'She shall be buried by her Antony'

The World of arts by Gwen Herat

DRAMA: The semblance was the same when Shakespeare decided to cast two pairs of tragic star-crossed lovers at the same location for them to sacrifice their love. The foursome bade farewell to each other beside their crypts.

Romeo and Juliet ended their young lives at Juliet's tomb while Cleopatra committed suicide beside the body of her Antony at their crypt. The lovers appear from opposing but powerful families. Juliet from the Capulets and Romeo from the House of Montagues.

Antony from the Roman world while Cleopatra from the Alexandrian Palace is the Queen of Egypt.

However in contrast, they were different characters. All what the young and innocent Juliet and her carefree teenage Romeo wanted was their true love for each other. But Cleopatra was different. Her love for Antony was to over-run Rome. Antony already had a wife, Fulvia and she died while he was in Egypt with Cleopatra. He later agrees to marry Octavia who was Caesar's sister, to overcome a quarrel between him and Caesar.

Shakespeare uses Cleopatra as the ambitious 'wordy' woman in search of more power in contrast to the

 youthful Juliet who has not seen the passing away of four summers.

These are two of the Bard's women whom he paints as suicidal, homicidal, ambitious, treacherous, murderous, wicked etc. while a few are wrought in humour and wit and loads of sacrificial love.

Tangled web

So, in this tangled web, Antony falls on his sword and dies after hearing a false report that she is dead. Cleopatra commits suicide after getting a poisonous snake to sting her. Juliet stabs herself with Romeo's knife when she discovers his body at her tomb, after swallowing a portion of poison.

Mark Antony, Lepidus and Sextus Pompeus are the three rulers of the Roman world and known as the 'triumvirate'. In the Alexandrian Palace rules the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra with whom lives Antony because they are lovers. But Antony has to leave for Rome because his wife, Fulvia has died.

He also hears that Sextus Pompeus, son of Pompeus the Great, has risen against Octavius Ceasar. While in Rome, Antony is forced to marry Caesar's sister, Octavia to overcome a major problem that could have escalated to war.

A friendly feast is arranged in Pompey's Gallery and Antony attends but he would not give up Cleopatra. Caesar will not keep peace with Pompey which makes Caesar oppose Antony at Actium. At the sea battle, Cleopatra's army flee as Antony is defeated.

However, he wins the first day of land fighting but on the second day, the Egyptian fleet surrenders. Antony is desperate.

Antony: All is lost
This foul Egyptian has betrayed me;
My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder
They cast their caps and carous together.
Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd where tis thou?
Has sold me to the novice; and my heart
Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly'.....
(ACT. IV sc. XII)

Cleopatra's death

With that false news of Cleopatra's death, Antony falls on his sword and dies like a soldier and is borne though mortally wounded, to Cleopatra's mausoleum where he dies, rather than taken to Rome as a captive. Cleopatra arrays herself in royal robes and the Crown of Egypt and dies, bitten by an asp brought to her by a peasant. (re-enter Eras with a Robe and the Crown)

Cleopatra - 'Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me; now no more
The juice of Egypt's grapes shall moist thy lips
Yare, yare; good Iras; quick, Methinks, I hear
Antony call. I see him rouse himself.
To praise my noble act, I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar which the Gods give men......
(ACT. V Sc. II)
When Caesar discovers Cleopatra's body, in pity he orders,
First Guard - 'This is an aspic's .... and these fig leaves.
Upon the caves of Nile.
Caesar - Most preabale
That so she died; her physician tells me.
She has persued conclusion infinite. Of easy ways to die.
Take up her bed and bear her woman from the monument
She shall be buried by her Antony
No grave upon the earth shall clip in
A pair so famous.
(ACT. V Sc. II)
Tragedy

In the flexibility of Shakespeare theatre, where the earlier performance was at Blackfriar, Antony and Cleopatra are transfigured in the play in 42 scenes, some very short. Ventidious and the Roman forces appear side by side, shortening the play but allowing it to run the full length. But today, the play has many problems being a tragedy.

The lovers are hard to cast. Hollywood made an international search for a beauty to cast as Cleopatra and the mantle fell on the green-eyed, raven-haired beauty, Elizabeth Taylor.

Any director is obsessed by its spectacle at the splendour of its dialogue and the speed with which the play moves.

North's text of Plutarch's Lives, was Shakespeare's main source of inspiration for this historical tragedy but for 200 years little happened in London over this play. Then, down two centuries the play was attempted by many great and talented directors.

The big breakthrough came in 1922 when Robert Atkins mounted it at the Old Vic on a bare stage. Many Shakespeare companies around England, boarded the play that drew audiences.

The richest of them all was the revival of the 1877 version staged at Broadway Theatre by Rose Eyeting who brought it down to New York, USA. And so established the Shakespeare theatre in the USA.

North's Plutearch said of Cleopatra.

'The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne/burned on the water.

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