Antony & Cleopetra ( A Study Guide)

Antony and Cleopatra

BY

William Shakespeare

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, Fulvia, 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.

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 III, 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” (III.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.xiii.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” (III.vi.67); she is called “Salt Cleopatra” (II.i.21) and an enchantress who has made Antony “the noble ruin of her magic” (III.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]hom 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

Ocatavius 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

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 uncompromised 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

MAIN IDEAS 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 bourn 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 unslipping 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

MAIN IDEAS 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).

Key Facts

MAIN IDEAS KEY FACTS

Full Title · The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

Author  · William Shakespeare

Type Of Work  · Play

Genre  · Tragedy

Language  · English

Time And Place Written  · 1606–1607, London, England

Date Of First Publication  · Published in the First Folio of 1623

Publisher  · The First Folio was published by a group of printers, publishers, and booksellers: William and Isaac Jaggard, William Aspey, John Smethwick, and Edward Blount. Isaac Jaggard’s and Edward Blount’s names appear on the title page of the folio.

Tone  · Tragic, poetic, grandiose, decadent, stoic

Setting (Time)  · 40–30 b.c.

Setting (Place)  · The Roman Empire and Egypt

Protagonist  · Mark Antony, one of the triumvirs of Rome

Major Conflict  · Antony is torn between his duties as a Roman ruler and soldier and his desire to live in Egypt with his lover, Cleopatra. This inner conflict leads him to become embroiled in a war with Caesar, one of his fellow triumvirs.

Rising Action  · Caesar lures Antony out of Egypt and back to Rome, and marries Antony to his sister, Octavia. Antony eventually returns to Egypt and Cleopatra, and Caesar prepares to lead an army against Antony.

Climax  · Antony disgraces himself by fleeing the battle of Actium to follow Cleopatra, betraying his own image of himself as a noble Roman.

Falling Action  · Cleopatra abandons Antony during the second naval battle, leaving him to suffer an insurmountable defeat.

Themes  · The struggle between reason and emotion; the clash of East and West; the definition of honor

Motifs  · Extravagant declarations of love; public displays of affection; female sexuality

Symbols  · Shape-changing clouds; Cleopatra’s fleeing ships; the asps

Foreshadowing  · The play’s repeated mentions of snakes—for instance, Lepidus’s drunken ravings about the creatures of the Nile—foreshadow Cleopatra’s chosen means of suicide.

Quote 1

Let’s grant it is not
Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,
To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,
To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
With knaves that smells of sweat. Say this becomes him—
As his composure must be rare indeed
Whom these things cannot blemish—yet must Antony
No way excuse his foils when we do bear
So great a weight in his lightness. If he filled
His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones
Call on him for’t. But to confound such time
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
As his own state and ours—’tis to be chid
As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to the present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgement.
         (I.iv.16–33)

In Act I, scene iv, Caesar meets with Lepidus to discuss the threat that Pompey poses to the empire. Here, he chastises Antony for staying in Egypt, where he pursues pleasure at the expense of his duty to the state. Caesar’s speech is significant for two reasons. First, it defines the Western sensibilities against which Cleopatra’s Egypt is judged and by which Antony is ultimately measured. As Caesar dismisses Antony’s passion for Cleopatra as boyish irresponsibility, he asserts the Roman expectation of duty over pleasure, reason over emotion. These competing worlds and worldviews provide the framework for understanding the coming clashes between Caesar and Antony, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cleopatra and Caesar.

Second, Caesar’s speech to Lepidus is significant for its suggestion that the oppositional worlds delineated here are a result of perception. For example, just as our perception of Antony changes according to the perceptions of other characters—to Caesar he is negligent and mighty; to Cleopatra, noble and easily manipulated; to Enobarbus, worthy but misguided—so too our understanding of East and West depends upon the ways in which the characters perceive them. To Caesar, Alexandria is a den of iniquity where the noontime streets are filled with “knaves that smell of sweat.” But we should resist his understanding as the essential definition of the East; we need only refer to Cleopatra’s very similar description of a Roman street to realize that place, as much as character, in Antony and Cleopatra, is a quilt of competing perceptions: “[m]echanic slaves / With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers shall / Uplift us to the view” (V.ii.205–207).

Quote 2

Upon her landing Antony sent to her,
Invited her to supper. She replied
It should be better he became her guest,
Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,
Whom ne’er the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak,
Being barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast,
And for his ordinary pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.
. . .
I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street,
And having lost her breath, she spoke and panted,
That she did make defect perfection,
And breathless, pour forth breath.
. . .
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. For vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.
         (II.ii.225–245)

Enobarbus makes this speech, one of the most famous of the play. The lines before this oft-quoted passage begin with the description of Cleopatra floating down the Nile on her gilded barge. Enobarbus moves on to tell the men gathered on Pompey’s ship how Antony met Cleopatra. It seems that the general, particularly susceptible to the wants of women, fell under the queen’s spell immediately. Whatever power Antony had in relation to the queen, he surrenders it almost immediately—in fact, before the two even meet: “She replied / It should be better he became her guest,” and Antony, never having denied a woman’s wishes, agrees. In addition to demonstrating the queen’s power over Antony, this passage describes Cleopatra’s talent for performance. Her performance in “the public street” makes “defect”—her inability to breathe—“perfection.” Whether sitting stately on her “burnished throne” (II.ii.197) or hopping “forty paces,” Cleopatra never loses her ability to quicken the breath of her onlookers or persuade the “holy priests” to bless what they would certainly, in others, condemn.

Quote 3

You take from me a great part of myself.
Use me well in’t. Sister, prove such a wife
As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest bond
Shall pass on thy aproof. Most noble Antony,
Let not the piece of virtue which is set
Betwixt us as the cement of our love
To keep it builded, be the ram to batter
The fortress of it; for better might we
Have loved without this mean if on both parts
This be not cherished.
          (III.ii.24–33)

Following the advice that Agrippa offers him in Act II, scene ii, Caesar offers Antony his sister, Octavia, as a means of securing peace between them. This gesture attests to the power that men ascribe to women and female sexuality in this play. What men consider the wrong kind of female sexuality—embodied proudly and openly by Cleopatra—stands as a threat to men, their reason, and sense of duty. What they consider the right kind, however, as represented by the modest “piece of virtue” Octavia, promises to be “the cement” of Caesar’s love for Antony. Caesar’s language, here, is particularly important: the words he chooses to describe Antony’s union to Octavia and, by extension, his reunion with Caesar, belong to the vocabulary of builders: “the cement of our love / To keep it builded, be the ram to batter / The fortress of it” (emphasis added). This language makes an explicit connection between the private realm of love and the public realm of the state, a connection that causes Caesar more than a little anxiety throughout the play.

Quote 4

Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;
They are black vesper’s pageants.
. . .
That which is now a horse even with a thought
The rack disdains, and makes it indistinct
As water is in water.
. . .
Here I am Antony,
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen—
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,
Which whilst it was mine had annexed unto’t
A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has
Packed cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph.
Nay, weep not, gentle Eros. There is left us
Ourselves to end ourselves.
         (IV.xv.3–22)

After Cleopatra’s ships abandon Antony in battle for the second time, the general faces the greatest defeat of his military career. Antony is accustomed only to victory, and his understanding of self leaves little room for defeat, either on the battlefield or in terms of love. As a Roman, Antony has a rigid perception of himself: he must live within the narrowly defined confines of the victor and hero or not live at all. Here, he complains to his trusted attendant, Eros, about the shifting of his identity. He feels himself helplessly changing, morphing from one man to another like a cloud that turns from a dragon to a bear to a lion as it moves across the sky. He tries desperately to cling to himself—”Here I am Antony”—but laments he “cannot hold this visible shape.” Left without military might or Cleopatra, Antony loses his sense of who he is. Rather than amend his identity to incorporate this loss, rather than become an Antony conquered, he chooses to end his life. In the end, he clings to the image of himself as the unvanquished hero in order to achieve this last task: “[t]here is left us / Ourselves to end ourselves.”

Nay, ’tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors
Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o’ tune. The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels. Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I’ th’ posture of a whore.
         (V.ii.210–217)

Soon after Antony’s death, Cleopatra determines to follow her lover into the afterlife. She commits to killing herself and, in Act V, scene ii, convinces her handmaids of the rightness of this decision. She conjures up a horrific image of the humiliation that awaits her as Caesar’s trophy, employing the vocabulary of the theater, fearing that “quick comedians / Extemporally will stage us.” She imagines that Antony will be played as a drunk, and a squeaking boy will portray her as a whore. Given that, throughout the play, Cleopatra is a consummate actress—we are never quite sure how much of her emotion is genuine and how much theatrical fireworks—her refusal to let either Antony or herself be portrayed in such a way is especially significant. To Cleopatra, the Roman understanding of her character and her relationship with Antony is a gross and unacceptable wrong. It does not mesh with the grandness of her self-perception—rather than being a queen of the order of Isis, she will go down in history “[i]’ th’ posture of a whore.” Just as Antony cannot allow his self-image to expand to include defeat, Cleopatra refuses to allow her image to be stripped to its basest parts.

The End

The Old Man and the Sea (B. A. Notes)

Hemingway s' Philosophy

The novella was published in 1952 and only after two years of its publication it was awarded Nobel Prize. Much regret for those who are of the view that story is nothing. Basically, if we want to enjoy the novel first we should know of the philosophy of Hemingway. If we understand well the philosophy of Hemingway, novel will give us

pleasure. The central philosophy of the novel is that ," A man is not made for defeat.A man can be destroyed but not defeated. " If one goes through the novel from the very first word till the very last word, the whole novel prove this philosophy of Hemingway. The old man is determined to achieve his goal but the hostile forces of nature try to destroy the old man but but he is not ready to be defeated. To achieve any thing is not success. The real success is continuous struggle. If one compares this statement to the ending of the novel that is much controversial, one can say that the ending is quite justified.As per this philosophy Santiago is highly successful.

The Old Man and the Sea
Major characters of the novel
Santiago
He is the central figure of the novel. He is the severe victim of the loneliness. He  lives in a small cottage near the shore. He goes without fishing for the last 85 days but he does not lose heart. On 86 day , he catches a big fish , Marlin but at the end is de[rived of the fruit of his life by the cruel attacks  of the sharks

Manoline
He is  a young boy who is the only pupil and friend of the old man at the sea. First forty days , he accompanies the old man but after forty days, his parents shift him to another boat saying that the old man is a Salao. But he still loves and respect the old man  and helps him. He is very attached to the old man. He brings food for him, have gossip with him and encourages the old man.
Marlin, the Fish
It is a very huge fish caught by the old man. It gives very tough time to the old man. It pulls the old man along with his skiff for three days and nights. It is 18 fat long and has purple strips on the body. At the end it is eaten away by the sharks

Sharks
In the novel , sharks represent the hostile forces of the nature. They attack the fish one by one first and in the  packs later on. They deprive the old man  of the fruit of his long efforts. Old man kill some of them but as thy were large in numbers, so they defeated the old man outwardly.

Sea
Sear plays a  very important role in the progress f the novel. Hemingway has treated the sea as  a living being. It  is very kind and provides subsistence to the human. But  sometimes, it become very cruel and harsh. The importance of its role  cannot be denied.


Describe the themes of the novel, “The Old Man and  the Sea”?

“The Old Man and  the Sea” is an very interesting novel by Ernest Hemingway. In its main outline the story is quite simple. Some of us may think that the story is nothing because it ends at the failure of the old man..But this is not the correct approach to the novel. The story leaves an ever lasting impression on the readers. The struggle of the old man from the beginning till the end is the real charm of the novel
The story may be interpreted in different ways but three themes seems to  be outstanding The first is that success and failure are two important aspects of human s’ life. second theme projects man s’ dependence on other fellow beings. Third one  tells that ceaseless efforts are the essence of the life.

First of all the novel tells that success and failure are the two important of human life. They always go side by side throughout the life. One may not always be successful yet one should always work for it. Santiago, the old man goes on for fishing  without ant success but he does not lose heart. After forty days of his struggle, he is even deprived of his only companion, Manolin whose parents shifted him to another boat saying that the old man is an unlucky.

The old man ,however, was not disappointed he continued to work all alone. On the eighty fifth day, he went far out in the sea and was able to hook a Mrlin. The Marlin continued  pulling his boat for three days..Eventually , he was able to kill the fish but his success was transformed into failure by the attack of the sharks and he had to returned to the shore only with the skeleton of the fish. But this did not disappoint him and he was again ready to make a new effort.

The second theme is that human beings always depend on others..A lonely man can hardly make any achievement in his life. Man needs company and without the help of others, no success is possible. Santiago also realizes this. We find him missing the young boys always and feeling that his company would have made his work easier. The third theme of the novel projects the idea that to  achieve  something is not real success but the real success is the continued struggle in the life. If one gives up the struggle , he is a loser. The old man is character who projects this Hemingway philosophy from the beginning of the novel till the last word of the novel. In the novel , the old man is struggling hard throughout the  story. he never gives up the struggle.

Discuss the most exciting incident of the novel, The Old Man and the Sea.”

The novel, “ The old Man and the sea” is full of thrill and excitement but there can be no  second opinion about the fact that the brave fight of the old man with the great fish marlin for three days and his eventual struggle to kill the fish is the most exciting incident of f the novel. It was very important for the old  man to kill the fish and to take it to the shore as the symbol of his success because he has been going for fishing for the last  eighty for days without any success.

He was able to hook the marlin on the eighty-fifth day. But it proved to be a n unusually strong fish. After taking the bait, the marlin started pulling the skiff and created untold miseries for the old man. He had never come across such type of fish. The fish continued swimming in deep water in the North, pulling the skiff with it for three days.

The old man had been holding the line all the time. His hands had been injured and cramped by the fast movements of the line. He made t e line  pass across his back to  support his hands..He had been in this miserable condition  for three days and the fish still continued pulling the boat. It appeared as if the fish would never tire but the old man as determined as before in spite of the fact that   he was extremely tired and black spots appeared before his eyes .

However on the third day, the marlin eventually started circling. It indicated a sign of good luck for the old man. Suddenly the fish started jumping. The old man feared that it might throw out the hook any time. Then the marlin started hitting the wire leader of the line and the old man was afraid that the line might be damaged.

The old man  continued handling the fish for a long time till at  last it came on the surface only thirty yards away from the boat. It huge body with purple strips was quite visible now. The old man pulled the line  but the fish was still beyond his reach..He tried to bring it alongside the skiff so that he could kill it with the harpoon but each time the fish escaped cleverly. At last the fish came so close to the skiff that the old man hit it with his harpoon. He drove the harpoon forcefully into the marlin s’ heart. The marlin jumped high in the air vertically exposing the whole of his body. It remained in the air for a moment and then it fell into the water. It was floating dead in water.

The old man s’ struggle was over but a lot of slave work was still to be done. He tied up the fish alongside the boat and set off towards the land. He had made  a great achievement but he did not know what to come thereafter.

Describe the brave adventure of the old man  against the sharks?

The old man was eventually successful  to hook a marlin on the eighty fifth day of his struggle. He was very happy over his success. But the marlin gave him a very tough time. After being hooked it started moving toward the deep sea along with the skiff.

The old man continued holding the line across his back for three days in order to control the fish and to stop it from moving ahead..At last on the third day the fish started moving in the large circles. It was after every  long and hard struggle that the old man  was able to bring the marlin close to his skiff and was successful in killing the marlin with his harpoon..He then lashed the fish to the skiff from the tail, from the head and in the middle and started his homeward voyage.
He was extremely tired. He had nothing to eat. He ate a few shrimps and drank some water to recover himself. He was happy because he hoped that the fish would fetch him a good income.

The fish continued moving for some time when a shark appeared suddenly .The old man knew that it would happen. The shark had been attracted by the marlin s’ blood spreading in the water. It was very large shark with long teeth and the old man idemnti9fied that it was Mako. The shark approached the fish just near the tail. At the  same time the old man hit it at its head with his harpoon and killed it. But it had already taken  a big piece of flesh with it The shark had also taken away his harpoon along with the line. The old man prepared a new weapon by lashing his knife to the butt of an oar. After killing the shark, the old man absorbed in philosophical thoughts.

After about two hours, the old  man saw two sharks, moving towards the skiff. They were’ Galanos’ and the old man hated them. One of them went under the boat and started eating the lower part of the marlin s’ body while the other hit the marlin where he had already been hit. He killed it with the blows of his knife. Then he made the other shark come out and killed it as well but it broke his knife  and the old man was left unarmed. However , he armed himself with a short club  and was again ready to face the further attacks of the sharks.

At sunset, two more sharks attack the fish. They were both ‘ Galanos’ and the old man injured both of them with his club but he knew that half of  his fish  had been destroyed by them..By now, he was almost fainting with tiredness. At midnight, the fish was attacked again by a pack of sharks. The old man did his best to fight against them in the darkness. He even lost his club and by the time he hit the last of the sharks, they had eaten all of the marlin s’ flesh and there was only the skeleton left . There was nothing more for them to eat.

The old man was utterly beaten. He was past everything now..He put the skiff on its path and was anxious to reach home as soon as possible


But  a man is not made for defeat a man can  be destroyed but not defeated.”Discuss these lines of the novel,: the old man and the sea”

After having killed the marlin  and lashing it to the side of the skiff, the old man was extremely tired .He had nothing to eat. He ate a few shrimps and drank some sea water to recover himself. He was happy  because he hoped that the fish would fetch him a good income. The skiff continued swimming for some time when a shark appears suddenly. The old man knew that it would happen. The sharks had been attracted by the marlin s’ blood spreading in the water. It was a very large shark with long teeth and the old man identified it as Mako.

The shark approached the fish and fixed its long teeth  in the marlin s’ body just near the tail. At the  same time the old man hit it at its head with his harpoon and killed it..But it had already taken a big piece of the marlin s’ flesh with it. The shark had also taken away his harpoon  with the line.

The loss of the harpoon and the mutilated condition of the marlin disappointed the old man. When the fish had been hit, it was as though he himself was hit. He remained absorbed in deep thoughts for some time but soon he recovered himself saying, “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

 This gave him a new courage and a new determination which enabled him to face the subsequent attacks of the sharks boldly. We find him fighting against the sharks even after losing his  harpoon. His determination led him to prepare a new weapon like  a knife lashed to the butt of an oar.    Even when his knife was broken, he  was not disappointed and started fighting against the sharks with the club.

When the fish was attacked by a pack of sharks, the old man continued fighting against them bravely. He even hit the last of the sharks. Although the old  man was utterly beaten yet he  was not at all disappointed. He wanted to go for fishing again  with a new determination because he believed that man is not born for defeat.
The sentence, “But man is not made for defeat” reflects his greet determination and it is not only a verbal or emotional declaration by the old  man but his entire behavior in the sea is a practical expression of this belief.

Discuss the novel, The Old Man and the Sea” as a tragedy?

The old man and the sea” is a tragedy because it describes the sufferings of the old man at the sea and tragic end of his great struggle. The novel describes the heroism and bravery of a Cuban fisherman, Santiago who ventures alone in the deep sea for a long time to hook  some fish. After a long and hard struggle , he is able to hook a marlin but in the end, he is left with nothing because all his hopes are shattered when the marlin is eaten up by the sharks  and it is very depressing  to see the old man completely  helpless against the sharks in spite of all his daring efforts.

A tragedy is usually a story describing the great struggle of the hero and ends either the death of the hero or in the absolute faille of his great struggle. In spite of the great qualities of bravery, courage and patience shown by the hero, he comes across a failure. The  failure is caused because of bad luck, society, nature of chance. F we look at the novel, “ The Old man and the Sea” in this context, we find it a perfect tragedy.

When the novel begins , we find the old man exposing superb qualities of bravery, courage and patience. He was not an ordinary fisherman. He possessed exceptional skills of fishing and was greatly expert in his profession. Although he was old yet he acted as a young man  and faced all odds boldly..He looked very impressive as a fisherman. He showed great patience  when the marlin pulled his boat for three days.

 He was not ready to accept defeat. He would prefer death to defeat. He had great determination and he even triumphed over his inner conflict with his strong determination.
After having lashed the marlin to his boat, he wanted to reach home as soon as possible. The tragedy started when the sharks attacked the marlin. He did his best and fought boldly against the sharks but he became quite helpless when the sharks attacked in a pack and reduced the marlin to a skeleton. All his great struggle had failed because of his bad luck but Santiago considered himself responsible for his failure. He thought that he should not have gone too far in the sea..It was eighty fifth day of his struggle that he had been able to hook a marlin and it was very great tragedy for him to have been deprived of the fruit of his great struggle.

Describe the relationship between Santiago and Manolin?

The relationship between Santiago and Manolin was very deep one. The young boy mandolin was the pupil of the old man and the old man had taught him the art of fishing. In spite of great difference in their ages, the two were always very happy to be together. Manolin had great affection for the old man. He was always ready to serve him in one way or the other. The old man also loved him like his own son.

The old man had been going for fishing for the last eighty four days without any success. For the first forty days mandolin had been with him but then his parents sent him to some other boat because they thought that the old man was an unlucky person. Manolin did not like it and he still continued his relationship-p with the old  man and served him a usual. When the old man came each day empty handed, the young boy helped him and encouraged him. He still wanted to work with the old man but he could not disobeyed his parents also. When Santiago went to sea for fishing , the boy always saw him off in the morning and waited for him in the evening.

 On the eighty fifth day, he saw him off as usual..When the old man returned after many days, he went to his shack and made all the arrangements so that the old man  should recover as soon as possible. He always encouraged him. He was not disappointed of his failure..He told him that once he  had caught a fish after eighty seven days of failure. He also told Santiago that if  the world was against him, he  was with him.

Santiago also loved him deeply. He had shaped up his personality and character. Manolin  was now very responsible and careful young man..Although he wanted Manolin to be with him yet the old man allowed him to go away  to obey hi s parents, command. We find him missing the young boy many a time during his struggle in the  sea. It is pathetic to find him saying, “ No one should be alone in the old age.”.The boy was his only company and he always missed him when he was away. He was living without wife, children, brothers , sisters and friends. Manolin was everything for him in the whole world  and he was always in high spirits in his company.


What were he major interests of the fisher man Santiago?
Discuss Santiago s' hand contest with Negro?

Santiago was a fisher man  and fishing was his profession which was his major interest. He  was not and ordinary fisher man. He was exceptionally skilled in his profession and knew the art of fishing more than anyone else .His company with Manolin was also a great charm for him. Manoline came to him in his  childhood and the old man had taught him the art of fishing Now he was a young boy.

 He respected and served the old man in every way. They had been going together  for fishing  for forty days but could not catch any fish. At this Manolin s’ parents shifted him to another boat saying that the old man an  unlucky fellow. But the young man did not think so.

He still kept his company with the old man on the shore. Santoago s’ mind always occupied with his ideas and he constantly thought about Manolin. To be in his company and to enjoy talking to him was a great interest for the old man.

Another interest of  the old man was baseball. He always talked to Manolin about baseball matches. He knew all the teams and had a perfect understanding of their performance in the game. He read the news about the baseball matches in the papers and liked to listened to commentary on the radio. Even at the sea while struggling against the marlin , he thought about the baseball and was anxious to know about the result of the baseball matches. DiMaggio was his favorite baseball player. He believed that he was the greatest champion of the game and that his team would always win. He even  wanted to be as  great an expert in his profession as DiMaggio was in baseball. He had great respect in his heart for DiMaggio because he believed that he was the greatest champion of baseball.

To dream about lions was another interest of the old man. Santiago had once travelled to Africa by ship in his early youth. He had seen lions moving on the shore. he had seen the lins playing like cats on the shore in the evening. In his old age, he often dreamed of these lions. They dominated his mind He always loved talking about them. He did not think about big fish, big cities , women or his wife in his old age. He only thought about lions. He loved them as  he loved Manolin.


Give the character sketch of Santiago?

Santiago, the old fisher man is the hero of the novel, “The Old Man and the Sea”. He is rather the only character of the novel because the other character  Manjolin appears in the novel only in the beginning and at the end. We find only the old man dominating the whole novel.

 The old man  was thin and gaunt with wrinkles  in the back of his neck and brown blotches on his cheeks which went down the side of his face..His hands had deep creased scars by handling heavy fish on the cords. These scars were old  and had recovered. Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same colour as the  sea and were cheerful and full of determination.

Santiago was considered to be an unlucky person by the local fishermen and they made fun of him when he returned with empty skiff every day but he  was not disappointed. He continued making effort and believed that one day he would catch a big fish. He was an expert fisherman and knew all the techniques of  fishing.

The old man  was a man of strong determination. He was never disappointed. Without sleep and  without food, the old man struggle all alone against the marlin. He remained  in the most difficult situation for two days and two nights but he was still full of determination and was eventually successful in catching a big fish.

Santiago was highly imaginative person. Being all alone in the sea he often lost in  his imagination and usually talked to himself. He often thought about the young boy Manolin and wanted him to be with him. Sometimes , he thought about the baseball matches and of the great payer DiMaggio who was his favorite. He also remembered his hand wrestling contest with the negro..He dreamed about the lions moving on the sea shore at Africa.
Santiago was a great philosopher also..He first considered the killing of the marlin as a sin but then he justified it as a professional act. In the same way, he justified the killing of the sharks in self-defense.



Discuss sea as a living being?/Symbolic importance of the Sea?

In , “ The Old man and the Sea” the ocean plays its role  as a living being. It has its own relations with other characters of the novel. It has its own tastes, voices, atmosphere and colors..Still it treats old man rather cruelly when the sharks come out of it to eat up the huge marlin. But we cannot ignore its gentle role as well. It gives Santiago continuous supply of food in the form of tunas, shrimps, dolphins and flying fish.

The sea is a great source of livelihood  for the fishermen. It teaches the sailors and the fishermen how to lead their lives. It also teaches the spiritual lessons to the fishermen when they need. Santiago is not a religious man but he learns his religious lessons by the oceans. He prays to God first to let the fish be baited and then release him to sufferings as well as physical pains.
The ocean has its own rules and regulations like the characteristics of a man. Its world is full of weeds, fishes , turtles, gulls,  and clouds. It is a different universe where large creature eats up the small one..Still man rules supreme there. It is oblivious that the old man is not defeated by the ocean but by his own fault that he went too far out in the sea.