Antony and Cleopatra is a five-act tragedy by the English dramatist William Shakespeare. It is among Shakespeare’s last plays. Scholars believe it was first performed in about 1607. It was published in 1623.
Antony and Cleopatra explores the love affair between two of the greatest figures of the ancient world, Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, and the Roman soldier and political leader Mark Antony. The play is mostly based on a translation by the English writer Sir Thomas North of Lives, by the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch. Shakespeare follows North’s version of Plutarch’s biography of Mark Antony closely in places. The best known example is in Act 2, Scene 2, where Enobarbus, one of Mark Antony’s officers, describes Cleopatra in a speech beginning: “The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, / Burned on the water. …” Although this section is not wholly original Shakespeare, it ranks as some of the most dazzling poetry in the English language.
As the play opens, Mark Antony, together with Octavius and Lepidus, rules the Roman Empire. Antony is living in Roman-conquered Egypt, where he has taken the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, as his mistress. Political problems in Rome and the death of his wife Fulvia force Antony to leave his life of pleasure and return home. Back in Rome, he marries Octavius’s sister Octavia for political reasons. But Antony soon returns to “his Egyptian dish.” Octavius then prepares for war against him.
Antony decides unwisely to fight Octavius at sea. During the battle, which takes place off the Greek coast near Actium, Cleopatra’s fleet deserts him, and Antony flees with the queen. After Cleopatra’s ships abandon him in a second battle, Antony finally realizes that he has lost everything. Cleopatra deceives him into thinking that she is dead, and Antony falls on his sword. But before he dies, he learns that Cleopatra is still alive. Antony is taken to her and dies in her arms. Cleopatra decides to die rather than be paraded in Octavius’s triumphal procession. She dresses herself in her royal robes, presses a poisonous snake to her breast, and dies of its poison.
Cleopatra is among Shakespeare’s finest female characters. One moment, she is playful, the next sulking, and then filled with deadly anger. As the character Enobarbus says:
Loading the player...Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. …
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra: Enobarbus
Shakespeare’s dramatic use of poetry reveals Antony and Cleopatra from various points of view. On one level, they are merely two people exhausted by a life of excessive pleasure and luxury. On another level, they are tragic characters willing to risk kingdoms for their love. Shakespeare laughs at them for their foolishness, sympathizes with them for their suffering, and admires them for their moments of personal nobility.
