Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra and Henry Wilcoxon as Antony in the 1934 film Cleopatra, directed by Cecil B. DeMille.
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 pair a discussion of Act 1 of Shakespeare's play with an excerpt from an early modern pamphlet that was published in outrage at the queenship of Mary Tudor (the Catholic half-sister of Queen Elizabeth I, who was later nick-named "Bloody Mary").
The excerpt is from John Knox’s The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, and it can be found in the Norton Critical Edition of Antony and Cleopatra, p. 162.
I pair a discussion of Act 1 of Shakespeare's play with an excerpt from an early modern pamphlet that was published in outrage at the queenship of Mary Tudor (the Catholic half-sister of Queen Elizabeth I, who was later nick-named "Bloody Mary").
The excerpt is from John Knox’s The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, and it can be found in the Norton Critical Edition of Antony and Cleopatra, p. 162.
Whatsoever repugneth to the will of god expressed in his most sacred word, repugneth to justice: but that women have authoritie over men repugneth to the will of God expressed in his word: and therefore mine author commandeth me to conclude without fear, that all such authoritie repugneth to justice…And if any man doubt hereof, let him mark well the words of the apostle, saying: I permit not a woman to teach, nether yet to usurp authority above man… say, we will suffer women to bear authority, who then can depose them? yet shall this one word of the eternal God spoken by the mouth of a weak man, thrust them every one in to hell. Jesabel may for a time sleep quietly in the bed of her fornication and whoredom, she may teach and deceive for a season, but nether shall she preserve her self, nether yet her adulterous children from great affliction, and from the sword of God’s vengeance, which shall shortly apprehend such works of iniquity.
I ask my students to simply paraphrase this passage in their own words, paying special attention to the ways that Knox constructs certain things as monstrous. This serves as a springboard for our discussions of the ways that the Romans in particular attempt to construct Cleopatra as monstrous in Shakespeare's play.
In particular, Knox tries to naturalize male authority over women by appealing to some famous biblical passages, and he suggests that this authority is biological because of the "need" to control reproduction and prevent adulterous children. He links female political sovereignty to female promiscuity. He also suggests that any man who tolerates female authority makes himself weak and, therefore, becomes a threat to all men within this particular patriarchal power structure. As Knox asks, if women do gain a foothold into power, "who can depose them?" It is, therefore, just as important to police men as it is to police women.
Knox's attempt to undermine the political authority of Mary Tudor is surprisingly similar to the Romans' attempts to undermine both Cleopatra and Antony in Shakespeare's play. It is worth it to ask your students to think about how the Roman characters--exemplified most powerfully in Caesar but not limited to him--continuously proclaim that by loving Cleopatra and tolerating her authority in Egypt, Antony has emasculated himself and introduced a threat to Rome. This becomes the justification for war against Antony in the play to some extent: that in betraying his masculinity, he has betrayed Rome itself. One of the key questions to ask your students as you read through the play is whether the play endorses this patriarchal mindset or critiques it. To my mind, this is the key question about the play.
The question emerges immediately in the play in terms of Antony as a man of excess. He loves food, sex, and Cleopatra too much, according to the Romans. Philo opens the play with this discourse, arguing that Antony overflows the bounds of measure:
In particular, Knox tries to naturalize male authority over women by appealing to some famous biblical passages, and he suggests that this authority is biological because of the "need" to control reproduction and prevent adulterous children. He links female political sovereignty to female promiscuity. He also suggests that any man who tolerates female authority makes himself weak and, therefore, becomes a threat to all men within this particular patriarchal power structure. As Knox asks, if women do gain a foothold into power, "who can depose them?" It is, therefore, just as important to police men as it is to police women.
Knox's attempt to undermine the political authority of Mary Tudor is surprisingly similar to the Romans' attempts to undermine both Cleopatra and Antony in Shakespeare's play. It is worth it to ask your students to think about how the Roman characters--exemplified most powerfully in Caesar but not limited to him--continuously proclaim that by loving Cleopatra and tolerating her authority in Egypt, Antony has emasculated himself and introduced a threat to Rome. This becomes the justification for war against Antony in the play to some extent: that in betraying his masculinity, he has betrayed Rome itself. One of the key questions to ask your students as you read through the play is whether the play endorses this patriarchal mindset or critiques it. To my mind, this is the key question about the play.
The question emerges immediately in the play in terms of Antony as a man of excess. He loves food, sex, and Cleopatra too much, according to the Romans. Philo opens the play with this discourse, arguing that Antony overflows the bounds of measure:
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:
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.
Speaking of excess: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Antony in the famous 1963 film Cleopatra, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Rouben Mamoulian, Darryl F. Zanuck.
Philo's declaration that the one-time phallic "pillar of the world" Antony has emasculated himself by excess is mirrored in almost everything that Caesar says in Act 1. Caesar is horrified that Antony is now "keep[ing] the turn of tippling with a slave” (a drinking game) and “reel[ing] the streets at noon” (being drunk in the streets in the middle of the day) when he was once, as a soldier under siege, able to subsist on almost nothing at all.
Here are some of the pertinent passages:
Here are some of the pertinent passages:
...'tis to be chid
As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgment...
...thou [Antony] didst drink
The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this--
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now--
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank'd not.
Caesar suggests that Antony's former ability to thrive on nothing made him powerful, like a "real man." Now that Antony has opened the boundaries of his body/psyche, to let in food, drink, love, and desire, he has made himself weak. Caesar sometimes figures this weakness in terms of age (he imagines chiding Antony as one would chide a boy) and other times figures Antony's weakness in terms of gender (saying that Antony is not more man-like than Cleopatra).
Coins with the busts of Mark Antony & Cleopatra. 34 BC. Denarius. Alexandria mint.
I like to ask my students to compare and contrast the excess of Mark Antony from the Roman perspective and the perspective of the eponymous characters themselves. Whereas the Romans see all excess as bad (unless that excess is the nasty stuff of Caesar's memory: horse urine and "strange flesh"), the characters Antony and Cleopatra figure Antony as a person who overdoes something but then course-corrects so that the sum total of his action is actually pretty measured. Antony articulates this first:
...Forbear me.
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempt doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
I must from this enchanting queen break off.
And the Cleopatra mirrors this idea later:
O well-divided disposition! Note him,
Note him good Charmian, 'tis the man; but note him:
He was not sad, for he would shine on those
That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay
In Egypt with his joy; but between both:
O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,
The violence of either thee becomes,
So does it no man else.
What are these two economies for measuring Antony's personality and character? What are the implications of these two economies? What do we do about this inconsistency in Antony’s character?
Cleopatra is a lot like Antony as the two have characterized his excess. She has her own "wrangling" nature.
Cleopatra is a lot like Antony as the two have characterized his excess. She has her own "wrangling" nature.
Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired
Antony's speech here anticipates Cleopatra's later comment to Charmian. When Charmian tells her that she ought to give way to Antony in everything and cross him in nothing, Cleopatra insists “Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him” and she declares that she will specifically position her mood in contrast to Antony: “See where he is, who's with him, what he does: / I did not send you: if you find him sad, / Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report / That I am sudden sick: quick, and return” (1.3.10, 2-5).
In this passage she sounds a lot like Rosalind, especially when she is disguised as Ganymede but playing "Rosalind" for Orlando:
In this passage she sounds a lot like Rosalind, especially when she is disguised as Ganymede but playing "Rosalind" for Orlando:
I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou are inclin'd to sleep.
Questions:
- Does Antony like Cleopatra’s “wrangling” nature? How do you know and why does it matter?
- Does she specifically wrangle with him because she knows he likes it, and she’s keeping him intrigued with her/keeping the passion alive?
- How does Antony and Cleopatra’s relationship make you think about Rosalind’s words in retrospect?
- Are Antony and Cleopatra comic characters trapped in a tragedy? Keep Meeker’s article in mind.
Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
Is to do thus [embraces Cleopatra] ; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.
Antony's emphasis on their mutual state (relative to each other) and exceptional peerlessness (relative to the world) gets at what he loves about their relationship. How does this discussion build on our discussion of “Salmacis and Hermaphroditus” or on the iconography of marriage?
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