Essay — Antony and Cleopatra (A)

Act 5 Scene 2, Antony and Cleopatra In this moment building up to Cleopatra’s suicide, Shakespeare cleverly gives the audience one last look at Cleopatra’s multi -faceted character: as a vanquished queen of Egypt whose dignity is about to be stripped away, as an indomitable tragic heroine det ermined to be the master of her fate, and an exemplification of erotic sexuality. In this way, Shakespeare uses Cleopatra to meditate on the extent of human agency, the importance of honour and the ambiguous ethicality of suicide. Cleopatra begins by narrating her peripeteia, discussing the extreme indignity she will suffer at the hands of her Roman captors and highlighting the limited control man has over the uncertainties of fortune and fate. Cleopatra tells Iras that they will be “Egyptian puppet[s]… shown / in Rome”: they are compared to inanimate dolls devoid of agency, with their actions fully controlled by ‘puppet -masters’ pulling the strings. Additionally, Cleopatra’s metaphor is infused with an element of performance: just as puppet shows are put on to entertain, Cleopatra and Iras will be dishonourably put on display (“shown / in Rome”) as a trophy marking Caesar’s victory. In this way, Cleopatra’s undignifying objectification reveals her steep fall from her royal past, an abrupt reversal of fortune characteristic of Renaissance tragedy. Cleopatra further laments that they will be handled by “mechanic slaves / with greasy aprons, rules, and hammers”; the base and crude nature of the lowly labourers is reinforced by the unpleasant tactile image of “grease” and the cumulative list of the rudimentary tools they carry. In the strictly hierarchical societies of both ancient Egypt and Shakespeare’s England, the prospect of a sovereign ruler like Cleopatra being forcibly lifted by commoners would be a deeply dishonourable one, representing a great fall from high degree. Cleopatra adds that “[they] shall be enclouded” in the Romans’ “thick” and “rank” breaths, “forced to drink their vapour”. Not only does the selection of “drink” as a verb for gaseous “vapour” — as if it were liquid — evoke the choking heaviness of their foul breaths, but the omission of the pronoun “we” in the sentence also mirrors how they are shrouded and concealed by a cloud of odour. Most dreadful of all, their modesty will be violated: “s aucy lictors / will catch at [them], like strumpets”, the hissing sibilant alliteration evincing Cleopatra’s outrage. While “catch” denotes the profane way Roman officials will grab at their bodies, its accompanying connotations of ensnarement highlight th eir trapped state, unable to free themselves from this undignifying fate. In response to this treatment, Iras repeatedly cries for divine intervention (“The gods forbid!”, “O the good gods!”), only to be met with Cleopatra twice affirming that such a fate is “certain”; man is frail amidst the changing winds of fortune and power, a common insight among Renaissanc