"All joy o' the worm" The Ironic Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra A. M. Kinghorn The modern critic seeking to investigate the nature of the tragic condition in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra inherits not only the problems handed down from previous generations nurtured on Bradley, Dowden, Granville Barker and Dover Wilson, but also those which emerge from the play's effect upon a present-day audience. Some degree of compromise is undoubtedly needed if the traditional body of attitudes surrounding the lovers is to be reconciled with contemporary doubts concerning the values they claim to represent. Cleopatra was familiar to Shakespeare's audiences as the legendary seductress of two great Romans--Julius Caesar in her "salad days" and of Mark Antony in her thirties' Both her important conquests were middle-aged and she herself was considered to be an outstanding example of la femme fatale, like Boccaccio's Criseida, una vi/lana of Italian romance. Such masterful men could only be entrapped by such a strong- willed female, in her own right a Queen, capable of swaying emperors and captains--the supreme earthly manifestation of the vision of eros. Enobarbus's extravagant recollection of her physical person as "O'er-picturing that Venus where we see/The fancy outwork nature" (II,ii, 200-1) and invidious comparison of other women to her in the "infinite variety" of her erotic techniques (ibid., 235-8) make of her a dream courtesan such as all men desire. Agrippa responds with suitable remarks--"0, rare for Antony" and "Rare Egyptian!" (ibid., 205, 219) but cannot resist bringing Cleopatra down to earth with a bump: Royal wench! She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed; He plough'd her and she cropp'd (ibid.' 227-9) -9- and in scene vi of the same act, even Enobarbus, prompted by Pompey, recalls, a little hesitantly, how Apollodorus carried "a certain queen to Caesar in a mattress" (1.70). Shakespeare never allows his audience to contemplate Cleopatra from afar, nor to regard her as an ideal to be admired as an out-of-reach goddess high up in the clouds--on the contrary, he constantly directs attention to her body and her physical actions. Her very first appearance is accompanied by "Eunuchs fanning her" and she is soon shown being embraced by Antony--throughout the play she is shown directly and by report as a creature of movement--E.A.J. Honigmann refers to her "dancing, hopping, running, painting, learning, falling, reclining, yawning,biting, pinching, fighting, and, above all, in her scenes with Antony, kissing, fondling, embracing"2 One • imagine her possibilities as a contortionist--Shakespeare pulls his audience back to a concentration on her sexual power again and again, from first Act to last. Roman poets and historians, not surprisingly, condemned her. Dante set her in the Second Circle of Hell along with other carnal sinners of like sex--Dido, Helen and Francesca. Boccaccio blamed her as he did Criseida, though Chaucer's brief portrait in The Legend of Good Women marks her as a true lover according to courtly convention and praises her fidelity unto death. Poets and particularly playwrights were then beginning to present Cleopatra as a person to be pitied and the lovers as victims of circumstance who were not wholly guilty of infringing the moral law:at the same time traditional opprobium could not be entirely cast aside because it was too well established to permit of a drastic shift of emphasis. Giraldo Cinthio's Cleopatra (ca. 1542), Robert Garnier's Mark Antoine (1578) translated in 1590 by the Countess of Pembroke and Samuel Daniel's The Tragedie of Cleopatra (1594) all rely to a greater or lesser extent on an inherited portrait of Cleopatra as morally flawed though at the same time they sought the audience's sympathy for her plight. Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. (160617) while owing something to its predecessors, substitutes a romantic for a moral definition. The lovers and their love is the first and only dramatic consideration in this play, and questions concerning the morality of what they did are immaterial. Like that in Romeo and Juliet, its conflict is a death-struggle between love and forces hostile to love. Individual "character" is not significant - Antony's "heroic" reputation is a functional stereotype; Cleopatra's "infinite variety" a dramatic convention to bring the classical vision of eros into Elizabethan focus. Shakespeare did not seek to fashion tragic figures out of such well-tried clay. Enough that his audience should readily accept the pair in the form which inherited tradition had determined, namely, as ill-starred lovers, and then look afresh at what the play makes of them. In Act I Antony is soon established as a general with a good fighting record and holding one of the three most responsible positions in "the world" (i.e. the Roman political structure) but in his "dotage", namely, in a state of over-fondness which threatens his judgement. -10- The audience knew enough about ancient history to perceive Antony as a man who did have many laurels to rest upon--and, if his pubiic were ignorant of historical fact, they had at least seen Julius Caesar performed. In addition, the account of his career as given in North's Plutarch (1579)4 reveals Antony's shortcomings as well as his sterling qualities, though it is his cold-blooded treatment of Octavia which is Antony's most ignoble recorded act during the period covered by the play. Cleopatra's reputation as an experienced courtesan able to play upon his emotions and almost (though not completely) numb his judgment confirms this initial impression and perhaps encourages a more benevolent view to be taken of first reports concerning the affaire than may really be justified in the light of information subsequently acquired. This initial impression, together with the splendid setting of the Egyptian scenes, blocks the audience's communal judgement and tends to crowd out logical opinions of the expedient kind such as are voiced by the far less attractive "Roman" group, whose attitudes are governed or at least influenced first and foremost by political considerations. Dowden's Victorian analysis of the play perceived it as a love-tragedy wherein the love is so magnificent as to make the audience sympathise with the lovers because they are so remarkable but it is to be doubted if this can justly be said of the first four Acts. The spectacle of a middle-aged man in the grip of love for a highly emotional women, even when set against a background of significant historical events, is not to be adjudged remarkable in itself- it could well be sordid, or even silly, reflecting ill on the partners. In Elizabethan eyes, lovers were legitimate objects of derision to be equated with lunatics and poets in their madness5 Antony has simply been made • "mad" by love--he is "inamorato", therefore capable of any kind of ridiculous behaviour. As many critics have pointed out, the play from the start lays stress on timelessness and spaciousness, on love so great as to defy measurement and which cannot be adequately pictured in range and scope by any but the most extravagant conceits. Antony's "new heaven, new earth" (I, i.l8) is, neverthe less, no more convincing than his statement: Here is my space, Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man; the nobleness of life Is to do thus: (ibid.' 36-9) in which "thus" refers, according to the stage direction, to his embracing of Cleopatra, a demonstration of physical love and affection which the lady herself regards ironically as "Excellent falsehood", that is to say, as stock lovers' talk, not to be taken at more than its face-value as flattery though in this case the context gives the relationships depth and meaning. Because the audience knows -11- that it is Antony talking, the love may be presumed to be all-powerful. Later incidents give one cause to reconsider this conclusion. Morever, Philo's introductory account of Antony's conduct, referring to his excessive dotage"--which implies that a certain degree of "dotage" is acceptable but that this "O'erflows the measure"--is contradicted by his general's words and conduct in scene ii, when the word "dotage" is reiterated, this time by Antony himself: These strong Egyptian fetters I must break Or lose myself in dotage (114-5) He is not yet become a "strumpet's fool", in spite of what Philo tells Demetrius about him and can still stand outside himself and estimate the extent to which Cleopatra is affecting his reputation as political leader and loyal husband to Fulvia. His ejaculations, made in response to the wordiness of Enobarbus in the same scene, make this stage of detachment clear--he realises that he "must with haste from hence" and "must be gone"--observations in opposition to what Enobarbus is saying about Cleopatra, as usual, in superficial terms, or "light answers" as Antony calls them. The Egypt-inspired characters seem to talk in a kind of shorthand, even not to be communicating at all, nor even trying seriously to do so; Enobarbus helps the audience to interpret what is really being said and done underneath the verbiage of allusion and half-hint. In contrast, the members of the Roman group follow a species of logic. Caesar deals throughout in facts, intelligence and politically-inspired opinions. Even Pompey, though a fatalist who hopes for the best, is essentially a man who connects ends and means. The same contrast exists between Cleopatra and Octavia, the former whose "passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love" (I,ii,144-5), the latter "of a holy, cold, and still conversation" (II, vi, 119-20). Antony cannot be expected to prefer her to his "Egyptian dish" simply because conventional demands of marital fidelity and political loyalty have been made upon him as though they were one entity -- which in Caesar's eyes, they were. He flouts convention and defies Rome, compelling Caesar to assert his authority. Octavia, as cold a fish as her half-brother, has little to say when she hears of her husband's reunion with Cleopatra -- a marked contrast, again, with Cleopatra's violent rage when she hears of Antony's re-marriage in II,v. Placing Egypt and Rome in opposition with the ocean in between imparts a ready unity to the amorphous dramatic material and creates a single conflict. Shakespeare crudely but effectively reduced the symbolism to fundamentals of human civilization -- the ancient antitheses of East and West, wherein East signifies Man's will, perceived as insatiable, desiring always to satisfy its craving for action and dynamic living; this is the impulsive will in the service of desire, or pure selfishness. Antony, a product of Rome and her imperial obligations, is -12- brought up hard against the voluptuous forces of Egypt for whose primitive appetites Cleopatra is made to stand. The West is itself a focal point of controversy-- Antony as he is when Cleopatra ensnares him, the Protestant will encountering the Romantic spirit, and setting off a conflict between reason and desire. Octavius, slave of the intellect, speaks for logic, censorship, duty and the classical virtues (in which Antony has also been schooled but from which he is now being lured away even against his own better judgment). Enobarbus knows that his old friend will never leave Cleopatra and by the time the action has reached III, vi, the audience understands that Antony has finally repuditated Rome's authority and, after the reported battles, that he pas lost his Roman skill m generalship. According to this synoptic view, which has obvious origins in psychoanalytic theory, the lovers provide the means by which Rome secures the political domination of Egypt but they are at the same time the means of rendering Rome's victory innocuous; Antony chooses love before imperial claims and his surrender is not to military forces. No internal conflict baffles him -- even his defeat and flight fail to crush him -his rejection of this world does not come until he hears the false report of Cleopatra's death, brought him by Mardian in IV, xiv, 28f. To be reunited with her/he realises that he himself must also depart from life: I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now All length is torture: since the torch is out, Lie down and stray no further (IV, xiv, .44-7) but his confession to Eros: Since Cleopatra died, I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods Detest my baseness (ibid.' 55-7) is ironic, firstly since she is not dead; since"dishonour" concerns both public opinion of him and his opinion of himself -- publicly he has not been directly dishonoured7 yet here he is only at this latter stage confirming that he claims to , agree with some general verdict. "Since Cleopatra died" is in the play only a matter of minutes. Moreover, in III, xi he himself was raving against her and threatening her death. The witch shall die, To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall Under this plot; she dies for't. (47-9) -13- Antony fails to kill himself Roman-fashion, by falling on his sword -- a further sign of his loss of former efficiency - and only now does he learn that 7 Cleopatra is not dead after all. He accepts the blow which Fate has dealt him and expires, recalling in self-flattery his old glories when he was The greatest prince o' the world, The noblest; and do now not basely die, Not cowardly put off my helmet to My countryman, a Roman, by a roman Valiantly vanquished. (IV, xv, 54-8) a statement which betokens a final irony, since his earthly defeat is not suffered at his own hands. It is contrived through the vision of eros which destroys him in life but recreates him for Cleopatra, Phoenix-fashion, in death. She sees the vision in a dream and describes it to Dolabella: I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony. 0 such another sleep, that I might see But such another man! (V ,ii, 76-8) launching into a description which grows more and more far-fetched until she concludes: ... realms and islands were As plates dropp'd from his pocket. (ibid.' 91-2) though it is soon made apparent that she really and truly believes her dream to be less then the reality: An Antony were nature's piece, 'gainst fancy, Condemning shadows quite. (ibid.' 99-100) Both lovers have in their minds at least departed from the material world; both are beyond the restorative powers of fancy. Antony and Cleopatra is not A Midsummer Night's Dream, nor is it even Twelfth Night; Antony's condition is not of that Romeo, nor is his loss that of Othello, though some superficial similarities are not far to seek. Cleopatra is no Juliet, Cordelia or Lady Macbeth. She has no "character" that invites analysis -- in the first four Acts she is a self-indulgent, alluring courtesan, having breadth but not depth. Dramatically she requires no depth. She is what she is, neither guilt nor innocence belongs to her, and her "real" existence comes only when death is said to immortalise her. Ironically, as will be noted again later, it is the earthbound Octavius who defines her new status, a status shared by Antony: -14- No grave upon the earth shall clip in it A pair so famous: high events as these Strike those that make them: and their story is No less in pity than his glory which Brought them to be lamented. (V,ii,357-61) and her dying words to Iras and Charmian are usually believed to show that her flight from this world to some higher sphere is about to take off: Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have Immortal longings in me ... methinks I hear Antopy call. I see him rouse himself To praise my noble act. I hear him mock The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men To excuse their after wrath. Husband I come: Now to that name, my courage prove my title! I am fire, and air; my other elements I give to baser life. (V ,ii,279-89) The higher elements of "Fire, and Air" -- as distinct from the baser ones of "earth and water" making cold clay--the void separating the rational from the emotional, is not to be easily conveyed in human terms without sliding into ·near-farce. The history of the lovers, even as reported by North8, consistently borders on the absurd. The second part of II, v, when the Queen, infuriated when she hears of Antony's re-marriage, runs from violence to misery in a matter of minutes, draws a very thin line between a serious portrait of an enraged women who feels her position threatened by a rival and a laughable caricature of feminine jealousy. Dramatically it is very effective; but it does nothing to prepare the audience to accept her supposed ennoblement through passion in V,ii. As for Antony's claims to the attainment of release, Enobarbus's final words in III,xiii serve to close the door on his master as owning potential for recovery: A diminution in our captain's brain Restores his heart ; when valour preys on reason, It eats the sword it fights with (sc. cit., 198-200) and the opening of Act IV confirms this mental collapse by discussing the challenge to individual combat which Antony sent to Caesar in III,xiii. Caesar's comment is "Poor Antony!" (IV,i,16) and in the scene following Antony is revealed as incapable of understanding why his adversary will not meet him -15- man-to man in single combat. Cleopatra, who also fails to grasp this point, observes to Charmian in scene iv: He goes forth gallantly : that he and Caesar might Determine this great war in single fight: Then Antony - ; but now - ... (sc.cit. 36-8) so obviously she is no longer confident of a favourable outcome. Antony himself conducts his campaign heroically, treats the deserting Enobarbus with knightly generosity, commends the bravery of Scarus and returns to contemplate the hard facts only in Act IV, scene xii when he exclaims: All is lost The foul Egyptian hath betrayed me: My fleet hath yielded to the foe ... (9-10) though by the end of the same scene of 50 lines he has already become, in Cleopatra's words ... more mad Then Telemon for his shield (ibid. XIII, 1-2) and she takes Charmian's advice -- to send him news of her death -- in order to protect herself from his threatened vengeance. He has, after all, sworn to kill her. Her "ennoblement through passion" in the final scene has already been mentioned. This is a familiar testimonial to Cleopatra, given her by a great many critics, and it has justified her enshrinement in the pantheon of tragic heroines. Honigmann concludes that "ennoblement remains a possibility, though not one that we can fully believe in "9• This is where Antony and Cleopatra differs from the other major tragedies, which leave the audience in no doubt--even Antony makes a heroic exit, rounding off his departure in conventional terms: Now my spirit is going, I can no more (IV ,xv ,58-9) is his version of "the rest is silence" to which Cleopatra supplies a chorus: Noblest of men, woo't die ? Hast thou no care of me, shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is No better than a sty ? 0, see, my women The crown o' the earth doth melt (ibid.' 59-63) -16- and a few moments later, she faints, so that Iras thinks she is already dead. The effect is less one of high drama than of a performance tossed off by a prima donna who has come to believe that her role-playing is real. The Cleopatra of the final Act, minus Antony's physical presence, is a more complex creature than "the whore" (Caesar's epithet for her in III,vi, 67), "a trull" (Maecenas in ibid., 95) and "yon ribaudred nag of Egypt" (Scams in III,x,lO). Caesar stops insulting her only when he learns in III,xiii that Cleopatra is prepared to yield to him, and henceforth grants her her title of "Queen"--it is from Antony that a phrase like "triple-turned whore" is heard and he goes on heaping abuse upon her in his distraction, accusing her of betrayal, until Mardian reports her death. Much high-flown prose has been expended on the Cleopatra of the last Act. Fairly typical is Fluchere's: The grandeur of this death lies not in the pride of its pomp, but in the certainty of the identity of love with immortality, in this amazing alliance of nobility and simplicity, of the queen and the woman, which in her final speech works like magic ... The underlying significance of Antony and Cleopatra, therefore, is to my mind that Shakespeare has recovered his calm of spirit. The heavy covering of lead that weighed down the universe is lifted, the horror of death dispelled, the triumph of evil is no longer the only reward promised to human passion, revolt no longer the only possible attitude against indifferent or cruel gods. Shakespeare's tragic experience has gone full circle, and the first reconciliation takes place in a brilliant world, loud with the clash of arms, traversed by grandiose political ambitions but made poetic by an immortal love. 10 This is worth quoting from at length because it sums up the comfortable view of generations of critics who looked to Shakespeare's later plays as conveying a reassuring vision, a "calm of mind, all passion spent" message of optimism and solace. Shakespearean tragedy is explained not only in such terms as an aperient but also as though the poet were offering his audiences a sound investment in human hope and potential. The well-adjusted Caesar, showing more sympathy than before, pays the dead lovers justifiable compliments and organizes a magnificent funeral for them, ending in a shared tomb. Thanks to him the historicity of their immortality is secure. Death has at last in his possession "a lass_unparallel'd", as Charmian describes her mistress. She expires with a query on her lips which her loyal handmaiden completes: -17- Cleo. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle. 0 Antony!. .... What should I stay---- (Dies) Char. In this vile world (V ,ii,310-3) The last unexpected shaft of Cleopatra's earthbound jealousy is aimed at faithful Iras whose unexpected death in advance of her own suggests to the Queen the fanciful notion that her attendant may gain Antony's favours in the next world before she herself arrives there -- a conceit showing that she is still afraid of not being complete mistress of her own destiny. Her comparisons of the death-dealing serpent's bite to the touch of nature and of life and her final question, cut short by death, may not be entirely rhetorical. It is Charmian who supplies the epithet "vile". Cleopatra's reaction to Caesar's calculated disposal of her affairs, which she pretends to accept, is immediate and contemptuous: He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not Be noble to myself (V, ii, 190-1) She knows that he was trying to talk her out of suicide for reasons of his own, and whispers to Charmian -- but it is Iras who answers: Finish, good lady, the bright day is done, And we are for the dark (ibid.' 192-3) and it is now that the audience knows for certain that Cleopatra has for some time been preparing to take her own life through the agency of an "it" which "is provided", namely, the asp. Actually there seem to be at least three asps in the basket of figs -- perhaps one for each women, though Iras's sudden death is not explained. Cleopatra's self-dramatization flows outwards. Attired in robe and crown, she will ensure that no posthumous lampoonery will immortalize her "greatness/ I' the posture of a whore" (ibid. 219). No decriers will have the pleasure of insulting the lovers' memort'. Her "immortal longings" are associated with a dignified survival, chiefly, it is hinted, for her own person rather than that of Antony. She convinces herself, and many generations of audiences, that she is taking a step towards certain immortality, as "fire and air", a state of elemental existence which is now the only one left to her own choice, attainable through suicide. Her imagined reunion with Antony beyond the grave, like her jealousy of the dead Iras, is just earthbound metaphor - she is "wording" herself now. Iras, Charmian and the Clown who wishes Cleopatra "joy of the worm" (V, ii,259, 278) have no such illusions. For them death is just death-- freedom from -18-