CHAPTER THREE
3.1. Introduction to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra
collapse of the Republic and the birth of the Augustan Empire. LikeJulius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra is modelled largely on Plutarch's Life ofAntony, which was available to Shakespeare in the English translation of Sir Thomas North, made from Amyot's French translation (1559) ofthe Greek.6 The general incidents of Shakespeare's play are drawn from Plutarch, but while this play relies upon information gleaned from other ancient sources, particularly from Appian, and, to a lesser degree, Vergil, Shakespeare'sAntony and Cleopatra reveals an independence from any source he may have used, opting for a blend of fidelity and freedom in his treatment of the sources.7 Furthermore, as Miola (1983: 117-8) explains: 'the ten years or so that separate Antony and Cleopatra from Julius Caesar span the most creative period in Shakespeare's life and mark the height of his poetic development. ...As before, Shakespeare practices an eclectic syncretism: he borrows incidents, themes and images from various sources - classical and contemporary - and combines them into new wholes. The fusing process remains essentially the same, but the final product is different, created by a higher level of imaginative energy acting on a wider range of diverse elements. These elements - variously popular, recondite, historical, literary, iconographical, and mythological - combine to create moments of extraordinary poetic texture and resonance, moments very different from any of the parts in their making.' Apart from the rich melting pot of traditions and elements upon which the play draws,Antony and Cleopatra is made even more accessible and attractive to modem audiences by the plausibility ofthe narrative, for as Mack (1973 :79) contends, 'there are no witches inAntony and Cleopatra to require a mild suspension of disbelief, no ghosts, no antic madmen, no personages who are paragons of good or evil, nor even any passions ...which require of today's spectator an act of imaginative adjustment.'
As with Plutarch and the Roman sources, Shakespeare, in redefining historical characters for his construction of the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra, must be held under the scrutiny of the lens of historicity. In this light, I cannot agree with Jameson, who offers that 'the reverence and the simpleness of heart with which Shakespeare has treated the received and admitted truths of history - I mean according to the imperfect knowledge ofhis time - is admirable: his inaccuracies are
6 Sandler (1986:125). Although Plutarch was Shakespeare's main source, it is important to remember that this was a source mediated through the Elizabethan translation of North, an indirect translation of the original Greek.
In this chapter, Sir Thomas North's English translation of Plutarch's Life of Antony (mediated through Amyot's French translation) will be used, since this is the translation Shakespeare used in Antony and Cleopatra. Sir Thomas North's Life ofMarcus Antonius is taken from Bullough (1964).
7 Miola (1983:116); Kermode (2000:217). Pelling (1988:37) notes that the information Shakespeare drew from Appian relates particularly to Sextus Pompeius, dismissed very rapidly in Plutarch (Ant. 32).
few; his general accuracy, allowing for the distinction between the narrative and the dramatic form, is acknowledged to be wonderful. He did not steal the precious material from the treasury ofHistory to debase its purity, new-stamp it arbitrarily with effigies and legends of his own devising, and then attempt to pass it current, like Dryden, Racine, and the rest of those poetic coiners: he only rubbed off the rust, purified and brightened it, so that History herself has been known to receive it back as sterling.,8 While Jameson is correct in drawing attention to the uniqueness of Shakespeare' s portrayal of his historical characters of the play, such rhetorical descriptions of Shakespeare's contribution to history in the context ofthis play can hardly dim one truth that has already been established thus far:
that whatever Cleopatra was really like we will never know, for whatever we perceive in her character - her wiles, the authenticity of her love for Antony and the maternal aspect of her personality - is simply the reconstruction and presentation of her by one or another writer, artist or plaYWright, and each with his own artistic motives in mind. To what extent Shakespeare subscribes loyally to his ancient sources - Plutarch in particular - is far easier to gauge, and in this assessment, Jameson is perhaps more accurate. As has already been established, Shakespeare does follow closely the historical account of Piutarch (filtered, of course, through North's translation), even though he places his emphases on different events. For example, while Plutarch discusses the motherhood of Cleopatra and, like Appian, Antony's relationship with Fulvia and her revolt against Octavian in detail,9 Shakespeare dramatizes none of this, since the focus of his play remains essentially the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra and the dynamics sustaining that relationship. We will see, too, how Shakespeare departs from Plutarch's construction of Cleopatra, preferring to pursue an independent (and, in comparison to Plutarch, a more lively) characterization of the Egyptian queen. Itmust also be remembered that some parts of Plutarch's narrative simply could not be translated into a dramatic script. While individual scenes from Plutarch (such as Cleopatra's death) transpose very readily for the stage, the fust third of Plutarch's Life ofAntony - with its list of Antony's youthful excesses - was least suitable for dramatic transposition.10 However, what remains and what we must recognize, as Scott-Kilvert (1965:351) aptly encapsulates it, is that 'we are confronted as it were with a triptych of the subject - the partial portrait of Piutarch, the dramatized portrait of Shakespeare, and the shadowy but far from identical portrait of history.'
8 Jameson (1913:219).
9 App. 5.14, 19,21,52,59,66; Plut. Ant. 28.1,30.1,72.1,82; see also chapter 1 of this dissertation for a discussion of Cleopatra in these contexts.
10 Pelling (1988:38).
But perhaps most strikingincontrast to Plutarch' sLife ofAntonyis Shakespeare's critical conception of Rome and Roman values inAntony and Cleopatra. Following closely the example ofthe Roman poets, Vergil, Horace and Propertius, Rome and Egypt are constructed in Shakespeare's play as both physical localities and imagined ideals, with the play exploring the' struggles ofRomans with Rome, ...the resulting conflict between private needs and public responsibilities by again focussing on the Roman code ofhonour, shame, and fame; the paradoxes implicit in Roman ceremony and ritual; the political motifs of rebellion and invasion. ...Antony and Cleopatraexplores the predicament of the living human beings who must define themselves against the oppressive background of Roman tradition and history.'11 Plutarch, admittedly relying on the evidence provided by the imperial poets, glorifies the grandeur ofRome through his construction ofOctavian, whereas Shakespeare will have us believe that 'kingdoms are clay, [and] it is paltry to be Caesar.,12 InShakespeare's tragedy, where, incidentally, the playwright ignores Greece to develop the contrast between the spheres ofCleopatra and Caesar more acutely,13Rome and Alexandria are set apart as binary opposites, each with its own distinctive style and values. However, the contrasts of the play are not limited to Rome and Egypt but include the tensions between, and the shared affinities of, those opposing energies of the heroic and the amorous (and the amorous and the impotent), love and war, hedonism and virtuous restraint, lust and love, seduction and sex, the socially elevated and the socially confined, and defeat and exulted restoration. Inno other account of Antony and Cleopatra are such tensions manifest or so maturely developed - indeed, we are made to realize that Antony's tragic fall results more from a complex relationship than simply an affair between a man and a woman, even though this is, for Shakespeare, the main themeofAntony and Cleopatra. However, as Sandler (1986:124) reminds us, 'the most elementary way of misreading this play is to turn it into either a moral or a romantic melodrama, against or for Cleopatra....Both views are cop-outs: what we have to make sense of is a tragedy, not a morality play or a sentimental10ve story.'
11 Miola (1983: 116).
12 Scott-Kilvert (1965:351).
13 In this chapter, 1 have followed Shakespeare's practice, referring to Octavian, in reference to the play, as 'Caesar.'