Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

In contrast, the self-pitying Cleopatra seems to herself to be ugly and old. She says:

—Act I, scene v, lines 27-32

Phoebus is, of course, the sun, and to be black with the sun's pinches would be to be sun-tanned. A queen like Cleopatra, however, would certainly not allow herself to grow sun-tanned. That was for peasant girls.

What is meant is that she is dark by nature because she dwelt in a tropic land. It is part of the Egyptian-Negress notion of Cleopatra, the usual false picture.

Nor is she honestly "wrinkled deep in time." At this point in the story, she is twenty-nine years old; past her first youth, perhaps, but by no means old and wrinkled.

Still it is human for her to think of herself as she was nine years before, only twenty-one, when Julius Caesar knew her; and even earlier when she met not Pompey himself, but his older son, who bore the same name.

But now comes a messenger to Cleopatra from Antony, with the gift of a pearl and with a pretty speech. He says:

—Act I, scene v, lines 43-46

The story was indeed spread in Rome that Antony was planning to hand over Roman provinces to Cleopatra; even to make her Queen of Rome (with himself as king, of course); that a foreign ruler would thus raise an exotic throne upon the Capitol. In the end, this, more than anything else, was to embitter Rome against Antony.

Shakespeare gets a little ahead of history here. The threat of turning the East over to Cleopatra comes later.

At the moment, Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar, each waist-deep in trouble, were going to have to be friends whether they liked it or not, for only by working together could they survive.

But Cleopatra is not concerned with practical politics now. She is delighted with Mark Antony's remembrance and is ashamed of herself for so much as remembering Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius. When Charmian teases her with her onetime love of Julius Caesar, she dismisses it with a much quoted line, saying:

—Act I, scene v, lines 73-74

And indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of this play is that it is a paean to the ecstasies of mature love, rather than of the teen-age passions so often celebrated.

The second act opens in Messina, Sicily, at the camp of Sextus Pompeius, who is in conversation with his captains, Menecrates and Menas. Sextus is rather euphoric, confident that his hold on Rome's food supply gives him the trump card and that Octavius Caesar and Lepidus can do nothing without Antony's military ability. As for Mark Antony, Sextus has full confidence in Cleopatra's charms. He says:

—Act II, scene i, lines 11-13

He is, however, overconfident. Another one of his captains, Varrius, conies with unwelcome news:

—Act II, scene i, lines 28-30

There is hope, of course, that upon arrival, Mark Antony will fall to quarreling with Octavius. This is tentatively advanced as a possibility by Menas, but Sextus shakes his head. They may have cause enough to quarrel, but as long as the danger from the sea exists, they will have to make friends. At the end of the short scene, things look as bad for Sextus as, at the start, they had looked good.

In Rome, in Lepidus' house, it is now late in 40 b.c. The confrontation between Octavius Caesar and Mark Antony is about to take place and poor Lepidus is in a sweat lest the two collide destructively. He has undoubtedly done his best to influence Octavius Caesar to be accommodating, and he pleads with Enobarbus to do the same with respect to Mark Antony.

From opposite sides approach the two triumvirs, each with friends, and each pretending to be deep in private discussion so that, for effect, he can seem to be ignoring the other.

Antony speaks first to the general at his side-his thoughts, to all appearances, on military matters in the East:

—Act II, scene ii, lines 15-16a

Here he goes off, apparently, into military talk unheard by the audience and undoubtedly meant to impress Octavius.

Ventidius is Publius Ventidius Bassus, who in early life had been a poor man who made a living renting mules and carriages. He rose to become a general serving under Julius Caesar in Gaul and remained loyal to Julius Caesar during the war with Pompey. After the assassination of the great Julius, Ventidius served Mark Antony and has remained loyal to him since.

As for Octavius Caesar, he is speaking with two men. Of what we can't say, but it is probably politics. Octavius affects carelessness. All we hear him say is:

—Act II, scene ii, lines 16b-17

Maecenas and Agrippa are Octavius Caesar's closest associates, then and afterward. Gaius Cilnius Maecenas was a man of peace. He was several years older than Octavius Caesar and had been a friend of his since the latter was a schoolboy. In later years Maecenas was always left at home to take care of Rome when Octavius Caesar was forced to be away on war or diplomacy. In his eventual retirement, Maecenas used the wealth he had gathered to support and patronize writers and artists. So earnestly did he do this and so great were those he helped that forever after a patron of the arts has been called "a Maecenas."

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, on the other hand, was the man of war, the good right arm of Octavius Caesar, the general who fought all his master's battles, and who made it possible for Octavius to win military victories. (Why didn't Agrippa win them for himself? Because he was intelligent enough to know that he needed Octavius' brain to direct his arm. In the same way, Mark Antony needed Julius Caesar's brain to direct his arm, but he never really understood that.)

Agrippa was the same age as Octavius Caesar, was with him at school when the news of the assassination of Julius Caesar had arrived, and went with him to Italy. He did not play much of a part in the war against the conspirators, for he was still young. After the Battle of Philippi, however, Agrippa began to shine. It was he, for instance, who led the armies that penned up Fulvia and Lucius Antonius in Perusia and then defeated them.

Softly and eagerly, Lepidus draws the two men together. Stiffly, they sit and confront each other. Each raises the matter of his grievances. Octavius Caesar has the better of this, for he can bring up the war fought against him by Fulvia and Lucius, claiming Antony set them on. Antony objects that the war was against his own policy, and ungallantly places full blame upon his dead wife, saying, in terms that must have raised a wry smile from many a husband in the audience: