Category: Texts And Contexts

Teaching Act 4 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra with myths of Hercules

8/22/2015

Antony dies in Act 4 of Shakespeare's play. This act makes references to the shirt of Nessus, a poisoned shirt that Hercules' wife Deianira gives him thinking that it is imbued with a love potion. My strategies for teaching this act build on some of the work that we did with Spenser's Faerie Queene and Shakespeare's play in our discussion of Act 3 of Antony and Cleopatra, so please make reference to that page as well.

This blog post is part of my discussion about the course I taught, "Gender and Clothing in Shakespeare's Plays." It is a texts and contexts course, and the unit on Antony and Cleopatra is focused on the "tragedy" of female authority, particularly queenship.

In conjunction with Act 4, I assign the following contextual materials that build on our discussion of the episode between Radigund and Artegall in Spenser's Faerie Queene:

A brief overview of the following myths (N.B., this website has many typos in it, but it is valuable because it synthesizes the mythic stories of Hercules from an impressive array of sources):

Hercules and Omphale at this site.
Nessus and the attempted rape of Hercules' wife Deianira at this link.
The death of Hercules at this site.

Epistle 9 (Deianira to Hercules) from Ovid’s Heroides, translated by A.S. Kline (N.B., The Heroides (The Heroines), or Epistulae Heroidum (Letters of Heroines), is a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated, neglected, or abandoned them.)

I feel that this discussion of Hercules works especially well both because Spenser's episode from The Faerie Queene draws on the myth of Hercules and Omphale and because Antony was supposedly descended from Hercules as he acknowledges in Act 4. The following is a speech that he gives after the loss at the Battle of Actium:

Antony (to Cleopatra):
Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving,
And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee,
And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians:
Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot
Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown
For poor'st diminutives, for doits; and let
Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
With her prepared nails. [Exit CLEOPATRA]
'Tis well thou'rt gone,
If it be well to live; but better 'twere
Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death
Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!
The shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me,
Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage:
Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the moon;
And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club,
Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die:
To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall
Under this plot; she dies for't. Eros, ho!

I like to give my students the following image to analyze in conjunction with both this passage and Ovid's ninth epistle from Heroides.

British Museum E370, Red-figured Pelike, c. 430BC

There are competing ways to read this Red-figured Pelike. According to one reading, Hercules doffs his lion skin (acquired during one of his twelve heroic labors) while he receives female clothing from Omphale or one of her servants. According to the other reading, Hercules disrobes his lion skin in order to accept a gift from his wife, Deianira. She worries that he has fallen in love with Iole, and she hopes to rekindle his love for her with a shirt imbued with magic powers. The centaur Nessus has lied to her by telling her the magic is a love potion, when it is really a flesh-burning poison.

Reading questions:

How does this pelike construct clothing as dangerous?
How does that accord with Ovid’s poem?
In what ways are women associated with clothing, and is it the clothes or the women that undercut Hercules’ heroic masculinity?
How does that echo in the episode about Artegall and Radigund from Spenser’s The Faerie Queene?
How does that echo in Act 4 of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra?

Here is a passage from Ovid's Epistle that is pertinent to the discussion. Note that the poem is addressed to Hercules (aka Alcides), so all the "you" pronouns are meant as addresses to him. Deianira mocks him for having worn the female clothes of Omphale and for having deigned to do the woman's work of cloth-making.

Did your hand not draw back, assigned its smooth basket,
Alcides, conqueror of a thousand labours,
and did you draw out the thread with your strong thumb,
and was an equally handsome weight of wool returned?
Ah! How often, while your rough fingers twisted the thread,
your over-heavy hand broke the spindle!
Of course you’ll have told of deeds, hiding that they were yours…

Can you speak of [all your heroic deeds], marked out by Sidonian dress?
Shouldn’t your tongue fall silent curbed by your clothing?...

But why do I recall this? Written news comes,
rumour that my husband’s dying from the poison in his tunic.
Ah me! What have I done? What madness has my love caused?
Impious Deianira, why do you hesitate to die?

Reading questions:

Discuss the various ways that this passage echoes with both Spenser’s poem and Shakespeare’s play.
Why would Hercules’ tongue be curbed by his clothing?
Compare and contrast the two types of “bad” clothes that Hercules receives: one from Omphale and one from Deianira. Why does Omphale give him women’s clothes? Why does Deianira give him Nessus’ shirt? What are the various ways that women are associated with clothes?
What's dangerous to Hercules: clothes or women?

I think that this is an excellent place to consider the passage from Act 2 wherein Cleopatra reveals that she and Antony would cross dress as each other as part of their debauchery/erotic play:

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.

This is a key passage to keep in context with the reference to the shirt of Nessus. Antony, like Hercules, has traded his masculine accoutrements as a warrior to put on a powerful woman's feminine attire and mantles. Now, later in the play, he feels that his clothing is poisoned and that he is repeating the history of his ancestor. By making aligning Antony so neatly with Hercules, Shakespeare condenses both Omphale and Deianira into the character of Cleopatra. She both robs him of his masculine clothing (presumably so that she can take it for herself) and endangers him with her poisoned love. This is something that is worth exploring. What are implications of that condensation?

The rest of the class we spent on following passages: 1) Enobarbus' last words, 2) Antony's famous monologue wherein he mournfully assesses the loss at Actium as a loss of his own identity and a betrayal by Cleopatra, and 3) Antony's last words. In many ways, these three speeches all highlight the loss of heroic identity that has defined Antony. The following discussion questions help students to work through this theme that dominates Act 4.

How, exactly, does Enobarbus die?
Can Antony will himself to die? What does it matter that Enobarbus can will himself to die, but Antony cannot?
Notice the last word that Enobarbus utters. What does Cleopatra ask Mardian to tell Antony is the last word that she utters (see 4.13 and 4.14)? What does it matter that Enobarbus actually does utter the word that Cleopatra pretends is her last word?
In some ways Enobarbus has the ideal death that both Antony and Cleopatra desire: he simply dies of a broken heart (as Antony wishes he could do) and he dies demonstrating his love for Antony (as Cleopatra wishes to do). Why does Shakespeare give him this idealized death?
Why do you think Antony spends so much time talking about things that dissolve like clouds, reflections, and bodies that cannot hold a shape? What, exactly, is dissolving in 4.14?
What do we make of his later claim that Cleopatra has robbed him of his sword? And that he says so in front of the Eunuch?
What do we make of his immediate grief, even after he was so sure of her betrayal? Does he not really believe that she has betrayed him, or is he (like she) made of infinite variety?
Compared to Eros and to Enobarbus, doesn’t Antony rather botch his suicide? What is significant about that? Is this the final, undignified failure that he must face?
He asks a character named “love” to stab him in the back. What is significant about that? But “Love” doesn’t actually stab him in the back. Significance?
Cleopatra’s words to Antony once they have him hoisted up to the monument play on the sexual pun, “die.” What’s up with that?
Why does he say, “The miserable change… I can no more"?
What is triumphant in Antony’s last speech and what is defeated? Compare these last words with Enobarbus’ last words.
So it’s the end of Act 4 and Antony is dead, but Cleopatra lives on. What?! Who is this play really about? Why doesn’t this end like Romeo and Juliet, with Cleopatra killing herself immediately?

This strategy for teaching Act 4 went over extremely well in the classroom. Students were very interested in the connections between Antony and Hercules, but they were even more interested in the connections between Cleopatra and Omphale/Deianira. Omphale and Radigund worked well with each other, and Deianira complemented some of our earlier discussion of Queen Elizabeth.

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Teaching Act 3 of Antony and Cleopatra in the Context of the Elizabethan "Maid Martial"

8/20/2015

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Hildegard Neil as Cleopatra in Heston's 1972 film version of the play

So I want to start off right away by saying that I did too much for this day's lesson. If I could go back and do this one over, I would break this into two days of discussion. It was so fruitful, and it helped the kids to think about the gender politics of Antony and Cleopatra in a variety of ways. In addition to Act 3 of Shakespeare's play, I asked my students to read the following texts:

Queen Elizabeth’s Armada Speech to the Troops at Tilbury, August 9, 1588, anthologized in Collected Works, pp. 325-6.
Excerpt from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (5.5.1-26): Artegall, a powerful male knight, fights Radigund, an equally powerful female Amazon. He suffers both defeat and humiliation.

I am a huge fan of Spenser's Faerie Queene, so I really, really wanted to include this text. It was, in my mind, going to serve as a transition piece as we moved from the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra to the romance of Cymbeline. It also served as a preface for the Hercules and Omphale story that we read in conjunction with Act 4 of A&C. I think that we only began to scratch the surface of this text. If you were pressed for time you could omit this, but in the future I will just ask my students to spend two days on Act 3 and our contextual material.

The Tilbury Speech

"Queen Elizabeth exhorting her People, to stand firm in defence [sic.] of their Queen and Country," by W. Belch or Edward Langley, London: 1820s. Border image for a handwriting broadsheet for children to practice penmanship. Click on the image to learn more. Image courtesy of www.georgeglazer.com, George Glazer Gallery, New York City.

Although scholars debate whether or not Elizabeth was actually at Tilbury right before the battle with the Spanish Armada in 1588, she is frequently figured in the popular imagination as having been there to deliver her famous speech in person. This speech (if authentic) has been reconstructed by history as having been delivered by her in person (as opposed to by a proxy). As history progressed, more details were added so that she is imagined to have been in armor and on a horse when giving the speech. It's a great speech, no matter what its actual authenticity. Here it is:

I have been persuaded by some that are careful of my safety, to take heed how I commit myself to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I tell you that I would not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects. Wherefore I am come among you at this time but for my recreation and pleasure, being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live and die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom and my people mine honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too!

Shakespeare's Cleopatra wrestles with some of these same issues in Act 3 of the play. When Enobarbus tells her that she cannot fight in the war both because women fighters are too distracting to men and because Rome will use her presence as a way to defame Antony, she responds as follows:

Sink Rome, and their tongues rot
That speak against us! A charge we bear i' the war,
And, as the president of my kingdom, will
Appear there for a man. Speak not against it:
I will not stay behind.

Of course, Enobarbus' words come true in the play. Cleopatra is a distraction for Antony at Actium, and the Romans do accuse him of being emasculated by his love for her.

Compare and contrast Elizabeth’s speech at Tilbury with Cleopatra’s decision that she will fight at war in man’s apparel. Why is Cleopatra’s biological sex a distraction for Antony (and the other men fighting), but Elizabeth’s presence is a rallying battle cry?

Note--this question prompted a lot of discussion from the students. It was a great way to get them to close read both the speech and the play, and it prompted some really interesting speculation about the types of feminine authority that were comforting or threatening.

The idea that Cleopatra would dress like a man when she went to war is interesting in light of both Act 3's representation of how monarchs use clothing to construct power and the trope of the Maid Martial in English poetry.

Clothing and Monarchical Power

In terms of Cleopatra and clothes, we can build off of our discussion from Act 2 by considering the extended discussion of monarchy and clothing that develops in Act 3.

Caesar. Contemning Rome, he [Antony] has done all this, and more,
In Alexandria: here's the manner of 't:
I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,
Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
Were publicly enthroned: at the feet sat
Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,
And all the unlawful issue that their lust
Since then hath made between them. Unto her
He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
Absolute queen.

Mecaenas. This in the public eye?

Caesar. I' the common show-place, where they exercise.
His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:
Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia.
He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: she
In the habiliments of the goddess Isis
That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,
As 'tis reported, so.

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra in the 1934 film Cleopatra, dir. Cecil B. DeMille. In this still, Cleopatra is dressed as Isis.

Isis, an Egyptian goddess. Often depicted wearing a headdress shaped either like a throne or with the sun disk encircled by cow's horns.

I found it useful to refer back to the Armada portrait that we had discussed in relation to Act 2. Discussion questions:

Why is Caesar scandalized by the gold thrones and the costume of Isis? Is he scandalized by Antony “going native” or is he scandalized by Cleopatra’s queenship?
Compare and contrast with both Fulvia and Octavia. How are "good" women supposed to act in this play, especially women that have some degree of power?
Compare and contrast the costume of Isis (as we can glean from the images above) and the gown that Elizabeth wore in her Armada Portrait. How do these two sets of clothing perform female authority?
Does Cleopatra perform her queenship or is it innate as Elizabeth claims that hers is (she “needs” no clothes—she is a queen even when she is in her petticoats)?
What do you make of Elizabeth’s claim that she only needs her petticoats when she actually wore such elaborate clothing?

I am very lucky to be friends with Valerie Billing who is doing exciting work on the erotics of size in Early Modern English literature. She generously shared with me some of her work in progress on Queen Elizabeth and clothing.

About the Armada Portrait, Billing writes:

Elizabeth constructs the enormous size of her political power in a number of ways, one of the most visual involving clothing. The costumes she wears in her portraits become ever larger throughout her reign, with hoop skirts, neck ruffs, puffed sleeves, and headwear growing increasingly more enormous while the costumes continue to accentuate her narrow waist and tiny hands... [Her] representational body stands for an eroticized political identity made all the more desirable because it hides the gendered, human body of the monarch, dwarfed beneath the royal robes.

And about the "Petticoat Speech," Billing adds:

While Elizabeth most likely stands before Parliament in her full robes of state [to deliver her speech], she figures herself in her undergarments, enticingly vulnerable yet unabashed and in control. She styles herself as clothed only in a garment worn close to the body and that, though it helped fashion the largeness of her outer layers, was not itself voluminous, enacting a kind of sartorial miniaturization that nonetheless asserts the queen’s authority: she can rule with her natural body, small and gendered female by the petticoats, and does not need her enormous robes of state.

These short passages were a great touchstone for my students to contemplate if a similar eroticized spectacle was at work in Cleopatra's presentation of herself, either as a maid martial or as the goddess Isis. If Elizabeth's performance of power operates through a simultaneous revealing and concealing of her body, does Cleopatra repulse Caesar because she is too much on display? How would that work in performance if the boy actor playing Cleopatra in the play's original performance couldn't reveal too much of his corporeal body? Does her self-display even matter if it is only giving to us through other people's words? How could she control that? How is Antony implicated in all this? Does he feminize himself when he puts himself on display with Cleopatra (according to Caesar)?

Amazons

Inigo Jones' costume for Penthesilea Queen of the Amazons from "The Masque of Queens," 1609.

In terms of the trope of the maid martial, I asked my students to read an excerpt on Amazons from Spenser's verse romance, The Faerie Queene, which was written while Queen Elizabeth was still alive. Indeed, the poem was written with Elizabeth in mind. Spenser read portions of him poem out loud to Elizabeth, and he instructs his readers that he has "shadow[ed]" Elizabeth in multiple places in the poem.

In the passage that we read, the Amazon (Radigund, a female) bests the knight (Artegall, a male) when the two are fighting. Then, she humiliates him by making him wear women's clothes and perform menial women's tasks related to cloth-making and sewing. The episode is based on the myth of Hercules and Omphale, which we discuss at greater length in conjunction with Act 4. Here are some stanzas 20-21 from Spenser's poem, which are an excellent starting point:

Then tooke the Amazon this noble knight,
Left to her will by his owne wilfull blame,
And caused him to be disarmed quight,
Of all the ornaments of knightly name,
With which whylome he gotten had great fame:
In stead whereof she made him to be dight
In womans weedes, that is to manhood shame,
And put before his lap a napron white,
In stead of Curiets and bases fit for fight.

So being clad, she brought him from the field,
In which he had bene trayned many a day,
Into a long large chamber, which was sield
With moniments of many knights decay,
By her subdewed in victorious fray:
Amongst the which she causd his warlike armes
Be hang'd on high, that mote his shame bewray;
And broke his sword, for feare of further harmes,
With which he wont to stirre vp battailous alarmes.

The idea of the broken sword is everywhere in the latter half of Shakespeare's play. Here is a pertinent example from Act 3:

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.

Cleopatra. O, my pardon!

Antony. Now I must
To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleased,
Making and marring fortunes. You did know
How much you were my conqueror; and that
My sword, made weak by my affection, would
Obey it on all cause.

Discussion questions:

Explain the imagery of the weakened or broken swords in both these passages from Spenser and Shakespeare.
Cleopatra and Antony are allies not competitors, so how has she broken his sword?
Why does Antony call her his conqueror? How does Radigund conquer Artegall? Is that the same thing?
What kind of comment does this make about romantic love and/or attraction?
What kind of comment does this make about masculinity and/or femininity?

Spenser ostensibly wrote this poem for Queen Elizabeth. How does he get around offending her when he depicts female authority as emasculating for men, especially in Stanza 25?
Does Shakespeare's text seem critical of female authority or nostalgic for it (he was writing this play after her death)?
Who is to blame for Artegall and/or Antony’s defeat? The Spenserian narrator balances stanza 25 with the comment about Artegall’s “owne wilfull blame” (V. v. 20.2). Compare this to Enobarbus’ comment that it is “Antony only, that would make his will / Lord of his reason” who is at fault (3.3.3-4).

The kids easily linked the broken sword imagery with all of the other imagery of emasculation in the play. This, once more, raised the question of why it was energizing when Elizabeth supposedly appeared in armor to the troops at Tilbury, especially if it was enervating when Cleopatra and/or Radigund participated in battle with or against men.

I feel like we did not really do justice to Spenser's poem by breezing through it so fast. These questions, however, really engaged the students, and they prompted some excellent class discussion about what Early Modern English people might have thought of as appropriate female power. I think that one could overcome the rushed feeling that I experienced by not trying to cram it all in an hour's class. I would definitely recommend this collection of texts again, but I would advise you to spend more than an hour on it!

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Teaching Act 2 of Antony and Cleopatra with Queen Elizabeth's Petticoat Speech

8/19/2015

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George Gower's 1588 portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, known as the Armada Portrait

This blog post is part of my discussion about the course I taught, "Gender and Clothing in Shakespeare's Plays." It is a texts and contexts course, and the unit on Antony and Cleopatra is focused on the "tragedy" of female authority, particularly queenship.

I like to pair Act 2 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra with the "petticoat speech" that Queen Elizabeth gave after parliament tried to force her to marry and secure the succession of the monarchy. Here is the full citation if you are looking to find an authoritative source for the text, which is not a long text at all. Queen Elizabeth’s Speech to a Joint Delegation of Lords and Commons, November 5, 1566, Version 2 (aka “The Petticoat Speech”), anthologized in Elizabeth I: Collected Works, eds. Marcus, Mueller, and Rose (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 94-98.

The speech has several good points that are pertinent to a discussion of Shakespeare's play. The following excerpt is a useful starting point:

I did send them answer by my council, I would marry although of mine own disposition I was not inclined thereunto. But that was not accepted nor credited, although spoken by their Prince…I will never break the word of a prince spoken in a public place, for my honour's sake. And therefore I say again, I will marry as soon as I can conveniently, if God take not him away with whom I mind to marry, or myself, or else some other great let happen. I can say no more except the party were present. And I hope to have children, otherwise I would never marry. A strange order of petitioners that will make a request and cannot be otherwise assured but by the prince's word, and yet will not believe it when it is spoken…

The second point was for the limitation of the succession of the crown, wherein was nothing said for my safety, but only for themselves… I am sure there was not one of them that ever was a second person, as I have been and have tasted of the practices against my sister, who I would to God were alive again…There were occasions in me at that time, I stood in danger of my life, my sister was so incensed against me. I did differ from her in religion and I was sought for divers ways. And so shall never be my successor.

Before drawing comparisons between Shakespeare's queen and the historical Queen Elizabeth, you should make sure that your students can follow Elizabeth's argument here. Ask them comprehension questions: explain why Elizabeth is angry. There may be multiple reasons. Why is naming a successor dangerous to her or to her “second” (i.e., heir)? It may or may not be helpful to talk about the religious differences between Elizabeth and her Catholic sister, Mary Tudor.

Then focus on this passage, for which the speech gets its nickname:

As for my own part I care not for death, for all men are mortal; and though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am indeed endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.

The following are great discussion questions to consider:

Elizabeth calls herself both male ("Prince") and female (“though I be a woman”… your “anointed Queen”). What does she gain through each gendered position?
How does Elizabeth use clothing here to construct her femininity and/or power? What is a petticoat? How would appearing in her petticoat confer power and/or powerlessness? How would appearing in her petticoat reveal or construct her femininity? Are power and femininity linked in this speech?
Is her monarchical authority gender-neutral (“my honour”), male (“Prince”) or female (“petticoats”)? Is it English or is it trans-national?
Compare Elizabeth's use of clothing in this speech to the way that clothing works in the Armada portrait (in the lede image). How do her clothes in that portrait construct power?
What does it suggest about Elizabeth that she is actually asking the House of Commons to picture her in her underwear—and that this is meant to cower them?

Is Cleopatra like Elizabeth in any way? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Does Shakespeare’s play seem to be anxious about female sovereignty?

The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, 41 B.C. (1885) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

The speech works really well to highlight discussions of clothing and performances of gender and power in the play.

One passage in Antony and Cleopatra that specifically mentions petticoats actually comes from Act 1, but it helps to highlight a lot of action in Act 2 as well. The following lines are spoken by Enobarbus after he and Antony learn of Fulvia's death:

Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.

Discussion questions:

Explain Enobarbus’ metaphor. How is a wife like a robe? How does she "[bring] forth a new petticoat"?
Compare and contrast Fulvia and Cleopatra. Is either of them replaceable?
Does Enobarbus like either Fulvia or Cleopatra? How do you know and why does it matter?
How does this use of the petticoat metaphor compare to Elizabeth's use of it?
Both Enobarbus and Elizabeth are using the petticoat imagery to discuss marriage, particularly a new marriage. What does marriage have to do with gender, power, and clothing?

This also leads to the very famous description that Enobarbus gives of the meeting of Antony and Cleopatra--like the Armada portrait above, this description presents female authority as a rich spectacle, a feast for the eyes.

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue--
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

Questions:

Enobarbus says that Cleopatra “beggar'd all description” but he talks a whole lot here. How do you reconcile those two claims? Is he talking about her or about the stuff around her?
When we look at the Armada portrait, are we looking at Queen Elizabeth or are we looking at the stuff around her, particularly the clothes?
How does the spectacle of female self-display relate to the repeated comparisons that are made between Cleopatra and food? Is she a feast for the palate as well as a feast for the eyes?
There are many scenes in this play that are about other people’s thoughts about Antony and/or Cleopatra. We spend as much time hearing what people think about the two as we spend actually watching the eponymous characters. Why? Why are there so few soliloquies? How might that relate to clothing?

The description that Enobarbus gives also resonates with a scene late in Act 2, which once again ties Cleopatra to river imagery. Lounging around Alexandria while waiting for Antony, Cleopatra plays at fishing:

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.'

Questions:

Is she trying to “catch” Antony as in ensnare him with her charms (marry him)? Is her language more sinister? Is she like Salamacis who cries out “I’ve won!” when she sees Hermaphroditus dive into the water?
Note that again she is associated with water imagery—elsewhere she is associated with the Nile (“Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures / Turn all to serpents!... So half my Egypt were submerged and made / A cistern for scaled snakes!”), and we already talked about her barge on the water when she first meets Antony. Why do you think she is associated with water? Compare and contrast that to the associations of her and food.

Thinking about Cleopatra in relationship to Queen Elizabeth is useful when we think about the ways that so many of the Romans cry out against her authority over Antony as an emasculating monstrosity. On the one hand she is threatening in the same way that John Knox found Mary Tudor to be threatening; however, there is something gorgeous, creative, and intoxicating about her self-conscious display of power. She is theatrical and seductive; she is a little bit like Queen Elizabeth, who had already died by the time that Shakespeare was writing this play. This strategy for presenting the play could give your students a way to conceptualize how Shakespeare may be nostalgically remembering Queen Elizabeth after her death.

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Teaching Act 4 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra with myths of Hercules

Teaching Act 3 of Antony and Cleopatra in the Context of the Elizabethan "Maid Martial"

The Tilbury Speech

Clothing and Monarchical Power

Amazons

Teaching Act 2 of Antony and Cleopatra with Queen Elizabeth's Petticoat Speech

Claire Dawkins

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