Antony and Cleopatra Companion
(William Shakespeare’s)

Fate and Character

One of the main themes of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is the notion that our characters determine our fate. The archetypal nature of the main characters, who stand in stark juxtaposition to each other, serves as an ongoing illustration of this throughout the play. Caesar’s ambitious rationality and self-discipline are dramatically contrasted against Antony’s passion and lack of self-control, and the difference between Cleopatra and Octavia is even more striking. The role of the soothsayer highlights the theme by implying that his ability to read the future indicates a direct relationship between fate and character—our future ends and our present choices.

Somewhat tied to this is the role of the gods in people’s lives. The gods are mentioned or invoked numerous times throughout the play, and Cleopatra rails against Fortune’s unstoppable wheel in the hope of breaking it. But one of the play’s most mysterious scenes brings home the idea that men’s lives and actions are not only influenced by the gods but that they influence them. In this scene, the nighttime guards hear music coming from beneath the ground, and they conclude that Hercules, Antony’s protector until now, is leaving him—probably because of his recent irrational behavior and degenerate lifestyle.

Reason Versus Passion

One of the play’s strongest contrasts is between reason and passion. It is exemplified in the differences between Caesar’s actions, on the one hand, which tend to be governed by rational, calculated planning, and by Antony’s on the other, which seem guided by his momentary passions and whims, regardless of whether they make sense. This makes Antony an easy target. If Caesar dares him to make an ill-advised move, Antony responds emotionally instead of rationally. But if Antony dares Caesar in the same way, Caesar responds coolly, doing what is best from a practical point of view and never reacting on a whim.

The theme is also exemplified in Antony’s struggles and remorse over the difference between his past self—a man in command of himself and others—and his present state. There are numerous references by different characters to his loss of reason, and this trend in him is responsible not only for his strained or warring relationship with Caesar but also for the multiple desertions of him by his followers.

Honesty Versus Manipulation and Treachery

On a more moral level is the contrast throughout the play between honesty and manipulation, which are closely related to loyalty and treachery. Cleopatra and Caesar vie with each other in this respect, though their styles are totally different: she is dramatic, extravagant, and cunning; he is cautious, self-controlled, and calculating. Both, however, are motivated by a love of power and will use whatever means they have at their disposal to seduce, manipulate, or trick their targets. Cleopatra is also convinced (mistakenly, as we see with the play’s unfoldment) that manipulation is the way to manage a romantic relationship.

In sharp contrast to them is Enobarbus, who is honest to the point of being blunt. Although he ruminates to himself at times, he is also apt to speak his mind directly, making his desertion of Antony later in the play all the more shocking.

Loyalty and Desertion

The theme of loyalty and desertion is another of the strong currents that run throughout the play, and it again operates on many levels and with surprising twists. For example, in an attempt to ensure Antony’s loyalty, Caesar arranges for him to marry his sister Octavia. She, being immensely virtuous and loyal to her brother, willingly agrees. When the arrangement doesn’t work because Antony returns to Cleopatra, the pain it causes Octavia arouses the indignation of Caesar because of his love and loyalty toward her.

Additional examples include:

• Menas, who views his assassination plot as a sign of loyalty to Pompey; but when Pompey rejects the idea, Menas begins to turn against him

• Agrippa and Maecenas, who are Caesar’s constant companions and advisors

• Eros, Mark Antony’s slave attendant, who loves his master so much that he breaks his oath to kill him when called upon to do so and kills himself instead

• Charmian, who follows her mistress in death

The other side of the coin is illustrated by the plays’ many desertions and betrayals, in particular of Antony, who is viewed as having lost his reason. Just a few examples are:

• Alexas, who deserts Antony, then convinces Herod to join with Caesar and is finally executed by Caesar in an ironic twist of fate

• Canidius, Antony’s lieutenant, who defects with his troops to Caesar

• Caesar himself, who turns on Lepidus, Antony, and Pompey, and accuses the former two of doing the same to him

• Antony, who left Octavia and his previous wife, Fulvia, for Cleopatra

• Cleopatra, who turned tail and deserted her own navy in the Battle of Actium

Possibly the most moving and troubling of all of these is the story of Enobarbus, whose sudden desertion of Antony came as a shock. When Antony reacted with generosity and understanding, Enobarbus was struck with such remorse and shame that he found himself a ditch to die in just a few days after his desertion.

Suicide and Honor

The theme of suicide is another unmistakable thread that runs throughout the play. There is much mention of honor, and it was thought that the loss of honor could be redeemed through the Roman “custom” of suicide. But in looking closely at the different suicides throughout the play, the actual motives seem more complex and varied, even in those who professed honor as their reason. Enobarbus, though not strictly a suicide, felt a deep sense of shame but also grief and remorse for having betrayed a grand and noble soul. Eros killed himself because he loved his master too much to kill him, despite his oath. His motives included both love and the desire to escape from a responsibility he couldn’t bear. Cleopatra, similarly, could not stand the idea of submitting herself to Caesar, and the world seemed moreover a dismal place now that Antony was gone. Charmian followed her mistress partly out of love and loyalty and partly out of the conviction that it was the right thing to do. Mark Antony would have contented himself with private citizenship and a life with Cleopatra, had Caesar allowed it. Honor was necessary, but it was only when he discovered that Cleopatra was supposedly dead that he fell on his sword and killed himself. It seems that though he struggled deeply with his loss of honor, his love of life and especially of Cleopatra had at least as powerful a hold.

Freedom and Power

One of Cleopatra’s strongest motives for killing herself was that she could not reconcile herself to a lesser life than the one she had been living. She was used to a life of freedom and power, and the idea of being someone’s puppet, to be pawed at by the masses of common folk, was unacceptable to her. It is clear from the beginning by her manipulative tactics that power was a primary issue with her. She used her power to gain love, for example, just as she used her love to gain power.

Power was, of course, also an issue with Caesar, who did not like having his plans thwarted by others and took immediate and decisive measures to make sure that they weren’t. In Antony’s case, power was his natural state. Several people, including Cleopatra, speak of him as having been a large or great soul. Even Caesar thought that his death should have been marked by some significant event. That natural sense of power on Antony’s part must have made his loss of control all the more painful, especially since the reason for it was the power that a woman wielded over his thoughts and emotions, a condition which in those days would have been wholly unacceptable.

Temperance Versus Extravagance

Both Antony and Cleopatra lived life to the fullest. Their feasts were extravagant affairs that were so legendary that news of them traveled across the sea to Rome. The same was true for Cleopatra’s other ventures, such as the barge trip described by Enobarbus. In fact, Shakespeare’s descriptions are tame compared to the historian Plutarch’s more detailed accounts in his “Life of Antony.”

In Shakespeare’s play, Cleopatra’s dramatic displays of emotion and temperament were more the rule than the exception; and Antony’s unrestrained jealousy and anger was simply the reverse side of his passion for love and life. The largeness of his generosity was matched by the severity with which he punished himself for losing control. In short, Antony and Cleopatra did nothing in moderation, and it only makes sense that their fortunes should crash as sharply as they rose to the highest worldly heights.

By contrast, both Octavius Caesar and his sister, Octavia, demonstrated considerable restraint. Caesar is portrayed as self-disciplined, while Octavia is genuinely modest and selfless, willing to sacrifice her own needs for the good of others. In actual history, whatever Caesar’s faults may have been, they both survived, Caesar to become the first Roman Emperor and Octavia to be a revered member of Roman society and to raise the children from her own and Mark Antony’s marriages and his relationship with Cleopatra.

Vice Versus Virtue

Related to the theme of temperance versus extravagance is the theme of vice versus virtue. The play’s dominant symbol of vice is Cleopatra. In general, as portrayed by Shakespeare, she is bewitching, manipulative, self-serving, moody, irresponsible, ambitious, and even abusive. Coupled with her seductiveness, intelligence, charm, wit, wealth, power, and extravagant displays, as well as certain supposed magical abilities, she was apparently too much for Antony to resist. News of their extravagant lifestyle reached Rome and was in large part a cause of the rift between Caesar and Antony.

Much of the play is taken up with the struggle between vice and virtue within Antony himself as well as in such characters as Enobarbus, who was close to him and, therefore, affected by the changes in him. Antony’s good qualities—his generosity, nobility, humanity, skill, power, and sense of responsibility—are in constant conflict with his love and fascination for Cleopatra, which eventually lead to his undoing. Similarly, as mentioned above, Enobarbus, who was essentially honest, loyal, and courageous, experienced such shame and remorse on deserting Antony that it resulted in his self-inflicted death in order to put an end to his bad thoughts.

Soul and Body

Part of the recklessness exhibited in Antony and Cleopatra with regard to life and death has to do with the view that death does not result in oblivion but in a continued afterlife. Before they die, both Antony and Cleopatra speak of meeting each other in the next life, where they dream of continuing their amorous relationship. Other passages, too, indicate that they believed that the soul outlived the body. At one point, Antony asks Eros if he can still see him, as though he is not sure whether he is alive or dead. Another example is of Cleopatra, who, as she is dying, says that she is fire and air, having left the other elements of her being to return to dust.

Light and Darkness

One of the more subtle themes that pervades the play is the theme of light and darkness. The symbols of light and darkness, sun and moon, day and night refer to such things as greatness, life and death, glory and shame, guidance or the losing of one’s way, and perhaps most significantly, fortune and doom. Thus, Cleopatra speaks of how Antony’s face, which shone with the light of both sun and moon, illumined the earth; Iras, towards the end of the play, talks of how “the bright day is done, and we are for the dark;” Enobarbus, caught between love, honor, and shame as well as life and death, prays at night by the light of the moon for forgiveness from Antony; Lepidus sends Antony and Octavia on their way with the light of the stars to guide them; and Antony himself speaks of how, like a wanderer late at night, he has lost his way and, later in the play, how their earthly “moon Is now eclipsed,” foretelling his fall.