WS ABC Part 15 - Cleopatra

If a modern newspaper were to sum up Antony and Cleopatra, it would probably say something like:
                              
           Beautiful Queen of Egypt takes her life:
          Found dead in bed clutching a snake.        
         Cleopatra shattered by the death of her 
                        lover, Mark Antony

So who was Shakespeare's Cleopatra? To sum up his play in a few words, Cleopatra was the Queen of Egypt and the mistress of Antony, one of the rulers of ancient Rome. She traps him in a 'strong coil of grace,' and gradually saps his resolution as he becomes more and more besotted by her. Eventually this leads to his total ruin. When he loses the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra's ships desert him and he retreats to find solace with her in Egypt. There he commits suicide and dies in her arms. For her part, Cleopatra does not want to be exhibited as the prisoner of Antony's arch-enemy, so she takes the easy (?) way out and allows herself to be poisoned by a deadly snake.

This play, which has been categorised as a 'problem play' but is more often referred to as a tragedy was probably written in 1606-07 by Shakespeare. He probably based it on Plutarch's Life of Marcus Antonius which was a part of the larger Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Sir Thomas North had translated this into English thirty years earlier and much of this latter work found its way into WS's play.

One aspect of this drama is that ot the compression of time. Here, WS had to squeeze several decades' worth of events into a few hours on the stage while he also took some licence with the characters. Mark Antony is far older than the character he  played in Julius Caesar and Octavius Caesar, a minor part in the latter play, is now a major player. Cleopatra's attendants, Enobarbus and others, like Banquo in Macbeth, are Shakespearean creations, but the major historical events depicted really did happen.

Apart from various representations of Cleopatra on coins, as statues and carvings, we don't know what she really looked like.
All we do know is that Antony fell for her in a big way and that over the past few hundred years, she has always been depicted both in paintings and in film as a very beautiful and alluring woman. (See pictures here and in Google.)

As Norrie Epstein writes in Friendly Shakespeare, 'this play is five acts of hyperbole.' Everything in it is 'overripe to bursting. It's the most voluptuous play that Shakespeare ever wrote.' What we have to keep remembering today is that this major female role was played by a young boy - a boy whose voice hadn't yet broken. Apart from anything else, this meant that there could be no physical intimacy on the stage. All of the play's sexuality had to be poured into the luscious imagery that to quote Epstein again, 'beggars the imagination.' Therefore, the whole success of this play depended a great deal on the boy who acted this demanding role. 

This was true here as it was in his other plays which contained strong female characters such as Lady Macbeth,  Portia (The Merchant of Venice) , Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing) and Katherine (The Taming of the Shrew).

Finally, as can be seen in this blog, one of the most fascinating aspects of Cleopatra's story is how did she die? Did she commit suicide by being bitten by a poisonous snake as some of the many of the paintings shown here depict, or did she use another method to 'shuffle of this mortal coil?'

Many Roman writers, including Virgil, say she poisoned herself with a snake, whereas Galen, the famous Greek physician, wrote in De Theriaca ad Pisonem that she poisoned herself by introducing poison into an open wound. Two hundred years after Cleopatra died, the Roman historian wrote that Cleopatra died a painless death. More recently, Christophe Schaefer, a professor of ancient history, said in an article (2010) that he is certain that from his research, Cleopatra did not use an asp and that she probably died from a combination of hemlock (like Socrates), wolsbane and opium. And what did WS's source, Plutarch write? He said we can't know the truth except that she definitely did commit suicide. 

However she died, there is no doubt that Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. Since 1908, there have been over eleven film and TV versions produced, some based on the play, and others less so. In 1972 Charlton Heston played the role of Antony, but the most well-known film, loosely based on the whole story, was shown in 1963 and starred Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Antony. This superbly lavish multi-million dollar (overlong?) production was both praised and panned by the critics. However, if you enjoyed this extravaganza or not, it certainly wasn't Shakespeare.

Next time: Claudius, the original wicked uncle from 'Hamlet.'

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