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Part II Roedy of Antony And Cleopatra

I 1607 Shakespeare returned to North's edition of Plutarch, froht years before he had taken raphy of Mark Antony, Shakespeare wrote as virtually a continuation of the earlier play, and made it the most Plutarchian of the three plays he derived from that source

Antony and Cleopatra begins almost at the point where Julius Caesar had left off

Brutus and Cassius have been defeated at the double battle at Philippi in 42 bc by the troops under Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar These two, together with Lepidus, the third e I-301), are now in a position to divide the Ro themselves

Octavius Caesar took western Europe for his third, with the capital at Rome itself It hat he could best use, for it left him with the Senate and the political power-center of the realht (and ere battles of words with the minds of men at stake

Lepidus arded the province of Africa, centering about the city of Carthage It was an inconsiderable portion for an inconsiderable e of Octavius Caesar Lepidus grew io-bethere the two major partners were concerned

Mark Antony had the East and this suited hi Julius Caesar's assassination, Antony had never gotten along well in Rome He preferred the Eastern provinces, which were far the richer and more sophisticated portion of the Roman realm Mark Antony was a hedonist; he kne to appreciate pleasure, and in the great cities of the East he kneould find it

He was also a soldier elcomed war, and in the East he kneould find that too The Parthians were to be found there Eleven years before they had destroyed a Roe I-257) and for that they had never been punished Antony hoped to deliver that punishment

this dotage of our general's

All Antony's plans went awry, however, when in 41 bc he encountered Cleopatra, the fascinating Queen of Egypt He fell sufficiently in love with her to forget the necessity of beating the Parthians and to neglect the threat of the slow, crafty advance of Octavius Caesar in Rome

The love story of Antony and Cleopatra has captured the i (And never has it been as ap-pealingly and as majestically described as in this play) In its own time, however, the affair must have been vieith impatience by those soldiers ere bound to Antony and who found the

The play opens in Cleopatra's palace in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt Two soldiers, Dee Philo, who knows the situation, expresses his soldierly displeasure to Demetrius, who apparently is a newcomer fresh from Rome Philo says:

Nay, but this dotage of our general's

O'erflows the oodly eyes

That o'er the files and musters of the war

Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn

The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front

- Act I, scene i, lines 1-6

The expression "tawny front" means "dark face" and this represents aCleopatra that has been common in later times and that can never be corrected, in all likelihood Because she was the ruler of an African land and because she was an "Egyptian," she has been presuress She may have been dark, to be sure, but she was no darker, necessarily, than any other Greek, for she was not of Egyptian descent

Egypt had becodom of Cleopatra's forebears back in 323 bc when Alexander the Great had died Alexander had conquered the entire Persian Eypt was part, and after his death one of his generals, Ptoleypt In 305 bc Ptole and from then on, for two and a half centuries, his descendants, each naypt

Ptoleypt, was a Macedonian, a native of the Greek-speaking kingdo just north of Greece proper All the Ptoleypt, down to and including Cleopatra, were coreat-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Ptolemy I There had been a number of Ptolemaic queens, by the ho bore the nalory of her father," and not Egyptian at all) The one in Shakespeare's play is actually Cleopatra VII, but she is the only one reh There is no danger of confusion with any of the first six

The notion of Cleopatra as a dark African is carried on further as the speech continues, with Philo saying of Antony:

His captain's heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper

And is become the bellows and the fan

To cool a gypsy's lust

- Act I, scene i, lines 6-10

The word "gypsy" yptian by nationality, she was not one by descent Indeed, the true Egyptians were a "lower class" to the ruling Greeks, as the natives of India once were to the ruling British Cleopatra would undoubtedly have been terribly offended to have been considered an "Egyptian"

Furtherypsy" by Shakespeare's tiroup offroypsy," but it is e I-149) To call Cleopatra a "gypsy," then, is to call up visions of swarthy women in markedly non-Western costume, both to Shakespeare's audience and our own

The triple pillar of the world

Antony, Cleopatra, and their train ofnow, and Philo says of Mark Antony, more bitterly still:

Take but good note, and you shall see in him

The triple pillar of the world transformed Into a strumpet's fool

- Act I, scene i, lines 11-13

Antony is one of the three ether support and rule the Roman realm, hence "triple pillar"

Rome is referred to here as "the world" In a way, it was to the ancients, for it included the entire Mediterranean basin and virtually all the lands that the Greeks and Romans considered "civilized"

Thus, in the Bible, the Gospel of St Luke speaks of a decree by Caesar Augustus (the very saeneration later) to the effect that the Roman realm be taxed The biblical verse phrases it this way: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree froustus, that all the world should be taxed" (Luke 2:1)

Of course, such phraseology is exaggerated The Roovernment didn't rule over all the earth There were barbarian tribes north of the northern limits of Rome, tribes ould make their presence felt all too painfully in a couple of centuries And even if the view is confined to civilized areas, the Roovernment didn't rule over all the civilized earth To the east of the eastern liion that had already beaten Roer to it (There were also civilizations in China and India, but these lay beyond the Roman horizon)

In this particular play, however, the transeous Antony is playing for the rule of the whole realh his own h his love affair with Cleopatra It becomes intensely dramatic, then, to be able to say, he "lost the world" It becomes even more dramatic to say he lost it for love

In fact, the English poet John Dryden in 1678 wrote his version of the tale of Antony and Cleopatra (far inferior to Shakespeare's), which he called, in the most romantic possible vein, All for Love; or the World Well Lost

tell me how much

Antony and Cleopatra speak now and they are engaged in the foolish love talk of young lovers Cleopatra is pouting:

If it be love indeed, tell me how much

- Act I, scene i, line 14

Yet Cleopatra is not a schoolgirl She is an experienced woman who has lived and loved fully She was born in 69 bc, so she enty-eight years old when she met Antony

Cleopatra's father, Ptoleer brother, the thirteen-year-old Ptolehteen, ruled jointly with hiled up in palace politics, however, and fled to Syria to raise an army hich to seize undisputed control of the country

It was at this ti from the defeat inflicted on hie I-257) Poyptians and Julius Caesar landed in Alexandria soon after

Cleopatra realized that the real power in the Mediterranean basin rested with Ro independent power of any consequence along all the Mediterranean shore, and even she could not do a thing without Roame of internal politics if Rome seriously objected Cleopatra also realized that Julius Caesar was now the ain him to her side, then, he would certainly place her on the throne

She had herself soes) wrapped in a carpet The later storytellers insist that when the carpet was unwrapped, she stepped out nude

Julius Caesar did see the merits of her case (however persuaded) and spent a year in Alexandria, needlessly interfering in Egyptian politics and running considerable danger hi this interval, Cleopatra is supposed to have been his mistress (He was fifty-two years old at the time, she twenty-one) At least she bore a son which, she insisted, was his, and called him Ptolemy Caesar The son was known, popularly, as Caesarion

In 47 bc Caesar left Alexandria, went to Asia Minor to fight a brief battle, then turned ard to win victories in Africa and Spain, and finally came back to Rome as Dictator He was assassinated just as he was about to

There is a story that he brought Cleopatra to Roypt after the assassination This, however, is based on an auous line in one of Cicero's letters, and is very probably not so Caesar was far too clever a politician to con queen" to Ro her up as his mistress What's more, Cleopatra was far too clever a queen to want to leave her turbulent country for others to control and loot just so she could be a hatedRoman politician

She very likely stayed in Alexandria between 47 bc, when Caesar left, and 41 bc, when she met Mark Antony

Fulvia perchance is angry

The love s of Antony and Cleopatra are interrupted, however, byhis ers to be brief and leave Cleopatra, however, is always petulant at any ht take Antony away frorows peevishly sarcastic:

Nay, hear them, Antony

Fulvia perchance is angry

- Act I, scene i, lines 19-20

Fulvia is Mark Antony's third wife; a fierce and ambitious woman, not inferior to Cleopatra in fire, but, presu Cleopatra's sexual fascination At least she didn't fascinate Antony

Antony was her third husband Her first husband had been that Publius Clodius who had been the occasion for Julius Caesar's divorce froang leader who made Cicero his particular prey

When Cicero was killed as a result of the proscriptions that followed the establishe I-306), Fulvia had his head brought to her as proof of his death When it was in her hands, she drove her hairpin through the dead tongue of the great orator with savage glee, as vengeance against the eloquence that had so lacerated two of her husbands, Clodius and Antony

Antony had headed east, after his division of the world with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, without bothering to take the forht, either) Any mention of his fierce wife undoubtedly embarrassed Mark Antony, and Cleopatra knew it

the scarce-bearded Caesar

Cleopatra went further than that The news ht be from Octavius Caesar She says:

or who knows

If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent

His pow'rful mandate to you

- Act I, scene i, lines 20-22

ThisAntony is forty-one years old when the play opens; a grizzled warrior more than a score of years in the field Octavius Caesar is nineteen years his junior, only twenty-two years old now Antony had to resent the fact that so young a man should be able to hold himself on an equal plane with the mature warrior

(Incidentally, in this play Octavius Caesar is always referred to as "Caesar," where he was always referred to as "Octavius" in Julius Caesar I shall call hi him with Julius Caesar)

Cleopatra gets what she wants The baited Antony cries out:

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch

Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space,

- Act I, scene i, lines 33-34

He refuses to hear the ers and leaves

prized so slight

The soldiers, Philo and Des with surprise and disapproval, cannot believe that Antony can be so careless of his own interests Demetrius says:

Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?

- Act I, scene i, line 56

De, if Antony does not

Octavius Caesar, young though he as one of the master politicians of history He lost no time in frivolity of any kind He was a cold, shrewd man, who never made a serious h to a conclusion the plans of his great-uncle, Julius Caesar He was not, perhaps, as brilliant as the great Julius in war or literature, but he was even wiser in politics, for he carried through the necessary govern," but

Nor did Octavius Caesar have the romantic appeal of Antony, or Antony's ability to orate, or his talent for putting on a kind of bluff, hail-felloell-met exterior that made him tremendously popular with the soldiers Octavius could never be loved till age, and the realization at last of his greatness, had ure to the people

Antony always underrated hi a network of alliances with politicians and generals, binding the a net that would end byhim all-powerful

Shakespeare too underprizes him, but this is necessary for the sake of the draate and not with the cool politician

Nevertheless, though all audiences must "root" for Antony (for Shakespeare wills it so, and wins me over too), truth coreater edy if circumstance had allowed Mark Antony to beat him

the cooes on to say:

I am full sorry

That he approves the common liar, who

Thus speaks of him at Rome;

- Act I, scene i, lines 59-61

Octavius Caesar, in his ceaseless war against Antony, anda When the two triumvirs were at peace, Octavius carefully sapped the other's strength in the West by spreading tales of his profligacy

Cicero's fiery and vituperative speeches in the last year of his life had covered Antony with slierated, much of it stuck Antony, who did carouse and who loved luxury, gave all toomuch worse about him than was true

Octavius Caesar made use of Cicero's speeches and also made use of the new n queen" Roht many ith Eastern monarchs and it was easy to escalate this affair with Cleopatra into threatened treason

In contrast, Octavius Caesar never stopped playing the part of the true Rorave, honorable, and devoted to public affairs

He himself was in love with no exotic teirls He had had no sons, though His first as childless and his second had one daughter He was soon to irl named Livia

Livia was not yet twenty, but she was already nant with (as it turned out) a second son She divorced her husband to ma attached to divorce in those days She became a model Romanlife; they reth of tie in those days Livia then lived on as his reveredfor fifteen h she had no children by Octavius Caesar, her own children by her earlier e proved capable warriors and one of them succeeded his stepfather to the rule of all Rome

The city of Rome was filled, then, with talk of hoicked Mark Antony was and how noble and good Octavius Caesar was, and this played an important part in Octavius' scheave erated rumors as true (as Demetrius points out) and that he never anda of his own He was entirely too trusting in his own reputation and capacity as a warrior -As though that were everything

Herod of Jewry

The scene shifts to Cleopatra's palace, where we find the Queen's ladies in waiting having fun at the expense of a soothsayer, who nevertheless makes some statements which turn out to have dramatic irony He predicts, for instance, that Cleopatra's lady in waiting Charmian will outlive her mistress, and so she does in the end-by about a minute

At one point, though, Char:

let me have a child at fifty, to whom

Herod of Jewry e

- Act I, scene ii, lines 27-28

This serves to set the time of the play in a way peculiarly useful to Shakespeare's audience It is the time in which Herod "the Great" is on the throne of Judea

Judea had lost its independence in 63 bc (twenty-two years before the tie I-255) had absorbed it into the Roiven some internal freedo Antipater was from Iduh he had become one by conversion He was assassinated in 43 bc, just a year after Julius Caesar had been

His eldest surviving son, Herod, also a converted Jew, and now thirty years old, was the natural successor, but the Eastern provinces were in a ferthen theainst Mark Antony and Octavius, and the Parthians were doing their best to take advantage of the disorder in Rome In fact, after the Battle of Philippi, the Parthians swarmed all over Syria and Judea, and Herod was forced to flee

He caave hih Cleopatra bitterly opposed Herod Herod beca of Judea, then, at just about the tis didn't settle sufficiently for Herod actually to enter Jerusalem and take the throne till 37 BC

The reference to the child to whoh too Whenever the political fortunes of the Jews declined, then-hopes for an ideal king or "anointed one" rose (The Hebreord for "anointed one" is "Messiah")

Now that the briefly independent Jewish kingdom under the Maccabees had fallen and the Romans were in control, Messianic hopes rose All Judea seemed to wait for so and under whom the world syste the capital of the world and all the nations confessing the one true God

Undoubtedly, non-Jews heard of these longings and were aests, then, that perhaps when she is fifty sheof the Jews, to whoe And, indeed, Jesus was born before the end of Herod's reign at a time when Charmian, had she lived, would have been not much more than fifty

Good Isis

The mischievous Charmian also asks the soothsayer to prophesy for the courtier Alexas, who had brought the soothsayer to court for Cleopatra's amusement She asks that a series of unsatisfactory wives be foretold for hily:

Good Isis, hear me this prayer,

though thou deny ood Isis,

I beseech thee!

- Act I, scene ii, lines 68-70

Isis was the chief goddess of the Egyptian pantheon For the yptian deities made little impact on the culturally snobbish Greeks and, therefore, on the Western world, which draws most of its culture from Greek sources

Isis was the chief exception For one thing, she was an extraordinarily attractive goddess; a thoroughly human female amid an array of aniyptian version of the vegetation-cycle e I-5) Her brother-husband, Osiris, was killed through treachery by Set, the god of darkness Osiris' body was cut to pieces and scattered throughout Egypt The lovely and sorrowing Isis painstakingly searched the land, collected the pieces, put theht Osiris back to life

Isis' influence was felt outside the borders of Egypt As the beautiful "Queen of Heaven" her worship penetrated Roht, when the Roods and snatched at others In the days of the Ro the time of Antony and Cleopatra) temples to Isis were built and her rites celebrated, even in the far-off island of Britain, two thousand miles from the Nile

After Christianity was established, the spell of Isis still continued to oddess of birth and motherhood, she was frequently portrayed with her child, Horus, on her lap The popular concept of mother and child was transferred to Christianity in the forin and the infant Jesus, so that the aura of Isis lingers over the world even now

A Roht

In comes Cleopatra in dark humor, for she can't find Antony She says:

He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden

A Roht hath struck him

- Act I, scene ii, lines 83-84

The thought of the nawed at Antony Part of him is Roman still, and he left to find them

my brother Lucius

The news is disturbing indeed, for it deals ar, and a particularly e one too, for it is Antony's wife, of all people, who is conducting it The Messenger says:

Fulvia thy wife first came into the field

- Act I, scene ii, line 89

Fulvia, her eyesight sharpened, perhaps, by the anger and huyptian enchantress, sahat Mark Antony did not-that Octavius Caesar would win it all if he were not stopped

She therefore did her best to instigate war against Octavius, raising an ar it in the field It probably did not escape her calculation that if she caused enough mischief, her husband's hand would be forced and he would have to coht-and rejoin her

Mark Antony is stupefied He asks:

Against my brother Lucius?

- Act I, scene ii, line 90

Lucius was Mark Antony's younger brother, and had held a variety of important political posts In 41 bc, after the Battle of Philippi and the following division of Ro the triumvirs, Lucius Antony was made consul

Actually, the consulate had become an unimportant office by now, for Octavius Caesar was the only real power in Roe It was a bow to Mark Antony's iave Mark Antony a foothold, so to speak, in the capital, though unfortunately for Antony, not a very competent one

It was Lucius Antony's duty as consul to oppose the rebellious Fulvia, so that at the very first they seemed to be at ith each other This hat occasioned Antony's surprise, that his wife should begin a war that would have to be against his brother

Apparently, that war did not last long Fulvia talked Lucius into joining her The Messenger explains:

soon that war had end, and the time's state

Made friends of theainst Caesar,

Whose better issue in the war, from Italy

Upon the first encounter drave them

- Act I, scene ii, lines 92-95

It wasn't quite that quick a victory for Octavius Caesar, but it was quick enough Octavius' armies drove the forces of Fulvia and Lucius northward and penned theia, a hundred e for some months before the city was taken This short conflict is called the Perusine War

The as a disaster for Mark Antony, because he knew everyone would believe that he was behind it (though he was not) and it would give Octavius Caesar all the excuse he needed to picture hiression

If Fulvia had to fight, she ht at least not have been so quickly defeated, so that Antony anda victory that had been handed Octavius Caesar Worse still was the manner of the defeat The food supply in the city was small and it was reserved for the soldiers of Fulvia and Lucius, who let the civil population starve Moreover, the final surrender was made on condition that the army's leaders be spared So they were, but the city itself was sacked in 40 bc

This callousness on the part of Fulvia and Lucius Antony, who saved their skins at the expense of thousands of common people, was not lost on the Roman populace They were execrated and some of the execrations were bound to fall on Mark Antony, whose reputation in Italy took another serious drop

with his Parthian force

But there is worse news still It is not only inside the Ro at the Eastern provinces and has reached a peak of power The Messenger says:

Labienus-

This is stiff news-hath with his

Parthian force Extended Asia; from Euphrates

His conquering banner shook, from Syria

To Lydia and to Ionia,

- Act I, scene ii, lines 100-4

Quintus Labienus had fought on the side of Brutus and Cassius and had refused to abandon the cause even after the Battle of Philippi and the death of the two conspirators Instead, he fled to the Parthians, whose ar the course of the Euphrates River, east of Asia Minor and Syria

Parthia was originally the name of an eastern province of the Persian Empire It was conquered by Alexander the Great and, after Alexander's death in 323 bc, it was incorporated hi the Seleucid Erip remained rather loose

In 171 bc, while Antiochus IV was the Seleucid king (see page I-183), Mithradates I became ruler of Parthia He made his land fully independent, and under the weak successors of Antiochus IV, the Parthians drove ard In 147 bc they took over control of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, the home of the ancient civilizations of Sumeria and Babylonia, and in 129 bc they founded their own capital of Ctesiphon on the Tigris River

The last Seleucid kings were penned into the constricted area of Syria itself, with Antioch as their capital, and in 64 bc that was made into a Roman province by Pompey

Across the Euphrates, Rome and Parthia now faced each other Under Orodes II, Parthia defeated Crassus in 53 bc; he was still king when the Battle of Philippi was fought in 42 bc He reer to do Rome all the harm he could and when Labienus, a trained Rohted and promptly placed a Parthian army at his disposal

In 40 bc the Parthians under Labienus moved ard, and in short order almost all of Syria and Asia Minor was occupied, with various Roeneral Lydia was an ancient kingdoion of the peninsula when it was under Ro the western seacoast of Asia Minor The er shows that all of the peninsula was now under Parthian control (It was from this Parthian advance that Herod fled, and in 40 bc the Parthians, for the only time in their history, marched into Jerusalem)

All this is bitter for Mark Antony, for it took place in his half of the real to prevent it, and he hih he lounged languidly with Cleopatra even while foreign ar Rome apart

Mark Antony acy as long as he can win battles, the loss of hisHe mutters:

These strong Egyptian fetters

I e

- Act I, scene ii, lines 117-18

From Sicyon

But another Messenger waits and Antony calls for him:

From Sicyon, ho, the news!

- Act I, scene ii, line 114

Sicyon is a Greek city in the northwest Peloponnesus, fifty miles west of Athens It was at the peak of its power about 600 bc when it was the rule of three generations of benevolent "tyrants," a one-er without interruption than in any other case in Greek history After the fall of the tyranny in 565 bc, Sicyon was usually doer and more powerful cities of Sparta or Corinth Only after Corinth was destroyed by the Romans in 146 bc did Sicyon experience another period of proan its final decline and the event that the Messenger is about to tell is very nearly the last of importance in its history

The news is brief, for the Messenger says:

Fulvia thy wife is dead

- Act I, scene ii, line 119

Fulvia reached Sicyon in her flight from Italy and then died there in 40 bc Antony is stricken Now that she is gone, he recognizes in her that energy and drive which has recently beenin himself and says:

/queen break off:

Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,

My idleness doth hatch

- Act I, scene ii, lines 129-3la

Enobarbus

Antony is doing his best to make up his mind to leave Cleopatra, and he calls his most reliable aide:

Ho now, Enobarbus!

- Act I, scene ii, line 131b

Enobarbus is a shortened for called is, in full, Gnaeus Doainst Caesar and had died at the Battle of Pharsalus

Enobarbus hiainst Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar and had commanded the fleet, in fact Even after the Battle of Philippi, Enobarbus had held out as a pirate until he on over by Mark Antony in 40 BC, just before this play opens He then became one of the most ardent of Antony's adherents

Sextus Pompeius

It is not surprising that Antony must leave for Rome He must take care of the Parthian ry Octavius Caesar in his rear He must mend fences there, explain away the actions of his wife and brother, and patch up an understanding Then, and only then, can he turn on the Parthians In addition, there is trouble in the West, for that matter Antony says to Enobarbus:

the letters too

Offriends in Rome

Petition us at home Sextus Pompeius

Hath given the dare to Caesar and commands

The empire of the sea

- Act I, scene ii, lines 183-87

Sextus Poer son of Pompey the Great He had been in Greece with his father when the Battle of Pharsalus had been lost and he was in the ship with his father when Poypt He reyptian shore and witnessed his father being stabbed and killed when he reached that shore He was about twenty-seven years old then

Some years later Sextus was in Spain when his older brother, Gnaeus Poainst Julius Caesar He was at the Battle of Munda, in which Gnaeus was defeated and slain in 45 bc (see page I-258) Sextus escaped and during the confusion that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar, quietly built up his strength at sea

By 40 bc he was in control of the Mediterranean He had seized Sicily soon after the assassination and was still holding it This cut off Rorain supply, part of which caypt in ships that Sextus could easily intercept What it aer son of Pompey had his hand at the throat of Ro about it

Naturally, since nothing succeeds like success, there was the danger that Sextus' increasing poould breed still further access of power As Antony says:

Our slippery people,

Whose love is never linked to the deserver

Till his deserts are past, begin to throw

Ponities

Upon his son;

- Act I, scene ii, lines 187-91

(In this play Sextus' lines are identified as those of "Pompey," but I shall call him Sextus or Sextus Pompeius in order not to confuse him with his father, Pompey the Great)

Nilus' slime

Enobarbus tells Cleopatra of the forthcooes seeking Antony himself to confirm the news

Poor Antony is in a dilemma He is no match for Cleopatra and can only fluster and fu, but she will have none of it He even tries to explain to her that her greatest fear (that he will return to his wife, Fulvia) is gone, since Fulvia is dead She turns even that against hi:

O most false love!

Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill

With sorroater? Now I see, I see,

In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be

- Act I, scene iii, lines 62-65

In viehat is to happen in Act IV, this is dramatic irony, for Antony will react quite differently to the report of Cleopatra's death

In frustration, Antony protests that he is faithful to her even though he must leave He says:

By the fire

That quickens Nilus' slio from hence

Thy soldier-servant

- Act I, scene iii, lines 68-70

Egypt is a desert land where it never rains What makes life possible there is the presence of the Nile River (The nayptians called it simply "The River"; but the Greeks na and "Nile" to us)

The Nile is an unfailing source of water for drinking and irrigation Once a year, moreover, its level rises as the snow on the distant Abyssinian and Kenyan mountains ht down from east-central Africa The water-soaked fresh soil is outstandingly fertile and in the hot African sun ("the fire that quickens Nilus' slirow

this Herculean Roman

When Cleopatra's perversity finallyhier She says:

Look, prithee, Charmian,

How this Herculean Roman does become

The carriage of his chafe

- Act I, scene iii, lines 82-84

The sneer refers to one of Antony's h it was taken seriously in his time) Roods and from mythical heroes The Julian family, of which Julius Caesar was a member, was supposed to have descended from Venus In similar fashion, the Antonian family, of which Mark Antony was a member, claimed to be descended from Anton, ahe could to end

In the end, then, Mark Antony is forced to leave angrily, defeated in the battle of words with Cleopatra

the queen of Ptolemy

The scene now shifts to Octavius Caesar's house in Rome Octavius Caesar is not much better off in Rome than Mark Antony is in Alexandria He too is beset with problems, and he is annoyed that Mark Antony's inaction makes it necessary for hi bitterly to Lepidus (the third member of the Triumvirate) as he reads a letter:

From Alexandria

This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes

The laht in revel; is not more manlike

Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy

More womanly than he;

- Act I, scene iv, lines 3-7

The phrase "the queen of Ptoles up an additional point that ypt it had long been the custom of the Pharaohs to marry their sisters Since the Pharaonic blood was considered divine, it would not do to have one marry a mortal Only a woman of the same line was a fit consort At least, that was the rationalization

When the Ptoleyptian customs as possible, in order to keep the populace quiet This included brother-sister es, and Cleopatra was born of a fae I-185), so that was as repulsive to the Romans as it would be to us

In fact, when Cleopatra's father died, Cleopatra and her brother, Ptolemy XII,were made joint rulers and were, in fact, ht have offspring ould succeed to the throne Ptolemy XII, however, died in the course of Julius Caesar's small war in Alexandria in 48 bc, and Cleopatra's rule was joined with a still younger brother, Ptolemy XIII

Ptolemy XIII was only ten years old at the time, and in 44 BC, when the news of Julius Caesar's assassination reached her, Cleopatra had the boy killed and then ruled jointly with her son, Caesarion, only three years old at the ti was Ptolemy XIV

Octavius Caesar's reference to her as "queen of Ptolemy" stressed the fact that she had been married to her brothers, and we can be sure that this was included in the whispering caainst Mark Antony

beaten from Modena

Messages of disaster greet Octavius Caesar as they had greeted Antony Octavius learns that Sextus Po the coast and that pirates control the sea where Sextus hirows shakier as its food supply dwindles Octavius Caesar broods resentfully over the fact that he isn't being helped by Antony Unaware that Antony is on his ard, Octavius Caesar cries out:

Antony

Leave thy lascivious wassails When thou once

Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did faainst

(Though daintily brought up) with patience more

Than savages could suffer

- Act I, scene iv, lines 55-61

The reference is to the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar and deals with events not mentioned in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar The events fall in the interval between Acts III and IV of that play (see page I-301)

Decimus Brutus (called "Decius" by Shakespeare) was in control of Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy, and Mark Antony led an army northward to attack him Decius fortified himself in Mutina, the ht there, Octavius Caesar, back in Roainst Antony and to send an arainst him led by the consul Hirtius; then another, led by the other consul, Pansa

Mark Antony left his brother, Lucius, to conduct the siege of Mutina with part of the arainst the consuls Antony was badly defeated, but both Roman consuls were killed (This was a stroke of luck for Octavius, for with both consuls dead, he was in full control of a victorious army)

Antony had to retreat over the Alps into Gaul, and that retreat was attended by extraordinary suffering and hardship Antony, in one of his better ti with his men and did so with such stoic patience that he endeared himself to the army The tale of his nobility in this respect was undoubtedly told and retold with exaggeration, as we can see from the repulsive details Shakespeare has Octavius list:

Thou didst drink

The stale [urine] of horses and the gilded [scum-covered]

puddle Which beasts would cough at

- Act I, scene iv, lines 61-63

The demi-Atlas,

Back in Alexandria, Cleopatra already misses Antony and is in a state of delicious self-pity She says:

Give ora

- Act I, scene v, line 4

Mandragora is an older form of "mandrake," a plant of the potato faion It has its uses as a cathartic, emetic, and narcotic Which effect predominates depends on the dose, but Cleopatra thinks of the narcotic aspect, for when asked why she wants it, she says:

That I ap of time

My Antony is away

- Act I, scene v, lines 5-6

She thinks longingly of Antony, saying:

O, Charmian,

Where think'st thou he is now?

Stands he, or sits he?

Or does he walk?

Or is he on his horse?

O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!

Do bravely, horse, for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st?

The demi-Atlas of this earth

- Act I, scene v, lines 18-23

Atlas was one of the Titans arred against Jupiter (see page I-11) In fact, he eneral, for he was punished worse than the others He was condemned to support the heavens on his shoulders

As ti up the sky The Greeks learned more about astronomy and knew that there was no solid sky to support The notion arose, then, of Atlas supporting the earth rather than the sky

Cleopatra pictures Antony here as supporting the weight of the probleht with Octavius Caesar, of course, so he himself was but a demi-Atlas; that is, half an Atlas

Phoebus' amorous pinches

In contrast, the self-pitying Cleopatra seely and old She says:

Think on me,

That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black

And wrinkled deep in time Broad-fronted Caesar,

When thou wast here above the ground, I was

A reat Pompey

Would stand and row in my brow;

- Act I, scene v, lines 27-32

Phoebus is, of course, the sun, and to be black with the sun's pinches would be to be sun-tanned A queen like Cleopatra, however, would certainly not allow herself to grow sun-tanned That was for peasant girls

What is meant is that she is dark by nature because she dwelt in a tropic land It is part of the Egyptian-Negress notion of Cleopatra, the usual false picture

Nor is she honestly "wrinkled deep in time" At this point in the story, she is twenty-nine years old; past her first youth, perhaps, but by no means old and wrinkled

Still it is human for her to think of herself as she was nine years before, only twenty-one, when Julius Caesar knew her; and even earlier when she met not Pompey himself, but his older son, who bore the same name

Her opulent throne

But now coift of a pearl and with a pretty speech He says:

"Say the firypt sends

This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,

To mend the petty present, I will piece

Her opulent throne with kingdoms

All the East (Say thou) shall call her mistress"

- Act I, scene v, lines 43-46

The story was indeed spread in Ro to hand over Roman provinces to Cleopatra; even to , of course); that a foreign ruler would thus raise an exotic throne upon the Capitol In the end, this, ainst Antony

Shakespeare gets a little ahead of history here The threat of turning the East over to Cleopatra comes later

At the moment, Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar, each waist-deep in trouble, were going to have to be friends whether they liked it or not, for only by working together could they survive

But Cleopatra is not concerned with practical politics now She is delighted with Mark Antony's re Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius When Charmian teases her with her onetime love of Julius Caesar, she dis:

My salad days,

When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,

- Act I, scene v, lines 73-74

And indeed, one of theaspects of this play is that it is a paean to the ecstasies of e passions so often celebrated

every hour in Rome

The second act opens in Messina, Sicily, at the camp of Sextus Pompeius, who is in conversation with his captains, Menecrates and Menas Sextus is rather euphoric, confident that his hold on Roives him the tru without Antony's military ability As for Mark Antony, Sextus has full confidence in Cleopatra's charms He says:

Mark Antony

In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make

No ithout doors

- Act II, scene i, lines 11-13

He is, however, overconfident Another one of his captains, Varrius, conies with unwelcome news:

This is most certain, that

I shall deliver: Mark Antony is every hour in Rome

Expected

- Act II, scene i, lines 28-30

There is hope, of course, that upon arrival, Mark Antony will fall to quarreling with Octavius This is tentatively advanced as a possibility by Menas, but Sextus shakes his head They er from the sea exists, they will have to s look as bad for Sextus as, at the start, they had looked good

Hark, Ventidius

In Rome, in Lepidus' house, it is now late in 40 bc The confrontation between Octavius Caesar and Mark Antony is about to take place and poor Lepidus is in a sweat lest the two collide destructively He has undoubtedly done his best to influence Octavius Caesar to be acco, and he pleads with Enobarbus to do the same with respect to Mark Antony

From opposite sides approach the two triu to be deep in private discussion so that, for effect, he can see the other

Antony speaks first to the general at his side-his thoughts, to all appearances, on military matters in the East:

// we compose well here, to Parthia

Hark, Ventidius

- Act II, scene ii, lines 15-16a

Here he goes off, apparently, into military talk unheard by the audience and undoubtedly meant to impress Octavius

Ventidius is Publius Ventidius Bassus, who in early life had been a poor es He rose to beco under Julius Caesar in Gaul and re the ith Poreat Julius, Ventidius served Mark Antony and has remained loyal to him since

Maecenas; ask Agrippa

As for Octavius Caesar, he is speaking with two men Of e can't say, but it is probably politics Octavius affects carelessness All we hear him say is:

/ do not know, Maecenas; ask Agrippa

- Act II, scene ii, lines 16b-17

Maecenas and Agrippa are Octavius Caesar's closest associates, then and afterward Gaius Cilnius Maecenas was a man of peace He was several years older than Octavius Caesar and had been a friend of his since the latter was a schoolboy In later years Maecenas was always left at home to take care of Rome when Octavius Caesar was forced to be away on war or diplomacy In his eventual retireathered to support and patronize writers and artists So earnestly did he do this and so great were those he helped that forever after a patron of the arts has been called "a Maecenas"

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, on the other hand, was the eneral who fought all his master's battles, and who made it possible for Octavius to win rippa win theh to know that he needed Octavius' brain to direct his arm In the same way, Mark Antony needed Julius Caesar's brain to direct his arm, but he never really understood that)

Agrippa was the sae as Octavius Caesar, ith him at school when the news of the assassination of Julius Caesar had arrived, and ith hiainst the conspirators, for he was still young After the Battle of Philippi, however, Agrippa began to shine It was he, for instance, who led the armies that penned up Fulvia and Lucius Antonius in Perusia and then defeated them

tile

Softly and eagerly, Lepidus draws the two ether Stiffly, they sit and confront each other Each raises the rievances Octavius Caesar has the better of this, for he can bring up the war fought against hi Antony set theainst his own policy, and ungallantly places full bla, in terms that must have raised a wry smile from many a husband in the audience:

As for my wife,

I would you had her spirit in such another

The third o'the world is yours, which with a snaffle

You may pace easy, but not such a wife

- Act II, scene ii, lines 65-68

Nevertheless, arguhly points out the necessity of a compromise, however insincere:

if you borrow one another's love

for the instant, you may, when you hear

no ain:

you shall have tile in when

you have nothing else to do

- Act II, scene ii, lines 107-10

It doesn't , but it is a fair appraisal of the situation A practical ht

Admired Octavia

Agrippa coestion at once He says to Octavius Caesar:

Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,

Adreat Mark Antony

Is noer

- Act II, scene ii, lines 123-25

This sounds as though Agrippa is referring to a half sister, but he isn't Octavia is a daughter of the same mother as Octavius Caesar as well as of the same father

Octavius Caesar had two sisters, both older than he The older one, Octavia Major, was a half sister, by his father's first wife The second, Octavia Minor, was a full sister and the one to whorippa refers

She was by no in, but was in her er than Cleopatra) and had been hters and a son Her husband, Gaius Marcellus, had died the year before, so as being proposed was the e of aand a er

Mark Antony agrees to the e and thus is produced what is hoped will be a permanent bond between the two triumvirs, someone ill be a common love and ill labor to smooth over all irritations There is a precedent for this, in connection with the First Triumvirate, when Pompey and Julius Caesar were much in the position that Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar are now

In 58 bc, when Julius Caesar was leaving for Gaul, he arranged to have Pohter, as in her mid-twenties at the time It turned out to be a love e lasted, peace was maintained between the two e of only thirty The strongest link between the two ht have been prevented had Julia lived

It was this precedent which was now being followed If only Mark Antony could love Octavia as Poht be well (and better, too, for Octavia was destined to live for thirty yearsas Julia had done)

ainst Pompey

The agreeainst Sextus Po to Mark Antony, who says:

I did not think to draw ainst Pompey,

For he hath laid strange courtesies and great

Of late upon me

- Act II, scene ii, lines 159-61

It wasdefinite overtures toward an alliance When Antony's mother fled Italy after the Perusine War, Sextus was ostentatiously kind to her In fact, in a later scene, Sextus re:

When Caesar and your brother were at blows,

Your mother came to Sicily and did find

Her welcome friendly

- Act II, scene vi, lines 44-46

Sextus was not doing this, of course, out of sheer goodness of heart He expected the Perusine War would lead to a greater civil war and he was prepared to choose sides for his own greater benefit Since Octavius Caesar was closer to himself and the more immediate enemy, he was ready to ally himself with Antony, and this kindness to Antony's mother was a move in that direction

Indeed, Antony would have welcomed such an alliance, and in 41 bc the first steps toward such an understanding had been taken Undoubtedly, if it had not been for the terrible Parthian menace, the Sextus-Antony coh, Antony had to have peace with Octavius Caesar, and to get that the alliance with Sextus had to be abandoned and even war on Sextus had to be considered

Mount Mesena

If the triuainst Sextus Pompeius, it was none too soon Sextus had even established strong bases on the shores of Italy itself Antony asks where he is, and Octavius Caesar answers:

About the Mount Mesena

- Act II, scene ii, line 166

Mount Mesena is a promontory that encloses a harbor about which the ancient town of Misenuone, was fifteen rippa was to construct a strong naval base there, but now it belonged to Sextus

the river of Cydnus

The triuht meet Octavia and perforht seerippa reht conversation

Naturally, thisin connection with Cleopatra Maecenas and Agrippa want all the inside inforlad to comply:

When she first met Mark Antony,

she pursed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus

- Act II, scene ii, lines 192-93

That takes us back to the previous year, 41 bc, when Antony, in the after through Asia Minor, gouging ainst Parthia he was planning Unfortunately for hihtly Brutus and Cassius had been there the year before (see page I-303) and they had scoured the land clean

Antony made his headquarters in Tarsus, a city on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor, at the eneration later, St Paul was to be born) It seeical solution to his dileypt That land, noreatest concentration of wealth in the Mediterranean world-wealth wrung out of an endlessly fertile river valley and an endlessly patient and hard-working peasant population

There had been reports that Egypt had helped Brutus and Cassius, and this was very likely, for Egypt was in no position to refuse help to any Roeneral as in her vicinity with an army Mark Antony understood that well, but what interested him was that this help could be used as an excuse to dereat deal, and for that reason he suypt to come to him in Tarsus and explain her actions He had briefly seen the Queen in Alexandria in the days when Julius Caesar was there, seven years before, but not since

Cleopatra, perfectly aware of what Mark Antony intended, and also perfectly aware of his reputation as a woman chaser and of herself as a suprereatest possible luxury, with herself beautified to the extreme of art Plutarch describes the scene well, but Shakespeare ireater effect, in the h soldier, to show that even the least poetic e setting of herself

Enobarbus, in an unbelievable outburst of sheer lyricism, says:

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes For her own person,

It beggared all description: she did lie

In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,

O'erpicturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature: on each side her

Stood pretty di Cupids,

With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid did

- Act II, scene ii, lines 197-21 la

Agrippa, listening, can only mutter in envy:

O, rare for Antony

- Act II, scene ii, line 21 1b

Cleopatra's strategy worked to perfection Antony found hi at the pier on a throne in Roed as everyone crowded to watch the approaching barge He himself was overcoe, he went in as almost a hypnotic trance, and was her slave froed into the Eastern provinces and forced the notice

Age cannot wither

Agrippa and Maecenas grow uneasy at the description The entire accommodation of the triue of Antony and Octavia Maecenas points out that now Antony must leave her, but Enobarbus answers in an i in the process the most effective description of complete feminine charm the world of literature has to offer He says of the possibility of Antony's leaving Cleopatra:

Never; he will not;

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety: other women cloy

The appetites they feed, but she ry

Where s

Become themselves in her, that the holy priests

Bless her when she is riggish

- Act II, scene ii, lines 240-46

And what can the others offer in place of this? Maecenas can only say, rather lamely:

// beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle

The heart of Antony, Octavia is

A blessed lottery to him

- Act II, scene ii, lines 247-49

Thy daemon

Antony pledges hi her and Octavius Caesar, he encounters the soothsayer, who has apparently accompanied his train to Italy Antony asks whose fortune will rise higher, his own or Octavius Caesar's The soothsayer answers:

Caesar's

Therefore,

O Antony, stay not by his side

Thy daemon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is

Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,

Where Caesar's is not But near hiel

Beco o'erpow'red: therefore

Make space enough between you

- Act II, scene iii, lines 18-24

The Greeks came to believe that with each individual was associated a divine spirit through which the influence of the gods could ly felt that a hts otherwise impossible to him Where a particular spirit was most continually effective, the man himself would be of unusual power and ability In some cases, this belief was elaborated to the point where each individual was thought to have two such spirits, one for good and one for evil, the two continually fighting for mastery

To the Greeks, such a spirit was a "dai this beca of pagan origin, could only be evil, and therefore we get our present "de an evil spirit However, the Greek notion lives on with but a change of naels and we so influenced by his better or worse nature

The soothsayer is saying that though Octavius Caesar's daemon is inferior to Antony's it can nevertheless win over the latter In present parlance, we ht say that Octavius Caesar plays in luck whenever he encounters Mark Antony And yet this is hard to accept It wasn't luck that kept Octavius Caesar on top through all a long life, but ability

The Latin equivalent, by the way, of the Greek daie I-118)

I'th'East

The soothsayer, in warning Antony to stay far away fro Antony what he wants to hear (This is the suprees and places) Antony therefore says, after the soothsayer leaves:

I will to Egypt:

And though I e for my peace,

I'th'East my pleasure lies

- Act II, scene iii, lines 39-4la

Eventually, yes, but right now he can't There are problems he must attend to and until those are resolved, he ypt

And some of the problems are in the East and won't wait for his personal presence His general, Ventidius, comes on scene, and Antony says:

O, come, Ventidius,

You must to Parthia Your commission's ready:

Follow me, and receive't

- Act II, scene iii, lines 41b-43

be at Mount

If the Parthians must be dealt with, so must Sextus Pompeius He was the nearer and the more immediate menace

The new agreement between the triumvirs and, in particular, Antony's betrayal of his earlier moves toward an alliance had embittered Sextus, and he now escalated his own offensive In the whiter of 40-39 bc Sextus' hand about Rohtened Virtually no food entered the capital city and famine threatened When the triumvirs tried to calm the populace, they were stoned

They had no choice but to try to coreement with Sextus and to allow him to enter the combine This would make four men (a quad-rureed to cohold, to confer with him

Shakespeare skips over the hard winter, passing directly froe to Octavia to thefor Misenurippa come on scene in a ind of activity, and Maecenas says:

We shall

As I conceive the journey, be at

Mount Before you, Lepidus

- Act II, scene iv, lines 5-7

The "Mount" is the Misenu with Sextus will take place

his sword Phillipan

Back in Alexandria during that sas for the period of happiness she had experienced with Antony and says, in reminiscence, to Charmian:

/ laughed hiht

I laughed him into patience; and next morn,

Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed;

Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst

I wore his sword Philippan

- Act II, scene v, lines 19-23

Cleopatra ht as she remembers, but the picture of Antony drunk by midafternoon (the ninth hour of a twelve-hour day would be about 3 p wo Octavian propaganda was scattering all over Roood citizens

It was the fashion of warriors in ive na Arthur's Excalibur Mark Antony's sword, Philippan, is nareatest victory

a Fury croith snakes

Clearly, Cleopatra has not heard the news about Octavia and a frightened Messenger comes in to deliver it

The Messenger begins by assuring Cleopatra that Antony is well, but he hesitates and the Queen senses that soht to be bringing news of death at that She says to hi his news:

// not well,

Thou shouldst come like a

Fury croith snakes,

- Act II, scene v, lines 39-40

The Greeks included in their ry ones"), whose task it was to pursue and uilty of particularly terrible cri of close kinsmen They were depicted and described as so ferocious in appearance that theThey carried snakes in their hands, or else their hair wassnakes (Perhaps they sy of conscience)

To avoid offending them, the Greeks sometimes spoke of them by the euphemistic term "Eumenides" ("the kindly ones") Aeschylus wrote a powerful play by that naae I-89) is killed by his wife Clyteamemnon's son, Orestes, kills his mother and is pursued by the Erinyes in consequence

The Rooddesses "Furiae," fro lish

the feature of Octavia

The Messenger finally blurts out the news of Antony's e and beats the Messenger, shouting horrible imprecations upon him:

Hence,

Horrible villain! Or I'll spurn thine eyes

Like balls before me: I'll unhair thy head,

Thou shalt be whipped ire and stewed in brine,

S pickle

- Act II, scene v, lines 62-66

The whole scene, properly done, shows Cleopatra in a spitting, fantastic fury, and one can only feel that such rage would s becoentle and modest Octavia must have seemed utterly pallid and insipid to Antony, in bed as well as out

(I cannot resist repeating the story of the two respectable Englishof Antony and Cleopatra a century ago, in the reign of Queen Victoria When this scene passed its shattering course upon the stage, one of the matrons turned to the other and whispered in a most shocked manner: "How different from the home life of our own dear Queen!")

But Cleopatra's rage does not entirely wipe out her shrewdness She questions the treain to make sure there is no possibility of ain and yet again:

Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me

Thou wouldst appear ly

- Act II, scene v, lines 96-97

Narcissus is, of course, the lovely youth, irresistible to woe I-10)

With that settled, and the Messenger retiring, Cleopatra ponders her next step She orders a courtier to go after the Messenger and question him further:

Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him

Report the feature of Octavia; her years,

Her inclination, let him not leave out

The color of her hair

- Act II, scene v, lines 111-14

Thou dost o'ercount me

The scene shifts to Misenue of hostages, threats, harsh language from either side

Mark Antony tells Sextus that on land the triumvirs "o'ercount" (outnumber) him Sextus responds sardonically:

At land indeed

Thou dost o'ercount me of my father's house:

- Act II, scene vi, lines 26-27

Here the word "o'ercount" is used in an alternate sense, ht of Pompey the Great once and had then never paid for, since the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar intervened Civil wars always end in enrichment for the victors at the expense of the losers

wheat to Rome

Octavius Caesar, however, coldly keeps his te of the real point causes Sextus Poested compromise Sextus says:

You have made me offer

Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must

Rid all the sea of pirates; then, to send

Measures of wheat to Rome;

- Act II, scene vi, lines 34-37

In actual fact, the offer was rather enerous than that Sextus Pompeius already had Sicily, but to it was added not only Sardinia, but Corsica also, and these three large islands half encircle Italy In addition, since all these were taken from Octavius Caesar's share of the realm, Sextus was to have Greece as well, so that Antony had to pocket a share of the loss

In return for becoroup, Sextus would have to take his hand from Rome's throat

Apollodorus carried

Sextus Pompeius accepts the co hands and expressing affection, though Antony, as always, finds he et of a continual lewd curiosity on the part of the others concerning Cleopatra

Sextus brings up the famous story of how Cleopatra first met Julius Caesar He says:

And I have heard Apollodorus carried-

- Act II, scene vi, line 68

It had been Apollodorus, a Sicilian Greek, who had delivered the rolled-up carpet containing Cleopatra (possibly nude) to Julius Caesar Clearly, to bring up tales of Cleopatra's earlier amours could scarcely be calculated to please Antony, and Enobarbus es to quiet Sextus and head him off

Thy father, Pompey

Not everyone is satisfied When the chief characters leave, Menas, one of Sextus' captains, remains behind with Enobarbus Menas mutters to himself:

Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this treaty

- Act II, scene vi, lines 82-83

The implication is that Sextus' father, Pompey the Great, would have had too ive up the tru Roain In this respect, Menas was being more sentimental than accurate, for Pompey the Great had been a poor politician and would undoubtedly have agreed to such a treaty or a worse one

Later, Menas is frank enough to put the ly to Enobarbus:

For

Poh away his fortune

- Act II, scene vi, lines 104-5

The accuracy of Menas' judgh

holy, cold and still

But then Menas too starts probing for information about Cleopatra and is thunderstruck when Enobarbus tells him Antony is e of convenience

Enobarbus agrees:

I think so, too But you shall find the band that seems to tie

their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity:

Octavia is of a holy, cold and still conversation

- Act II, scene vi, lines 120-23

Clearly, Enobarbus doesn't think this is the sort of thing that will hold a man like Antony He says, confidently:

He will to his Egyptian dish again

- Act II, scene vi, line 126

the flow o'th'Nile

The quadrurand time, and are hilarious over their wine Antony is in his element; he can carry his liquor better than any of thee and exotic land, he can regale the others onders He says:

Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o'th'Nile

By certain scales i'th'pyramid They know

By th'height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth

Or foison [plenty] follow The higher Nilus swells,

The more it promises

- Act II, scene vii, lines 17-21

Antony is correct here The Egyptian priesthood kept a careful watch on the changes in the level of the Nile and through long records had learned to forecast from early variations what the final flood level would be and froht be Such studies had also yptians aware of the 365-day cycle of the seasons very early in their history and had given them an accurate solar calendar, while other civilizations of the tiled with the much more complicated lunar calendars

The pyramids were not, however, used as scales for the level of the Nile Throughout history, people have wondered at the uses of the pyramids and have been reluctant to accept the fact that those monstrous piles were merely elaborate tombs They have been accused of every other purpose but that, and some moderns have considered thees, athe future, and an earlyspaceships But they are to more

Your serpent of Egypt

Lepidus is gloriously drunk; drunk enough to wish to shine as an Egyptian authority hiravity:

Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud

by the opera tion of your sun; so is your crocodile

- Act II, scene vii, lines 26-28

This represents the ancient belief in "spontaneous generation," the thought that unwanted or noxious species of plants or ani matter (How else explain the prevalence of these species despite human efforts to wipe them out)

Antony hu with hiyptians knew that serpents and crocodiles developed froe enough to see

The situation was less certain with creatures that laid eggs sh to overlook It was not until half a century after Shakespeare's death that it was shown that s laid on that dead meat by flies And it wasn't till the mid-nineteenth century that it was shown that microscopic creatures did not arise fro microscopic creatures

Lepidus goes on to deliver a piece of egregious patronization He says:

I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises

are very goodly things; without contradiction

I have heard that

- Act II, scene vii, lines 35-37

Of course, they were not the Ptolemies' pyramises (or pyramids, as ould say) except in the sense that they were to be found in the land ruled by theyptian Pharaohs who ruled more than two thousand years before the first Ptoleyptian throne They were as ancient to the Ptolemies as the Ptolemies are to us

And "goodly things"? Yes indeed Considering the technology of the tune, the pyramids are the most colossal labors of man the planet has seen, with the possible exception of the Great Wall of China They iranite blocks When they were new, they had white lihtly in the sun and were surrounded by enormous temple complexes

The Greeks, who notoriously admired no culture but their own, hu their Seven Wonders of the World; and of all the Seven Wonders only the pyramids still remain

Antony cannot resist poking fun at the besotted Lepidus, describing the crocodile in grave but non-infor in the portentous: