceaser, and Mark Antony (even though Julius Ceaser is the tragedy of Brutus).I am almost inclined to suggest that if it was not for this play or for Julius Ceaser, that the characters of Ceaser, Brutus, Antony, and Cleopatra, would probably not be as dominant in our culture as they are. In a way, Shakespeare took one of the defining periods of Roman History, namely the period in which the republic collapsed and was replaced by the empire, and placed them onto the stage. Whether this play is supposed to be a 'sequal' to Julius Ceaser is difficult to determine, though it is interesting to note that Bernard Shaw later wrote a third play, Ceaser and Cleopatra, to turn this into a trilogy.The background of these events is when Ceaser Augustus defeated his enemies and ascended to the throne as the first emperor of Rome. However, it is also interesting that after this we have another great shift in European history: we shift from the west, back to the east, to the birth, life, and death, of the messiah - Jesus Christ. However, this is not mentioned in the play, though there are some hints to the appearance of Herod the Great.It is difficult to tell whether there is truly a fatal flaw in Mark Antony, and it is also difficult to determine whether Cleopatra actually loved him. Her trick at the end of the play, where she feigns death, and as a result Antony kills himself, is not the action of somebody in love, even chivalrous love. In a way she has been testing Antony's love throughout the play, but whether she loved him, or simply lusted after him, is difficult to tell. Many of us like to see this as a love story, but to me, it is not. It is a story about a man who let himself become possessed by a wiry woman which in turn brought about his downfall. Remember two things about Egypt of this period: it was not a part of Rome, rather it was a protectorate, and secondly Cleopatra considered herself a god. While she was subservient to Rome, she still did not recognise Rome as her ruler. As such, by sinking her claws into Antony proved a way of enabling her to shift the balance of power back to her.It is interesting that Shakespeare uses the serpent as the means of her death. It is almost as if the serpent is submitting herself to a serpent. She wrapped her coils around Antony and enchanted him, and in doing so set his downfall in motion (remembering that this is not the Mark Antony that is portrayed elsewhere). Ceaser tries everything to break her spell, including marrying him to his sister, but he fails. In the middle of an important battle with the pirates that are preventing wheat shipments from reaching Rome, Antony deserts and travels to Egypt. In Egypt he finds that his soldiers are deserting him, and even though he wins the first battle, he makes a tactical error, by fighting at sea instead of land, and as a result he is defeated.However, it is interesting that Ceaser does not condemn or punish him for his crimes. It appears that Ceaser understands that it was Cleopatra's whiles that dragged him to this point and has his body carried off in honour and leaves his legacy intact. However Cleopatra, recognising that her life of luxury and as a queen of Egypt is over instead of going into slavery she poisons herself. We hear her speak of being a slave and of watching plays where she is turned into a whore and mocked on stage. It is not her position that leads her to her death, but her legacy. However, this is not the legacy that has come down to us because we, today, know of Cleopatra as the beautiful queen of Egypt.

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Huh. I'd have put money on my having read this before, though quite a while back, but I sure don't remember finding Cleopatra so loathsome before. I've read enough histories that cover the whole Julius Caesar/Mark Antony/Cleopatra/Octavius/death by asps thing that maybe I hadn't read Shakespeare's version before. At any rate, history suggests that Cleopatra was canny, intelligent, and deliberate, but Shakespeare's Cleopatra is a silly, fickle, whining brat. Character after character tells us that she is bewitching, glorious, and desirable, but every time we meet her she is whimpering and simpering, telling silly lies to manipulate Antony, swanning around in a way that would embarrass a sensible teenager, much less a matronly queen. And Antony isn't much better. Far from taking his position in the triumvirate seriously, he tosses his responsibilities to Rome and his family there aside to frisk, puppy-like, around his Egyptian mistress. Yuck. Neither one comes off as grown-up, much less as noble figures whose tragic fates we should find regrettable. And yet...Despite the characters' manifold flaws, the play is deeply compelling. Somehow both Antony and Cleopatra, for all their foolish choices and pettinesses, transcend all and appear, in the end, to be outsize, even archetypal figures. Their bad decisions, which so many other people must pay for, somehow end with a sort of grandeur and mythic feel that, logically, the details don't support. They are so convinced of the earth shattering significance of their lives that they convince us it is so. Having turned these historical figures into melodramatic children Shakespeare uses his art to transform them further into great tragic lovers.Part of my extreme distaste for Cleopatra may be thanks to the very excellent Arkangel recording of the play that I listened to along with my reading of the Arden Shakespeare edition. Estelle Kohler, who plays Cleopatra, doesn't hold back anything in her emotional performance. All the weeping, whining, wheedling, and cattiness is going full throttle. The asp could have showed up in, say, Act 2, and Antony could have settled down with Octavia, who seemed a nice, sensible sort of woman, and things would have been much simpler. But that wouldn't have made much of a story, would it? Marjorie Garber's wonderful essay, in her “Shakespeare After All,” helped me appreciate the play, though she couldn't make the main characters any less annoying. Highly recommended.

[laurochka-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The classical tragic romance.
I found Cleopatra a little annoying but overall enjoyed this doomed tale.

[rampaginglibrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not my favorite of the bard's work but he really can't write poorly. I am not as fascinated by this 'epic' love story as some may be.

[joririchardson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

*If you actually don't know the story of this play, just a warning, this review will probably contain some spoilers.This Shakespeare play tells the famous love story of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra VII. Their countries, the crumbling kingdom of Egypt and the rising, powerful kingdom of Rome, are at war, and relations are hostile between them. Despite all this, Antony and Cleopatra, who should have been enemies, are in love. Caesar is beginning to take desperate measures in order to lure Antony back to his homeland, where they need him as a general.This play contained a lot of interesting motives, with the love story between enemies as the most noticeable, of course. Caesar's many efforts to direct Antony's love back to Rome were also interesting - after the man had slighted him, insulted him, and defied him so many times, Caesar remains hopeful, and continues his attempts to reclaim his best general. Besides being in need of a strong commander for his war, Caesar obviously also loves Antony. He has him marry into his family, making Antony officially family, but he clearly thought of the young man as family far before the marriage.Cleopatra was also interesting, and one of those characters who you can't quite predict (besides knowing the story beforehand, that is). She is at times hard and cool, at other times warm. Cruel and kind, angry and happy. With Antony, her mind and moods change like the wind. I wondered, exasperated at times, how he could possibly put up with her. However, Antony seems to view this as evidence of how passionate Cleopatra is, how unique, and how mysterious she is. Antony is fascinated with her, and would have been no matter what.Like many hopeless romances that cannot possibly end well, this one doesn't. The scene where Antony flees from battle to follow Cleopatra was a sad one. On one hand, his ultimate, absolute devotion to her was touching. Being a soldier and a warrior was what he had been trained to do for all his life. Undoubtedly, he dreamed of one day being a general. He knows nothing else, and he has worked for nothing else. He will have had men in his charge on other ships, probably friends, perhaps men he grew up with. Yet he leaves them, to follow Cleopatra's ship. It was a terrible choice that had tragic consequences, one that was neither right nor wrong. Though he does not regret his love for Cleopatra, Antony acknowledges after his desertion from battle that he betrayed his men and himself. Cleopatra understands his shame.A tragic romance from Shakespeare.

[hlselz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Had to read the play, cause I love the history. Im not a big fan of Shakespeare, but the loved the play because of the charectors.

[amerynth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"Antony & Cleopatra" is definitely not one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. It is a slow starter that sort of meanders about setting the scene for several acts before getting to the meat of the story. The ending, however, is terrific.... it just takes a long while to get there.In the play, Cleopatra has fallen in love with Antony, one of the triumverate of Roman rulers. Of course, the rulers can't see to get along and end up in conflict with each other. War, destruction and death ensue.It's an interesting story but not one of Shakespeare's most entertaining, unfortunately.

[the1butterfly · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We had a free-choice play for my Shakespeare class, so I thought this would be a good one because Cleopatra is a great character. I also attempted to make a beaded headpiece to wear during my presentation, which didn't entirely work. The play is long and goes all over the place, but it's one of the greatest romances of all time, and worth reading.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't like Antony and Cleopatra very much at the beginning -- but then, it always seems to take about an act for me to get into the swing of a Shakespeare play. It helps with Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra that I'm familiar with the history it's based on. It took me a while to warm to the characters of Antony and Cleopatra, though, but for all that there's something very human about the way Cleopatra reacts to Antony -- now this, now that -- and how he responds to her.

There are, of course, some beautiful speeches and descriptions here: I was nudged into reading this by reading a reference just yesterday to Cleopatra burning upon the water. I don't think I've seen this one as often quoted as I have the other Shakespeare plays I've been reading lately, though...

[391_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Despite its length and myriads of scene changes and characters to keep track of, I really enjoyed this play. I feel like it's not performed often enough on the Shakepeare circuits, but that helps to keep it fresh for me when I read it. The Folger edition contains footnotes to explain some of the archaic language and references, which is extremely helpful when reading.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although a classic story, the characters came across to me as very mono-dimensional. I didn't really care about any of them. Antony just seemed whipped and Cleo didn't seem to have anything to inspire his devotion. Too melodramatic without much substance.

[antt-4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I know it's anathema for an English major, but this play was ho hum to me. Probably the et tu Brute....

[jms001 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Why do men do what they do when they're totally in love with women? Read this to find out...or at least dwell on it. Maybe we'll never come to a conclusion.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First reading of this play. For me it is definitely a play of two halves. The first three acts felt rather tedious and the dialogue unmemorable. But the fourth act, divided into no less than 13 scenes, mostly very short, contained the famous meat of the drama. Act 5 scene 2 also served as a dramatic conclusion.

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read on my Kindle as part of Shakespeare's "The Complete Works".While the plot of this tragedy had plenty of action, somehow it just didn't work for me. I don't know if it was the language, my mood, or reading it instead of watching a performance... I'll have to try this one again sometime

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I do like the bit where Antony gives a grandiose speech, stabs himself, and then is mortified with annoyed surprise at the fact that he's still alive afterward.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't like it as much as Shakespeare's other plays, probably because, for some reason, I had a harder time understanding it and it took me most of the first half of the play to really get into it. The very last scene is definitely my favorite, and I wish the rest of the play was that good.Cleopatra is probably one of my favorite female Shakespeare characters, though, along with her maids.