ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

tragedy in five acts by William Shakespeare, produced about 160607 and published in the First Folio of 1623 from an authorial fair copy. It is considered one of Shakespeare's richest and most moving works. The principal source of the play is Sir Thomas North's Parallel Lives (1579), an English version of Plutarch's Bioi paralleloi. The story concerns Mark Antony, Roman military leader and triumvir, who is desperately in love with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and former mistress of Julius Caesar. Summoned to Rome upon the death of his wife, Fulvia, who had openly antagonized his fellow triumvir Octavius, Antony heals the residual political rift by marrying Octavius' sister, Octavia. Word of the event enrages Cleopatra. Renewed contention with Octavius, however, sends Antony back to his lover's arms. When the rivalry erupts into warfare, Cleopatra accompanies Antony to the Battle of Actium, where her presence proves controversial. She heads back to Egypt, and Antony follows, pursued by Octavius. Knowing the eventual outcome, Antony's friend and fellow soldier, Enobarbus, deserts him and joins Octavius. At Alexandria, Octavius eventually defeats Antony. Cleopatra sends a false report of her suicide, which prompts Antony to wound himself mortally. Carried by one of the queen's messengers to her hiding place, he dies in her arms. Rather than submit to Roman conquest, the grieving Cleopatra arranges to have a poisonous snake delivered to her in a basket of figs. Attended by her faithful servant Charmian, she kills herself. The language of Antony and Cleopatra is sensuous, imaginative, and vigorous. Almost every character seems to talk of kingdoms and to envision heroic deeds: Dolabella, the Roman soldier, says that his love makes religion to obey Cleopatra in her last imprisonment; Antony's servant is called Eros and kills himself before his great chief; Antony's soldiers have seen his eyes glow like plated Mars; his enemies say that, even in defeat, he continues still a Jove. Octavius knows, as he closes in for the kill, that great issues are at stake. Yet, while the issues are thus enlarged (or inflated), the protagonists reveal themselves only in defeat. Antony's soliloquies are addressed to the sun or fortune, false hearts or his queen, rather than to himself in an attempt to hammer out his thoughts or to explore his own response. The last scene, however, focuses intensely on a single character, when Cleopatra, prepared for death in robe and crown, believing in immortality, and hearing the dead Antony mock the luck of Caesar, seems indeed to be transfigured: . . . Husband, I come! Now to that name my courage prove my title! I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life. . . .