Anyone approaching this play with a psychoanalytic frame in mind will see it first as a magnificent description of an intrapsychic conflict. If I imagine teachers of psychoanalysis or even secondary education teachers trying to convey to their students what an inner conflict is, they could hardly do better than to suggest reading this play. Antony is a Roman general in competition with several other men for the position of leader of the known world. In his outlook and in his ego ideal, he is a Roman at a moment in history when the days of Republican Rome are over and the heritage of Julius Caesar was up for grabs. This very same man falls into submissive love with Cleopatra and the play is a description of his conflict and its dire consequences.
As the play opens Antony has developed a dotage on Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. Neither Antony nor Cleopatra are as young as Romeo and Juliet; they are middle aged. Speaking of Cleopatra's past relationship with Caesar, Agrippa says:
| AGRIPPA: | Royal wench! She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed, He ploughed her, and she cropp'd (Antony and Cleopatra, II.ii.236–238) |
It is easy to miss this casual remark that plays no further role in the unfolding story, but if we pay attention to the unconscious we cannot ignore that Antony's stormy love relationship is, on a symbolic level, a sexual relationship with his mother. Julius Caesar was symbolically Antony's father and Antony's fame rested on the fact that he punished Caesar's murderers in his role of loyal son. Now he is deeply in love with the woman Caesar “ploughed”.
In chapter six on Julius Caesar I stressed the analogy of this murder to Freud's Totem and Taboo. There was no Antony in the primal horde that killed the primal father. Antony's story is Shakespeare's variation on the oedipal theme: the loyal son who avenges the murder of the father and is rewarded by a sexual relationship with the father's widow.
On an unconscious level Antony and Cleopatra is the story of a son who won over his mother and a celebration of this union. Antony, standing for the son, is so overwhelmed by this experience that nothing else matters. With fine intuition, Shakespeare conveys to his audience the fact that if the mother becomes the love object the obedience to the mother will be carried into the new relationship, which Shakespeare calls doting, and this doting will bring about Antony's downfall. In terms of the unconscious, Antony and Cleopatra is the story of oedipal success and the price that was paid for it.
Antony is engaged in a love affair with the same woman who bore a child to his father figure. Shakespeare introduces no more than a hint of an oedipal relationship to the audience, but the plowing metaphor makes it certain that this hint registers in the unconscious.
Shakespeare and his audience know that Antony was the one who stirred up the crowd after Caesar's assassination and ultimately defeated Brutus and Cassius. In so far as Antony avenged the murder of Caesar he accomplished what Hamlet could not. Since he was Caesar's avenger and not his murderer, he was entitled to Cleopatra without oedipal guilt; but what part of the unconscious allows, the other part forbids and punishes. I am not assuming that this was consciously known or even surmised by Shakespeare. It represents a psychoanalytic reconstruction.
Not billed as a love relationship but of equal significance in this play is the homosexual love-hate relationship between Antony and Octavius Caesar. At the end of the play the two relationships merge into a triangle.
In every play there is likely to be more than one theme and that the poet is trying to weave together or synthesise a number of themes with which he is struggling.
The theme of a conflict between Antony's military career and his dotage upon Cleopatra is introduced already in the opening lines of the play.
| PHILO: | Nay, but this dotage of our general's O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes, That o'er the files and musters of the war Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn, The office and devotion of their view Upon a tawny front: his captain's 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 gipsy's lust. Look, where they come. |
Flourish. Enter Antony, Cleopatra, her Ladies, the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her
Take but good note, and you shall see in him.
The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see. (I.i.1–13)
Technically Philo is a follower of Antony but dramatically he is an observer and judge, and being a Roman soldier he disapproves of his general's dotage. Antony is condemned by him because he “O'erflows the measure” and violates the Greek ideal of everything in moderation and nothing in excess.
Reality breaks in with a messenger from Rome. Antony does not want to hear him but Cleopatra insists.
Antony is now the spokesman for the unbridled pleasure principle.
| ANTONY: | Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours, Let's not confound the time with conference harsh: There's not a minute of our lives should stretch Without some pleasure now. What sport tonight? (I.i.46–49) |
As a lover Antony reminds us of Theseus, the tense lover who is always in need of entertainment for fear of boredom, in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Within this very same scene we hear the other aspect of Antony asserting itself. After Cleopatra has left and he speaks with the messenger and his attendants, he says:
| ANTONY: | These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Or lose myself in dotage. (I.ii.112–113) |
We get to know a different aspect of Antony in Acts II and III. He has just returned to Rome, and Agrippa, (to cement the relationship between Octavius Caesar and Antony), proposes that Antony marry Octavia, Caesar's sister, as Antony's first wife, Fulvia, had died. Shakespeare has repeatedly shown how difficult it is for a father to give away his daughter, but in this play we sense the deep attachment between brother and sister. Caesar has the traditional power of father over Octavia.
| ANTONY: | May I never To this good purpose, that so fairly shows, Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand; Further this act of grace, and from this hour The heart of brothers govern in over loves And sway our great designs! |
| CAESAR: | There is my hand. A sister I bequeath you, who no brother Did ever love so dearly; let her live To join our kingdoms and our hearts, and never Fly off our loves again! (II.ii.153–162) |
Cleopatra is all but forgotten, nor is Octavia consulted. The transaction takes place between two men. The sister given in marriage to Antony is the symbol of the two men's love for one another. We recall that Shakespeare used the same word employed by Antony, “impediment”, in Sonnet 116: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments” (lines 1–2).
As Shakespeare portrays Antony he is split and can be sincere with both Cleopatra and Octavius Caesar. Antony reflects, “And though I make this marriage for my peace, / I' the east my pleasure lies” (II.iii.39–40), while one of Pompey's servants remarks, “it raises the greater war between him and his discretion” (II.vii.8–9). Psychoanalysis turns the “war between him and his discretion” into a conflict between id and ego.
In this scene Shakespeare gives us a description of intrapsychic conflict, an aspect of psychic life that psychoanalytic investigation would make its special field of study.
Antony is at his noblest when his relationship to Octavia's brother has deteriorated to the point of war.
| OCTAVIA: | The good gods will mock me presently, When I shall pray, ‘O! bless my lord and husband;’ Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud, ‘O! bless my brother!’ Husband win, win brother, Prays, and destroys the prayer; no midway ’Twixt these extremes at all. |
| ANTONY: | Gentle Octavia, Let your best love draw to that point which seeks Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour I lose myself; better I were not yours Than yours so branchless. (III.iv.15–24) |
What Antony conveys to Octavia are indeed very noble thoughts. Free from anger and self-serving thoughts, he asks her to preserve her love and not lose it in the quarrel between husband and brother. Then comes the wonderful metaphor comparing a man who has lost his honour to a tree that has lost its branches.
Octavia decides to go to Rome with the hope of restoring peace between her brother and husband, only to learn that Antony has returned to Cleopatra. Now that Antony is reunited with Cleopatra, Shakespeare introduces us to a neurotic Antony. He can fight Octavius Caesar either by land or by sea. Although he is much stronger by land he decides to fight by sea. When asked why he has chosen to fight by sea it is really out of submission to his enemy: “For that he dares us to 't” (III.vii.30). In vain, his friend and follower Enobarbus warns him, “Most worthy sir, you therein throw away / The absolute soldiership you have by land” (III.vii.42–43). Antony's inner conflict becomes self-destructive. The results of the sea battle are reported in a conversation between Enobarbus and Scarus.
| SCARUS: | With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away Kingdoms and provinces. (III.x.7–8) |
The battle was just starting when Cleopatra, “like a cow in June / Hoists sails and flies” (III.x.14–15).
| SCARUS: | She once being loof'd, The noble ruin of her magic, Antony, Claps on his sea-wing, and like a doting mallard, Leaving the fight in height, flies after her. I never saw an action of such shame; Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before Did violate so itself. (III.x.17–23) |
The mallard, a wild duck, was thought to be a coward. As the sea battle started Cleopatra, overcome by fear, fled with her ships and then the catastrophe happened: Antony, unable to tolerate the separation, followed her.
In Act III, scene eleven Antony is devastated.
| ANTONY: | Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon 't; It is asham'd to bear me. Friends, come hither: I am so lated in the world that I Have lost my way for ever. I have a ship Laden with gold; take that, divide it; fly, And make your peace with Caesar. (III.xi.1–6) |
Iras, one of Cleopatra's servants, urges her to comfort Antony.
| IRAS: | Go to him, madam, speak to him; He is unqualitied with very shame. (III.xi.42–43) |
The wonderful word “unqualitied”, meaning to lose one's quality, appears nowhere else in Shakespeare's works and may therefore have been created for this occasion.
| ANTONY: | O! whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See, How I convey my shame out of thine eyes By looking back what I have left behind ’Stroy'd in dishonour. |
| CLEOPATRA: | O my lord, my lord! Forgive my fearful sails: I little thought You would have follow'd. |
| ANTONY: | Egypt, thou knew'st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings, And thou shouldst tow me after; o'er my spirit Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods Command me. (III.xi.50–60) |
We tarry to admire how much Shakespeare understood. Dotage finds expression in a regression to a very early state of feelings, particularly the early dependency of the child on the mother and the child's inability to tolerate separation from her. Antony was in such a regressive state of feelings during the sea battle that his metaphor is apt: “My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings”.
Shakespeare found a way to illustrate two different neurotic behaviours of the two lovers, which sealed their doom. The fault is equally divided between them. Cleopatra contributed to it by becoming frightened of entering the battle and retreating, Antony by submissively following her example.
Cleopatra's character and skill
Harold Bloom has this to say about Cleopatra.
Of Shakespearean representations of women, Cleopatra's is the most subtle and formidable, by universal consent…. Cleopatra at last wears Antony out: it would take Hamlet or Falstaff not to be upstaged by her. Cleopatra never ceases to play Cleopatra, and her perception of her role necessarily demotes Antony to the equivocal status of her leading man. It is her play, and never quite his. (Bloom, 1998: p. 546).
Bloom goes further, to voice that she also wore out Shakespeare, as after this play he gave up further quests into human motivation. The two title characters are mutually destructive to each other. It must have been conscious to Shakespeare that he was portraying a fatal woman of whom the man should beware. As Bloom observed, the art consisted in making her into such a memorable character. We have already learned that she is a scheming woman in Act I, scene three, where she instructs her attendant Charmian to find Antony with the following instructions:
| CLEOPATRA: | See where he is, who's with him, what he does; I did not send you: if you find him sad, Say that I am dancing; if in mirth, report That I am sudden sick: quick, and return. (I.iii.2–5) |
An interesting exchange takes place between Cleopatra and Charmian as to how best to win a man.
| CHARMIAN: | Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly, You do not hold the method to enforce The like from him. |
| CLEOPATRA: | What should I do, I do not? |
| CHARMIAN: | In each thing give him way, cross him nothing. |
| CLEOPATRA: | Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him. |
| CHARMIAN: | Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear: In time we hate that which we often fear. (I.iii.6–12) |
Shakespeare conveys two different philosophies for women to maintain their hold over a man. Who is right, Cleopatra or Charmian, will forever be debated.
Cleopatra's dependency on Antony is expressed in another exchange between her and her attendant.
| CLEOPATRA: | Ha, ha! Give me to drink mandragora. |
| CHARMIAN: | Why, madam? |
| CLEOPATRA: | That I might sleep out this great gap of time My Antony is away. (I.v.3–6) |
This is followed by a famous passage.
| CLEOPATRA: | O Charmian, Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he? Or does he walk? or is he on his horse? O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! (I.v.19–22) |
Cleopatra continues to dwell on her love for Antony and his absence.
| CLEOPATRA: | Give me some music; music, moody food Of us that trade in love. |
| … Give me mine angle; we'll to the river: there, My music playing far off, I will betray Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce Their slimy jaws; and, as I draw them up, I'll think them every one an Antony, And say “Ah, ha! you're caught”. (II.v.1–2, 10–15) |
In this metaphor Shakespeare conveys both Cleopatra's love and her aggression towards Antony.
Cleopatra then tells Charmian an episode whose significance no psychoanalytic observer can afford to miss.
| CLEOPATRA: | That time,—O times!— I laugh'd him out of patience; and that night I laugh'd him into patience; and next morn, Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed; Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst I wore his sword Philippan. (II.v.18–23) |
Cleopatra brags that she persuaded a drunken Antony to cross dress in her jewellry while she wore his sword. To a psychoanalyst, Cleopatra is betraying her unconscious wishes to exchange roles with Antony, to feminise him and assume a masculine role herself. Behind her very prominent femininity we discover her masculine wishes and castration wishes towards Antony. It is a very short scene and very easy to miss, but it might give us insight into her betrayal of Antony at the battle of Actium. Shakespeare discloses that Cleopatra playfully persuaded Antony to exchange gender roles as part of their lovemaking. What Shakespeare does not tell us, but of which the audience is at least momentarily aware, is that by her behaviour such a woman must evoke castration anxiety of becoming a woman in the man, at least unconsciously.
Cleopatra receives the news that Antony has married Octavia and almost kills the messenger, but then Shakespeare adds another masterstroke to the portrait of Cleopatra. She is curious about Octavia, a trait that emphasises the feminine aspect of her character.
| CLEOPATRA: | Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him Report the feature of Octavia, her years, Her inclination, let him not leave out The colour of her hair: bring me word quickly. (II.v.113–16) |
There is yet another aspect of Shakespeare's skill that is of psycho-analytic interest. Cleopatra is praised in magnificent language not by Antony but by Enobarbaus, who is closely associated with Antony but will eventually leave him to go to the enemy's camp. Enobarbus describes the first meeting between Antony and Cleopatra.
The praise of Cleopatra—“she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies”—is one of the great praises of a woman's sexuality that Shakespeare bestows. Its opposite, sexual satiety, is one of Shakespeare's great fears. This line is reminiscent of Venus' promise to Adonis:
I'll smother thee with kisses:
‘And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety, (Venus and Adonis, lines 18–19)
Enobarbus praises and Antony is the lover; something of a homosexual tie between the two men is implied in this division.
The relationship between Antony and Enobarbus can be understood as a desexualised homosexual relationship. When Enobarbus finally defects from Antony's camp to join Caesar and leaves his treasure behind, Antony sends it after him. Eventually Enobarbus feels so guilty over his betrayal that he too commits suicide.
Shakespeare so structured Cleopatra's personality that she is all desire and knows few moral restraints. She sends Mardian to let Antony assume that she is dead.
| CLEOPATRA: | Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself; Say, that the last I spoke was ‘Antony,’ And word it, prithee, piteously: hence, Mardian, And bring me how he takes my death. (IV.xiii.7–10) |
The effect on Antony is devastating.
| ANTONY: | 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 farther. |
| … Since Cleopatra died, I have lived in such dishonour, that the gods Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack The courage of a woman; less noble mind Than she which by her death our Caesar tells ‘I am conqueror of myself’. (IV.xiv.44–47, 55–62) |
Antony's suicide wish is a mixture of the desire to emulate what Cleopatra has supposedly done and also to escape the power of Caesar. Antony asks Eros to kill him but Eros kills himself instead. Committing suicide by falling upon his sword, Antony addresses the dead Eros with the proclamation “Thy master dies thy scholar” (IV.xiv.102). Before he dies Antony learns that Cleopatra did not in fact kill herself and is taken to her. Two hundred years before Wagner created the term Liebestod, combining love and death in Tristan and Isolde, Shakespeare let Antony die such a death in the presence of his beloved. Death is personified when Cleopatra proclaims “And make death proud to take us” (IV.xv.93).
We are now in Act V, scene two. Caesar has sent two messengers to Cleopatra and will make a personal appearance himself. The first messenger, Proculeius Gallus, prevents a suicide attempt by Cleopatra. He is replaced by Dolabella and now something strange happens. Cleopatra does not know him and yet confides a dream to him.
We are presented with a psychologically complex exchange between the queen and the enemy's messenger. Cleopatra tells a personal dream in which Antony is idealised; when Dolabella does not confirm the idealisation she berates him. This idealisation is a preparation for her suicide and is needed psychologically to bring them together as she merges with him in suicide. There is no indication in the play that this idealisation of Antony was part of their relationship while he was alive.
Cleopatra's death at the very end of the play is one of the high points of Shakespeare's art: a love suicide in which she joins Antony.
Suicide is a theme that must have meant a great deal to Shakespeare. All we need to think of is Ophelia's suicide and Hamlet's continual preoccupation with suicide. Antony and Cleopatra was written six years after Hamlet and the number of suicides in the play is striking: Enobarbus, Eros, Antony, Cleopatra, Charmian, and Iras.
Antony and Octavius Caesar
The relationship between Antony and Octavius Caesar parallels in intensity the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra. They first attempt to seal their relationship by becoming brothers-in-law but then the rivalry between them takes over. Before the last battle, Octavius Caesar lets it be known that Antony is not to be killed but captured alive. After his defeat, Antony invites Octavius Caesar to a personal combat, which Octavius Caesar refuses. At the end of the play, Octavius Caesar comes to Egypt for no other reason than to woo Cleopatra away from Antony. For both Antony and Cleopatra, the victory over Octavius Caesar plays a significant role in their suicides. The complex balancing of the homosexual and heterosexual relationships is one of the achievements of Antony and Cleopatra.