Shakespeare's Primary Source For Antony And Cleopatra example essay topic

Context The most influential writer in all of English literature, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to a successful middle-class glove maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582 he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical acclaim quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part-owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625), and he was a favorite of both monarchs.

Indeed, James granted Shakespeare's company the greatest possible compliment by bestowing upon its members the title of King's Men. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare's death, literary luminaries such as Ben Jonson hailed his works as timeless. Shakespeare's works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. The unprecedented admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare's life, but the dearth of biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare's personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded from this fact and from Shakespeare's modest education that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by someone else-Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular -candidates-but the support for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars.

In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy of this body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare's plays seem to have transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect profoundly the course of Western literature and culture ever after. Scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra in 1606, immediately after Macbeth, and it is one of the last great tragedies that Shakespeare produced. The most geographically sweeping of Shakespeare's plays, Antony and Cleopatra's setting is the entire Roman Empire, its backdrop the well-documented history of Octavius Caesar, Marc Antony, and Cleopatra. Shakespeare's primary source for Antony and Cleopatra was the Life of Marcus Antonius contained in Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecian's and Romans, which was translated into English by Sir Thomas North in 1579.

North's language was so rich that Shakespeare incorporated large, relatively unchanged excerpts of it into his text. The plot of the play also remains close to North's history, although characters like Enobarbus and Cleopatra's attendants are largely Shakespearean creations. The action of the story takes place roughly two years after the events of Shakespeare's earlier play about the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar. At the beginning of that tragedy, Caesar has triumphed over his rival Pompey the Great, the father of young Pompey in Antony and Cleopatra, and aspires to kingship.

Caesar is then assassinated by Cassius and Brutus, who hope to preserve the Roman Republic. Instead, Cassius and Brutus are defeated by Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar, Julius's nephew, who then join Marcus Aemilius Lepidus to create a three-man government, or triumvirate, over the empire. Historically, the action of Antony and Cleopatra takes place over a ten-year span, whereas in the play the story is compressed to fit the needs of the stage. Antony is clearly much older than he was in Julius Caesar, and his political instincts seem to be waning. Octavius Caesar was only a minor character in the earlier play, but here he comes into his own as the man who will rise to become the first Roman emperor. Most of the political battles and machinations depicted are historically accurate, Plot Overview Mark Antony, one of the three rulers of the Roman Empire, spends his time in Egypt, living a life of decadence and conducting an affair with the country's beautiful queen, Cleopatra.

When a message arrives informing him that his wife, Ful via, is dead and that Pompey is raising an army to rebel against the triumvirate, Antony decides to return to Rome. In Antony's absence, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, his fellow triumvirs, worry about Pompey's increasing strength. Caesar condemns Antony for neglecting his duties as a statesman and military officer in order to live a decadent life by Cleopatra's side. The news of his wife's death and imminent battle pricks Antony's sense of duty, and he feels compelled to return to Rome. Upon his arrival, he and Caesar quarrel, while Lepidus ineffectually tries to make peace. Realizing that an alliance is necessary to defeat Pompey, Antony and Caesar agree that Antony will marry Caesar's sister, Octavia, who will solidify their loyalty to one another.

Enobarbus, Antony's closest friend, predicts to Caesar's men that, despite the marriage, Antony will surely return to Cleopatra. In Egypt, Cleopatra learns of Antony's marriage and flies into a jealous rage. However, when a messenger delivers word that Octavia is plain and unimpressive, Cleopatra becomes confident that she will win Antony back. The triumvirs meet Pompey and settle their differences without going to battle. Pompey agrees to keep peace in exchange for rule over Sicily and Sardinia. That evening, the four men drink to celebrate their truce.

One of Pompey's soldiers discloses to him a plan to assassinate the triumvirs, thereby delivering world power into Pompey's hands, but Pompey dismisses the scheme as an affront to his honor. Meanwhile, one of Antony's -generals wins a victory over the kingdom of Parthia. Antony and Octavia depart for Athens. Once they are gone, Caesar breaks his truce, wages war against Pompey, and defeats him. After using Lepidus's army to secure a victory, he accuses Lepidus of treason, imprisons him, and confiscates his land and possessions. This news angers Antony, as do the rumors that Caesar has been speaking out against him in public.

Octavia pleads with Antony to maintain a peaceful relationship with her brother. Should Antony and Caesar fight, she says, her affections would be painfully divided. Antony dispatches her to Rome on a peace mission, and quickly returns to Egypt and Cleopatra. There, he raises a large army to fight Caesar, and Caesar, incensed over Antony's treatment of his sister, responds in kind. Caesar commands his army and navy to Egypt. Ignoring all advice to the contrary, Antony elects to fight him at sea, allowing Cleopatra to command a ship despite Enobarbus's strong objections.

Antony's forces lose the battle when Cleopatra's ship flees and Antony's follows, leaving the rest of the fleet vulnerable. Antony despairs, condemning Cleopatra for leading him into infamy but quickly forgiving her. He and Cleopatra send requests to their conqueror: Antony asks to be allowed to live in Egypt, while Cleopatra asks that her kingdom be passed down to her rightful heirs. Caesar dismisses Antony's request, but he promises Cleopatra a fair hearing if she betrays her lover.

Cleopatra seems to be giving thought to Caesar's message when Antony barges in, curses her for her treachery, and orders the innocent messenger whipped. When, moments later, Antony forgives Cleopatra, Enobarbus decides that his master is finished and defects to Caesar's camp. Antony meets Caesar's troops in battle and scores an unexpected victory. When he learns of Enobarbus's desertion, Antony laments his own bad fortune, which he believes has corrupted an honorable man. He sends his friend's possessions to Caesar's camp and returns to Cleopatra to celebrate his victory.

Enobarbus, undone by shame at his own disloyalty, bows under the weight of his guilt and dies. Another day brings another battle, and once again Antony meets Caesar at sea. As before, the Egyptian fleet proves treacherous; it abandons the fight and leaves Antony to suffer defeat. Convinced that his lover has betrayed him, Antony vows to kill Cleopatra. In order to protect herself, she quarters herself in her monument and sends word that she has committed suicide. Antony, racked with grief, determines to join his queen in the afterlife.

He commands one of his attendants to fulfill his promise of unquestioned service and kill him. The attendant kills himself instead. Antony then falls on his own sword, but the wound is not immediately fatal. He is carried to Cleopatra's monument, where the lovers are reunited briefly before Antony's death.

Caesar takes the queen prisoner, planning to display her in Rome as a testament to the might of his empire, but she learns of his plan and kills herself with the help of several poisonous snakes. Caesar has her buried beside Antony. Character List Antony: A once fierce and feared soldier who rules the Roman Empire along with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus. When the play opens, Antony has neglected his duties as a ruler in order to live in Egypt, where he carries on a highly visible love affair with Cleopatra. His loyalty is divided between the Western and Eastern worlds; he is torn between the sense of duty and the desire to seek pleasure, between reason and passion. While he feels the need to reaffirm the honor that has made him a celebrated Roman hero, he is also madly in love with Cleopatra.

Mark Antony (In-Depth Analysis) Cleopatra: The queen of Egypt and Antony's lover. A highly attractive woman who once seduced Julius Caesar, Cleopatra delights in the thought that she has caught Antony like a fish. In matters of love, as in all things, Cleopatra favors high drama: her emotions are as volatile as they are theatrical, and, regardless of whether her audience is her handmaid or the emperor of Rome, she always offers a top-notch performance. Although she tends to make a spectacle of her emotions, one cannot doubt the genuine nature of her love for Antony. Shakespeare makes clear that the queen does love the general, even if her loyalty is sometimes misplaced. Cleopatra (In-Depth Analysis) Octavius Caesar: The nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar.

Octavius rules the Roman Empire with Antony and Lepidus. Relations between Caesar and Antony are strained throughout the play, for the young triumvir believes that Antony squanders his time and neglects his duties while in Egypt. Ambitious and extremely pragmatic, Octavius lacks Antony's military might as a general, but his careful and stoic reasoning enables him to avoid Antony's tendency toward heroic or romantic folly. Destined to be the first Roman emperor (later renamed Caesar Augustus), he symbolizes "Western" values in the play, which stand opposed to the exotic lures of Cleopatra's "East". Octavius Caesar (In-Depth Analysis) Enobarbus: Antony's most loyal supporter. Worldly and cynical, Enobarbus is friendly with the subordinates of both Pompey and Caesar, yet stays faithful to his master even after Antony makes grave political and military missteps.

He abandons Antony only when the general appears to be completely finished. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus: The third member of the triumvirate and the weakest, both politically and personally. Lepidus's rather desperate attempts to keep the peace between Caesar and Antony fail when Caesar imprisons him after the defeat of Pompey. Pompey: The son of a great general who was one of Julius Caesar's partners in power. Pompey is young and popular with the Roman people, and he possesses enough military might to stand as a legitimate threat to the triumvirs. He fancies himself honorable for refusing to allow one of his men to kill the unsuspecting Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus when they are his guests.

Octavia: Octavius Caesar's sister. Octavia marries Antony in order to cement an alliance between the two triumvirs. She is a victim of Antony's deception, and her meekness, purity, and submission make her the paradigm of Roman womanhood, and Cleopatra's polar opposite. Charmin and Iras: Cleopatra's faithful attendants. The Soothsayer - An Egyptian fortune-teller who follows Antony to Rome and predicts that his fortune will always pale in comparison to Caesar's. Dolabella: One of Octavius Caesar's men.

Dolabella is assigned to guard the captive Cleopatra. Agrippa: One of Octavius Caesar's officers. Agrippa leads the retreat from Antony's unexpectedly powerful forces. Camidius: A general in Antony's army. After the battle in which Antony follows Cleopatra's lead and flees, Camidius surrenders and defects to Caesar's side. Ventidius: A Roman soldier under Antony's command.

Ventidius leads the legions to victory against the kingdom of Parthia. Although a competent fighter, he cautiously decides not to push his troops further into battle, for fear that winning too much glory would sour his relationship with Antony. Scarus: A brave young soldier serving under Antony. Scarus garners fantastic wounds in the battle against Caesar's army, and begs for the opportunity to win more. Proculeius: One of Caesar's soldiers, who proves untrustworthy. Diomedes: Cleopatra's servant.

She employs Diomedes to bring to Antony the message that she has not committed suicide but is still alive. Eros: An attendant serving Antony. Eros's love for his master compels him to refuse Antony's order that Eros kill him. Menas: An ambitious young soldier under Pompey. During the dinner party that Pompey hosts for the triumvirate, Menas asks for permission to kill Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus, which would result in the control of the world falling into his master's hands. Seleucus: Cleopatra's treasurer, who betrays his master.

Clown: An Egyptian who brings a basket of figs containing poisonous snakes to Cleopatra. Decretal: One of Antony's soldiers. Analysis of Major Characters Mark Antony: Throughout the play, Antony grapples with the conflict between his love for Cleopatra and his duties to the Roman Empire. In Act I, scene i, he engages Cleopatra in a conversation about the nature and depth of their love, dismissing the duties he has neglected for her sake: "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall" (I. i. 35-36). In the very next scene, however, Antony worries that he is about to "lose [him] self in dotage" (I. ii.

106) and fears that the death of his wife is only one of the ills that his "idleness doth hatch" (I. ii. 119). Thus, Antony finds himself torn between the Rome of his duty and the Alexandria of his pleasure. The geographical poles that draw him in opposite directions represent deep-seated conflicts between his reason and emotion, his sense of duty and his desire, his obligations to the state and his private needs.

Antony's understanding of himself, however, cannot bear the stress of such tension. In his mind, he is first and foremost a Roman hero of the first caliber. He won his position as one of the three leaders of the world by vanquishing the treacherous Brutus and Cassius, who conspired to assassinate his predecessor, Julius Caesar. He often recalls the golden days of his own heroism, but now that he is entangled in an affair with the Egyptian queen, his memories do little more than demonstrate how far he has strayed from his ideal self. As he points out to Octavia in Act, scene iv, his current actions imperil his honor, and without his honor-the defining characteristic of the Roman hero-he can no longer be Antony: "If I lose my honor, / I lose myself. Better I were not yours / Than yours so branchless" ( . iv.

22-24). Later, having suffered defeat at the hands of both Caesar and Cleopatra, Antony returns to the imagery of the stripped tree as he laments", [T] his pine is barked / That overtopped them all" (IV. x. 23-24). Rather than amend his identity to accommodate these defeats, Antony chooses to take his own life, an act that restores him to his brave and indomitable former self. In suicide, Antony manages to convince himself and the world (as represented by Cleopatra and Caesar) that he is "a Roman by a Roman / Valiantly vanquished" (IV. xvi. 59-60).

Cleopatra: The assortment of perspectives from which we see Cleopatra illustrates the varying understandings of her as a decadent foreign woman and a noble ruler. As Philo and Demetrius take the stage in Act I, scene i, their complaints about Antony's neglected duties frame the audience's understanding of Cleopatra, the queen for whom Antony risks his reputation. Within the first ten lines of the play, the men declare Cleopatra a lustful "gipsy", a description that is repeated throughout the play as though by a chorus (I. i. 10). Cleopatra is labeled a "wrangling queen" (I. i. 50), a "slave" (I. iv.

19), an "Egyptian dish" (II. vi. 123), and a "whore" ( . vi. 67); she is called "Salt Cleopatra" (II. i. 21) and an enchantress who has made Antony "the noble ruin of her magic" ( . x. 18).

But to view Cleopatra as such is to reduce her character to the rather narrow perspective of the Romans, who, standing to lose their honor or kingdoms through her agency, are most threatened by her. Certainly this threat has much to do with Cleopatra's beauty and open sexuality, which, as Enobarbus points out in his famous description of her in Act II, scene ii, is awe-inspiring. But it is also a performance. Indeed, when Cleopatra takes the stage, she does so as an actress, elevating her passion, grief, and outrage to the most dramatic and captivating level.

As Enobarbus says, the queen did not walk through the street, but rather Hop [ped] forty paces... And having lost her breath, she spoke and panted, That she did make defect perfection And breathless, pour breath forth. (II. ii. 235-238) Whether whispering sweet words of love to Antony or railing at a supposedly disloyal servant, Cleopatra leaves her onlookers breathless. As Antony notes, she is a woman " [w] him everything becomes-to chide, to laugh / To weep" (I. i. 51-52).

It is this ability to be the perfect embodiment of all things-beauty and ugliness, virtue and vice-that Cleopatra stands to lose after her defeat by Caesar. By parading her through the streets of Rome as his trophy, he intends to reduce her character to a single, base element-to immortalize her as a whore. If Antony cannot allow his conception of self to expand to incorporate his defeats, then Cleopatra cannot allow hers to be stripped to the image of a boy actor "squeaking Cleopatra... / I'th' posture of a whore" (V. ii. 216-217). Cleopatra often behaves childishly and with relentless self-absorption; nevertheless, her charisma, strength, and indomitable will make her one of Shakespeare's strongest, most awe-inspiring female characters.

Octavius Caesar: Octavius Caesar is both a menacing adversary for Antony and a rigid representation of Roman law and order. He is not a two-dimensional villain, though, since his frustrations with the ever-neglectful Antony seem justified. When he complains to Lepidus that he resents having to "bear / So great weight in [Antony's] lightness", we certainly understand his concern (I. iv. 24-25). He does not emerge as a particularly likable character-his treatment of Lepidus, for instance, betrays the cruel underside of Caesar's aggressive ambitions-but he is a complicated one.

He is, in other words, convincingly human. There is, perhaps, no better example of Caesar's humanity than his conflicted feelings about Antony. For a good deal of the play, Caesar seems bent, rather ruthlessly, on destroying Antony. When he achieves this desired end, however, he does not relish the moment as we might expect. Instead, he mourns the loss of a great soldier and musters enough compassion to be not only fair-minded but also fair-hearted, commanding that the lovers be buried beside one another Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Struggle Between Reason and Emotion In his opening lines to Demetrius, Philo complains that Antony has abandoned the military endeavors on which his reputation is based for Cleopatra's sake.

His criticism of Antony's "dotage", or stupidity, introduces a tension between reason and emotion that runs throughout the play (I. i. 1). Antony and Cleopatra's first exchange heightens this tension, as they argue whether their love can be put into words and understood or whether it exceeds such faculties and boundaries of reason. If, according to Roman consensus, Antony is the military hero and disciplined statesmen that Caesar and others believe him to be, then he seems to have happily abandoned his reason in order to pursue his passion. He declares: "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall" (I. i. 35-36).

The play, however, is more concerned with the battle between reason and emotion than the triumph of one over the other, and this battle is waged most forcefully in the character of Antony. More than any other character in the play, Antony vacillates between Western and Eastern sensibilities, feeling pulled by both his duty to the empire and his desire for pleasure, his want of military glory and his passion for Cleopatra. Soon after his nonchalant dismissal of Caesar's messenger, the empire, and his duty to it, he chastises himself for his neglect and commits to return to Rome, lest he "lose [him] self in dotage" (I. ii. 106). As the play progresses, Antony continues to inhabit conflicting identities that play out the struggle between reason and emotion. At one moment, he is the vengeful war hero whom Caesar praises and fears.

Soon thereafter, he sacrifices his military position by unwisely allowing Cleopatra to determine his course of action. As his Roman allies-even the ever-faithful Enobarbus-abandon him, Antony feels that he has, indeed, lost himself in dotage, and he determines to rescue his noble identity by taking his own life. At first, this course of action may appear to be a triumph of reason over passion, of -Western sensibilities over Eastern ones, but the play is not that simple. Although Antony dies believing himself a man of honor, discipline, and reason, our understanding of him is not nearly as straight-forward. In order to come to terms with Antony's character, we must analyze the aspects of his identity that he ignores. He is, in the end, a man ruled by passion as much as by reason.

Likewise, the play offers us a worldview in which one sensibility cannot easily dominate another. Reason cannot ever fully conquer the passions, nor can passion wholly undo reason. The Clash of East and West Although Antony and Cleopatra details the conflict between Rome and Egypt, giving us an idea of the Elizabethan perceptions of the difference between Western and Eastern cultures, it does not make a definitive statement about which culture ultimately triumphs. In the play, the Western and Eastern poles of the world are characterized by those who inhabit them: Caesar, for instance, embodies the stoic duty of the West, while Cleopatra, in all her theatrical grandeur, represents the free-flowing passions of the East. Caesar's concerns throughout the play are certainly imperial: he means to invade foreign lands in order to invest them with traditions and sensibilities of his own. But the play resists siding with this imperialist impulse.

Shakespeare, in other words, does not align the play's sympathies with the West; Antony and Cleopatra can hardly be read as propaganda for Western domination. On the contrary, the Roman understanding of Cleopatra and her kingdom seems exceedingly superficial. To Caesar, the queen of Egypt is little more than a whore with a flair for drama. His perspective allows little room for the real power of Cleopatra's sexuality-she can, after all, persuade the most decorated of generals to follow her into ignoble retreat. Similarly, it allows little room for the indomitable strength of her will, which she demonstrates so forcefully at the end of the play as she refuses to allow herself to be turned into a "Egyptian puppet" for the entertainment of the Roman masses (V. ii. 204).

In Antony and Cleopatra, West meets East, but it does not, regardless of Caesar's triumph over the land of Egypt, conquer it. Cleopatra's suicide suggests that something of the East's spirit, the freedoms and passions that are not represented in the play's conception of the West, cannot be subsumed by Caesar's victory. The play suggests that the East will live on as a visible and unconquerable counterpoint to the West, bound as inseparably and eternally as Antony and Cleopatra are in their tomb. The Definition of Honor Throughout the play, characters define honor variously, and often in ways that are not intuitive. As Antony prepares to meet Caesar in battle, he determines that he "will live / Or bathe [his] dying honour in the blood / Shall make it live again" (IV. ii. 5-7).

Here, he explicitly links the notion of honor to to that of death, suggesting the latter as a surefire means of achieving the former. The play bears out this assertion, since, although Antony and Cleopatra kill themselves for different reasons, they both imagine that the act invests them with honor. In death, Antony returns to his identity as a true, noble Roman, becoming "a Roman by a Roman / Valiantly vanquished" (IV. xvi. 59-60), while Cleopatra resolves to "bury him, and then what's brave, what's noble, / Let's do it after the high Roman fashion" (IV. xvi. 89-90). At first, the queen's words seem to suggest that honor is a distinctly Roman attribute, but Cleopatra's death, which is her means of ensuring that she remains her truest, most un compromised self, is distinctly against Rome.

In Antony and Cleopatra, honor seems less a function of Western or Eastern culture than of the characters' determination to define themselves on their own terms. Both Antony and Cleopatra secure honorable deaths by refusing to compromise their identities. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes. Extravagant Declarations of Love In Act I, scene i, Antony and Cleopatra argue over whether their love for one another can be measured and articulated: CLEOPATRA: [to Antony] If it be love indeed, tell me how much. ANTONY: There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned. CLEOPATRA: I'll set a born how far to be beloved.

ANTONY: Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth. (I. i. 14-17) This exchange sets the tone for the way that love will be discussed and understood throughout the play. Cleopatra expresses the expectation that love should be declared or demonstrated grandly. She wants to hear and see exactly how much Antony loves her.

Love, in Antony and Cleopatra, is not comprised of private intimacies, as it is in Romeo and Juliet. Instead, love belongs to the public arena. In the lines quoted above, Cleopatra claims that she will set the boundaries of her lover's affections, and Antony responds that, to do so, she will need to discover uncharted territories. By likening their love to the discovery and claim of "new heaven, new earth", the couple links private emotions to affairs of state. Love, in other words, becomes an extension of politics, with the annexation of another's heart analogous to the conquering of a foreign land. Public Displays of Affection In Antony and Cleopatra, public displays of affection are generally understood to be expressions of political power and allegiance.

Caesar, for example, laments that Octavia arrives in Rome without the fanfare of a proper entourage because it betrays her weakness: without an accompanying army of horses, guardsmen, and trumpeters, she cannot possibly be recognized as Caesar's sister or Antony's wife. The connection between public display and power is one that the characters-especially Caesar and Cleopatra-understand well. After Antony's death, their battle of wills revolves around Caesar's desire to exhibit the Egyptian queen on the streets of Rome as a sign of his triumph. Cleopatra refuses such an end, choosing instead to take her own life. Even this act is meant as a public performance, however: decked in her grandest royal robes and playing the part of the tragic lover, Cleopatra intends her last act to be as much a defiance of Caesar's power as a gesture of romantic devotion. For death, she claims, is "the way / To fool their preparation and to conquer / Their most absurd intents" (V. ii.

220-222). Female Sexuality Throughout the play, the male characters rail against the power of female sexuality. Caesar and his men condemn Antony for the weakness that makes him bow to the Egyptian queen, but they clearly lay the blame for his downfall on Cleopatra. On the rare occasion that the Romans do not refer to her as a whore, they describe her as an enchantress whose beauty casts a dangerous spell over men. As Enobarbus notes, Cleopatra possesses the power to warp the minds and judgment of all men, even "holy priests" who " [b] less her" when she acts like a whore (II. ii. 244-245).

The unapologetic openness of Cleopatra's sexuality stands to threaten the Romans. But they are equally obsessed with the powers of Octavia's sexuality. Caesar's sister, who, in beauty and temperament stands as Cleopatra's opposite, is nevertheless considered to possess power enough to mend the triumvir's damaged relationship: Caesar and Antony expect that she will serve to "knit [their] hearts / With an un slipping knot" (II. ii. 132-133). In this way, women are saddled with both the responsibility for men's political alliances and the blame for their personal failures.

Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Shape-Changing Clouds In Act IV, scene xv, Antony likens his shifting sense of self to a cloud that changes shape as it tumbles across the sky. Just as the cloud turns from "a bear or lion, / A towered citadel, a pendent rock", Antony seems to change from the reputed conqueror into a debased victim (IV. xv. 3-4). As he says to Eros, his uncharacteristic defeat, both on the battlefield and in matters of love, makes it difficult for him to "hold this visible shape" (IV. xv. 14).

Cleopatra's Fleeing Ships The image of Cleopatra's fleeing ships is presented twice in the play. Antony twice does battle with Caesar at sea, and both times his navy is betrayed by the queen's retreat. The ships remind us of Cleopatra's inconstancy and of the inconstancy of human character in the play. One cannot be sure of Cleopatra's allegiance: it is uncertain whether she flees out of fear or because she realizes it would be politically savvy to align herself with Caesar. Her fleeing ships are an effective symbol of her wavering and changeability.

The Asps One of the most memorable symbols in the play comes in its final moments, as Cleopatra applies deadly snakes to her skin. The asps are a prop in the queen's final and most magnificent performance. As she lifts one snake, then another to her breast, they become her children and she a common wet nurse: "Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, / That sucks the nurse asleep?" (V. ii. 300-301). The domestic nature of the image contributes to Cleopatra's final metamorphosis, in death, into Antony's wife. She assures him, "Husband, I come" (V. ii.

278).