Competition, Comparison and Exemplarity in Anthony and Cleopatra

1

• Competition, Comparison and Exemplarity in
  Anthony and Cleopatra

2

• AGRIPPA A rarer spirit never
• Did steer humanity but you gods will give us
• Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touched.
• MECENUS
• When such a spacious mirrors set before him,
• He needs must see himself.
• 5.1.31-5

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(No Transcript)
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• I dreamt there was an Emperor Anthony
• O, such another sleep, that I might see
• But such another man!
• His face was as the heavens, and therein stuck
• A sun and moon, which kept their course and
  lighted
• The little O othearth.
• His legs bestrid the ocean his reared arm
• Crested the world his voice was propertied
• As all the tunèd spheresand that to friends
• But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
• He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
• There was no winter intan autumn twas
• That grew the more by reaping. His delights
• Were dolphin-like they showed his back above
• The element they lived in. In his livery
• Walked crowns and crownets realms and islands
  were
• As plates dropped from his pocket.

5.2.76-92
5

• PHILO
• Nay, but this dotage of our Generals
• Oerflows the measure those his goodly eyes,
• That oer the files and musters of the war
• Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn
• The office and devotion of their view
• Upon a tawny front his captains heart,
• Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
• The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
• And is become the bellows and the fan
• To cool a gypsys lust. (1.1.1-10)

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• CAESAR
• But yet let me lament
• With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts
• That thou, my brother, my competitor
• In top of all design, my mate in empire,
• Friend and companion in the front of war,
• The arm of mine own body, and the heart
• Where mine his thoughts did kindlethat our stars
• Unreconciliable should divide
• Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends
• Enter an Egyptian
• But I will tell you at some meeter season
• 5.1.40-49

7

• ANTONY O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of
  earth,
• That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
• Thou are the ruins of the noblest man
• That ever lived in the tide of times.
• (Julius Caesar, 3.1.255-8)
• BRUTUS Are yet two Romans living such as these?
• The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!
• It is impossible that ever Rome
• Should breed thy fellow.
• (Julius Caesar, 5.3.98-101)

8

• ANTONY This was the noblest Roman of them all.
• All the conspirators save only he
• Did that they did in envy of great Caesar
• He only in a general honest thought
• And common good to all make one of them.
• His life was gentle and all the elements
• So mixd in him that Nature might stand up
• And say to all the world This was a man.
• Julius Caesar, 5.5.68-75

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• CAESAR
• But yet let me lament
• With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts
• That thou, my brother, my competitor
• In top of all design, my mate in empire,
• Friend and companion in the front of war,
• The arm of mine own body, and the heart
• Where mine his thoughts did kindlethat our stars
• Unreconciliable should divide
• Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends
• Enter an Egyptian
• But I will tell you at some meeter season
• 5.1.40-49

10

• compet-ere, in its post-classical active sense
  to strive after (something) in company or
  together,
• com- together petere to aim at, go toward, try
  to reach, seek, etc.
• compete, v.2
• 1. intr. To enter into or be put in rivalry with,
  to vie with another in any respect.
• 2. To strive with another, for the attainment of
  a thing, in doing something.

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• SOOTHSAYER Thy daemon, that thy spirit which
  keeps thee, is
• Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,
• Where Caesars is not but near him, thy angel
• Becomes afeard, as being oerpoweredtherefore
• Make space enough between you
• Thy lustre thickens,
• When he shines byI say again, thy spirit
• Is all afraid to govern thee near him
• But he away, tis noble.
• (2.3.16-28)

12

• For this reason, the following book contains the
  lives of Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Antonius the
  Triumvir two persons who have abundantly
  justified the words of Plato, that great natures
  produce great vices as well as virtues. Both
  alike were amorous and intemperate, warlike and
  munificent, sumptuous in their way of living, and
  overbearing in their manners. And the likeness of
  their fortunes carried out the resemblance in
  their characters. Not only were their lives each
  a series of great successes and great disasters,
  mighty acquisitions and tremendous losses of
  power, sudden overthrows, followed by unexpected
  recoveries, but they died, also, Demetrius in
  actual captivity to his enemies, and Antony on
  the verge of it.
• Plutarchs Lives. ed. tr. Arthur Hugh Clough

13

• This treaty conteineth the liues of Demetrius,
  surnamed the Fortgainer, M. Antony the
  Triumuir, great examples to confirme the saying
  of Plato That from great minds, both great
  vertues great vices do procede. They were both
  giuen ouer to women wine, both valliant
  liberal, both sumptuous high minded, fortune
  serued them both alike, not only in the course of
  their liues, in attempting great matters,
  somtimes with good, somtimes with ill successe,
  in getting losing things of great consequence,
  ouerthrowing both when they feared not, restoring
  both when they hoped not. But also in their ende
  there was no great difference, thone brought to
  his death by his mortal enemies, the others
  fortune not much vnlike.
• Plutarchs Lives, trans. Thomas North

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• For there is nether picture, nor image of marble,
  nor arche of triumph, nor piller, nor sumptuous
  sepulchre, that can match the durablenes of an
  eloquent history, furnished with the properties
  which it ought to haue. Again, I mind not to
  stand much vpon this, that it hath a certaine
  troth in it, in that it alwayes professeth to
  speake truth, for that the proper ground therof
  is to treate of the greatest highest things
  that are done in the world insomuch that (to my
  seeming) the great profit thereof is as Horace
  sayth, that it is commonly called the mother of
  trothe vprightnes, which commendeth it so
  greatly, as it nedeth not elswhere to seeke any
  authoritye, or ornament of dignitie, but of her
  very selfe. For it is a certaine rule and
  instruction, which by examples past, teacheth vs
  to iudge of things present, to foresee things
  to come so as we may knowe what to like of,
  what to follow, what to mislike, and what to
  eschew.
• Amyot, To The Reader in Norths Plutarch (1579),
  sig. iii v.

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• So as it is not possible for any case to rise
  either in peace or warre, in publike or priuate
  affaires, but that the person which shall haue
  diligently red, well conceiued, throughly
  remembred histories, shall find matter in them
  whereat to take light, counsell wherby to
  resolue himselfe to take a part, or to geue
  aduice vnto others, how to choose in doutfull
  daungerous cases that, which may be for their
  most proffit, and in time to find out to what
  poynt the matter will come if it be well handled
  and how to moderate him selfe in prosperitie,
  and how to cheere vp and beare him selfe in
  aduersitie.
• Amyot, To The Reader in Norths Plutarch (1579),
  sig. iiii r.

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• CAESAR You shall find there
• A man who is the abstract of all faults
• That all men follow. (1.4. 8-10)
• CLEOPATRA He was not sad, for he would shine on
  those
• That make their looks by his (1.5.55-6)
• CAMIDIUS Had our general
• Been what he knew himself, it had gone well.
• O, he has given example for our flight
• Most grossly by his own. (3.10.25)
• ANTONY I have fled myself, and have instructed
  cowards
• To run and show their shoulders. (3.11.7-8)

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• CLEOPATRA By Isis, I will give thee bloody
  teeth,
• If thou with Caesar paragon again
• My man of men. (1.5.70-2)
• AGRIPPA Take Anthony
• Octavia to his wife, whose beauty claims
• No worse a husband than the best of men
• (2.2.133-4)
• THIDIAS One that performs
• The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest
• To have command obeyed. (3.13.87)

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• ENOBARBUS. A very fine one O, how he loves
  Caesar!
• AGRIPPA. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark
  Anthony!
• ENOBARBUS. Caesar? Why he's the Jupiter of men.
• AGRIPPA. What's Anthony? The god of Jupiter.
• ENOBARBUS. Spake you of Caesar? How! the
  nonpareil!
• AGRIPPA. O, Anthony! O thou Arabian bird!
• ENOBARBUS. Would you praise Caesar, say
  'Caesar'--go no further.
• AGRIPPA. Indeed, he plied them both with
  excellent praises.
• ENOBARBUS. But he loves Caesar best--yet he
  loves Anthony
• Hoo! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards,
  poets, cannot
• Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number--hoo!
• His love to Anthony. But as for Caesar,
• Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.
• (3.2.7-19)

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• ANTHONY I must thank him only,
• Lest my remembrance suffer ill report.
  (2.2.163-4)
• CAESAR But you are come
• A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented
• The ostentation of our love which, left
  unshown,
• Is often left unloved. (3.6.50)
• ANTHONY I have offended reputation.
• A most unnoble swerving (3.11.48)
• ENOBARBUS he that can endure
• To follow with allegiance a falln lord
• Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
• And earns a place in the story. (3.13.42-6)
• ANTHONY I and my sword will earn our chronicle.
  (3.13.176)

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• CLEOPATRA. Farewell, and thanks.
• Exit DOLABELLA.
• Now, Iras, what think'st thou?
• Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shall be shown
• In Rome as well as I mechanic slaves,
• With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
• Uplift us to the view in their thick breaths,
• Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
• And forc'd to drink their vapour.
• IRAS. The gods forbid!
• CLEOPATRA. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras--saucy
  lictors
• Will catch at us like strumpets and scald
  rhymers
• Ballad us out o' tune the quick comedians
• Extemporally will stage us, and present
• Our Alexandrian revels Antony
• Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
• Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
• I' the posture of a whore. (5.2.207-221)

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• CLEOPATRA Ill seem the fool I am not Anthony
• Will be himself. (1.1.44-5)
• PHILO Sir, sometimes when he is not Anthony
• He comes too short of that great property
• Which still should go with Anthony. (1.1.59)
• ANTHONY These strong Egyptian fetters I must
  break
• Or lose my self in dotage. (1.2.116-7)
• ENOBARBUS I shall entreat him
• To answer like himself. (2.2.3-4)
• CAESAR The wild disguise hath almost
• Anticked us all. (2.7.123-4)

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• ANTHONY If I lose mine honour
• I lose myself better I were not yours
• Than yours so branchless. (3.4.22)
• SCARRUS Experience, manhood, honour, neer before
• Did violate so itself. (3.10.21-3)
• ANTHONY for he seems
• Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,
• Not what he knew I was. (3.13.142)
• ANTHONY I wish I could be made so many men,
• And all of you clapped up together in
• An Anthony, that I might do you service
• So good as you have done. (4.2.16-9)

23

• ANTONY. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?
• EROS. Ay, noble lord.
• ANTONY. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish
  
• A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
• A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,
• A forked mountain, or blue promontory
• With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,
• And mock our eyes with air thou hast seen these
  signs
• They are black vesper's pageants.
• EROS. Ay, my lord.
• ANTONY. That which is now a horse, even with a
  thought
• The rack dislimns and makes it indistinct,
• As water is in water.
• EROS. It does, my lord.
• cont.

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• ANTONY. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is
• Even such a body here I am Anthony
• Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
• I made these wars for Egypt and the queen,--
• Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine
• Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't
• A million moe, now lost,--she, Eros, has
• Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my
  glory
• Unto an enemy's triumph.
• Nay, weep not, gentle Eros there is left us
• Ourselves to end ourselves.
• 4.15.1-22

25

• CLEOPATRA Didst thou behold Octavia?Messenger
  Ay, dread queen.CLEOPATRA Where?Messenger
  Madam, in RomeI look'd her in the face, and saw
  her ledBetween her brother and Mark
  Antony.CLEOPATRA Is she as tall as me?Messenger
  She is not, madam.CLEOPATRA Didst hear her
  speak? is she shrill-tongued or low?Messenger
  Madam, I heard her speak she is
  low-voiced.CLEOPATRA That's not so good he
  cannot like her long.CHARMIAN Like her! O Isis!
  'tis impossible.CLEOPATRA I think so, Charmian
  dull of tongue, and dwarfish!What majesty is in
  her gait? Remember,If e'er thou look'dst on
  majesty.

26

• Messenger She creepsHer motion and her station
  are as oneShe shows a body rather than a
  life,A statue than a breather.CLEOPATRA Is this
  certain?Messenger Or I have no
  observance.CHARMIAN Three in EgyptCannot make
  better note.CLEOPATRA He's very knowingI do
  perceive't there's nothing in her yetThe
  fellow has good judgment.CHARMIAN
  Excellent.CLEOPATRA Guess at her years, I
  prithee.Messenger Madam,She was a
  widow,--CLEOPATRA Widow! Charmian, hark.

27

• Messenger And I do think she's thirty.CLEOPATRA
  Bear'st thou her face in mind? is't long or
  round?Messenger Round even to faultiness.CLEOPAT
  RA For the most part, too, they are foolish that
  are so.Her hair, what colour?Messenger Brown,
  madam and her foreheadAs low as she would wish
  it.CLEOPATRA There's gold for thee.Thou must
  not take my former sharpness illI will employ
  thee back again I find theeMost fit for
  business go make thee readyOur letters are
  prepared.Exit Messenger