ACT III
SCENE i
An officer under Anthony’s command, Ventidius, has won a military victory, but tells another officer that he will downplay it when reporting to Anthony: “Better to leave undone, than by our deed / Acquire too high a fame when him we serve’s away” (III.i.14-15). This is frighteningly true office politics for those sick institutions where your competence threatens your superiors. [Want names? Email me.] Ventidius could do more, but it would offend Anthony, so he’ll play up the fear struck by Anthony’s name instead.
SCENE ii
Agrippa and Enobarbus mention recent events and Octavia’s sorrow at leaving Rome with Anthony, and they try to outdo each other in praising the other’s superior: Caesar and Anthony. Lepidus, to Enobarbus, is the beetle between two “shards” (wing-cases) (III.ii.20) — that is, Caesar and Anthony are two glorious wings, and Lepidus is the insect — probably a dung-beetle as mentioned elsewhere by Plutarch — in the middle.
Caesar, Anthony, Lepidus, and Octavia enter, Octavia as a would-be mediator but called “cement” (III.ii.29). Antony promises Caesar he’ll honor Octavia. Agrippa and Enobarbus provide side comments addressing the notion of crying at a farewell scene such as this. Anthony says of Octavia’s tears, “The April’s in her eyes: it is love’s spring” (III.ii.43). According to Roman myth, April was a sacred month to Venus (Love), and it was Oxford’s birth month. But also the Latin root meaning “spring” is “Ver” (as in “vernal”), so Octavia representing Anne Cecil dotes much on Anthony/Oxford. The adage “April showers bring May flowers” has been cited by critics, but Shakespeare is probably influenced more directly by Chaucer’s influential lines opening The Canterbury Tales: “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,” the most famous instance of the reverdie (re-greening) trope in English poetry. The young Oxford purchased an edition of Chaucer at the same time as he ordered his Plutarch and his Geneva Bible. The connections between Chaucer and Oxford are many and direct; the influence of Chaucer on “Shakespeare” has been grossly underappreciated. “Until Marlowe and Spenser almost in his own time, there were no poets in English besides Chaucer who had anything to teach him” (Donaldson 5).
Caesar almost does weep here too, but ultimately is too insecure to show emotion; Anthony in the past has been excessively emotional.
SCENE iii
Back in Alexandria, Cleopatra solicitously interrogates the messenger she had terrorized earlier about Octavia. She wants to know about her height, voice, gait, the shape of her face, hair color, and so forth. Cleopatra twists his description so that she can declare Octavia “Dull of tongue, and dwarfish” (III.iii.16).
Not published until 1683, the Memoirs of Sir James Melville records incidents occurring in 1564 between this emissary of Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth: “He describes in detail Queen Elizabeth’s anxious inquiries about the appearance and accomplishments of her dreaded rival” (Morris 272; cf. Rinehart 82f). See II.v also, regarding the historical relevance of Cleopatra’s striking the messenger who brings the news of Anthony’s marriage to Octavia: “for these aspects of her character, too, Shakespeare had not far to look for a model. His own queen, brilliant and captivating, was yet capable of undignified spurts of rage, hysterical nerve storms, and public flirtation” (Morris 275). Ambassadors such as the Spanish Mendoza and other witnesses continually refer to her tantrums (see Morris 275-276).
How are these parallels accounted for? As to how these undignified moments are found in the play, Stratfordians can say only that Will Shakspere “must have seen and heard the queen, besides hearing continual talk about her” (Morris 271).
It is not, of course, claimed that Shakespeare had heard of Elizabeth’s inquiries about her rival, or even that he was echoing her speech to Parliament. It is merely suggested that in two scenes where Cleopatra’s conduct has been stigmatized as unregal, Shakespeare came uncannily close to contemporary examples of queenly behavior — closer, indeed, than Samuel Daniel did in his statuesque portrait. (Muir 200)
Weird. I keep running out of Tylenol.
Cleopatra can rejoice at most of the messenger’s details, until the matter of age: Octavia seems to be about 30 years old (III.iii 29). Cleopatra at this time was in her late 30s, older than Octavia, and so she tellingly lets this point pass without comment. Similarly, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, born in December 1542, was therefore about nine years younger than Queen Elizabeth. The humor of moments such as this in the scene is not unkind mockery but “recognition of the illogical tricks of the human mind and the frailty and self-deceptions of human nature” (Rosenberg 243).
SCENE iv
In Athens, Anthony gripes to Octavia about Caesar waging new war on Pompey and insulting Anthony publicly. “If I lose my honor, / I lose myself” (III.iv.22-23). Anthony must build his army. Octavia will visit Caesar and try to smooth things over: “Wars ‘twixt you twain would be / As if the world should cleave, and that slain men / Should solder up the rift” (III.iv.30-32) — she’s been reading Henry V.
SCENE v
Eros (another friend of Anthony) tells Enobarbus that as soon as Caesar and Lepidus defeated Pompey, Caesar turned on Lepidus, who is now imprisoned for letter-writing treachery. Enobarbus comments: “Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps [jaws] — no more, / And throw between them all the food thou hast, / They’ll grind th’ one the other” (III.v.11-13). Anthony is reportedly vowing revenge on the officer who killed Pompey.
SCENE vi
In Rome, Caesar tells Maecenas and Agrippa about Anthony’s having returned to Egypt, appointing Cleopatra Queen of Egypt, lower Syria, Cyprus, and Lydia, and giving conquered lands to his own young sons. Cleopatra was dressed as the goddess Isis in this spectacle. Caesar claims Anthony sent a letter demanding some of Pompey’s lands in Sicily and accusing Caesar of imprisoning Lepidus for another land-grab. Caesar has replied with an explanation of the Lepidus situation and a land compromise which he figures Anthony will reject.
For “triumvirate” (III.vi.29), the First Folio reads “Triumpherate,” which the OED considers an error; but Shakespeare may have been coining a portmanteau, a blend of “triumvirate” and “triumph.”
Octavia arrives and Caesar is less concerned with her than with missing out on the opportunity of publicizing Anthony’s poor treatment of her. He “is clearly perturbed, probably threatened, by the superior power of theater over his brand of manipulation concerning the crafting of one’s public image” (Delahoyde 144).
Octavius tells Octavia that Anthony let her come only so that he could return to Cleopatra, that “whore” (III.vi.69). Queen Elizabeth too was considered and called such by England’s enemies, and her mother Anne Boleyn was dubbed “the great whore.”
The scene brings up all the main characters’ self-deceptions.
SCENE vii
Cleopatra, Anthony, and Enobarbus prepare battle strategy. The issue of women in the military arises with Enobarbus arguing against Cleopatra’s involvement and mentioning the mockery in Rome. But Cleopatra cries, “Sink Rome, and their tongues rot / That speak against us! … / as the president of my kingdom, / [I] will Appear there for a man” (III.vii.15-18). Cleopatra would be dressed as a man, in armor. “Like the women in the plays, Elizabeth I was wont to clothe herself in the disguise of male identity in order to further her goals” (Marcus 137). On the eve of the Spanish Armada invasion in 1588, Queen Elizabeth appeared at Tilbury, “costumed like an androgynous martial maiden” (Garber 736), declaring to the troops, “I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king.”
Despite all advice, Anthony impulsively agrees to fight Caesar at sea. Canidius complains, “So our leader’s led, / And we are women’s men” (III.vii.69-70). As were Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers.
SCENE viii
A self-assured Caesar orders his lieutenant Taurus to attack by sea.
SCENE ix
Anthony and Enobarbus place their squadrons on a hillside in order to count Caesar’s ships.
SCENE x
Enobarbus is horrified. He reports that during the battle, Anthony retreated, and Cleopatra’s first retreat is blamed. A soldier named Scarus enters and calls Cleopatra “Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt” (III.x.10) and her flight “like a cow in June” (III.x.14), and Anthony following “like a doting mallard” (III.x.19).
Canidius will surrender to Caesar, but Enobarbus worriedly will stick with Anthony, for now.
SCENE xi
Anthony despairs over his cowardice: “I / Have lost my way for ever” (III.xi.3-4). He accuses himself of rashness, fear and doting. He cites Caesar’s cheesiness, but insists, “I have offended reputation, / A most unnoble swerving” (III.xi.48-49). Cleopatra apologizes, saying she didn’t know he’d follow her, but their love for each other obliterates the need for regrets and apologies. They kiss. Anthony has sent Euphronius, the schoolmaster, to negotiate a peace treaty.
“Antony’s sense of shame at the hold that Cleopatra exerts over him resembles at times the self-disgust of the persona of the sonnets’ relationship with his dark lady” (Wells 302-303). (Note in particular Sonnet #129.) And the destructive power of time is a mutual theme (308).
SCENE xii
The low rank of Euphronius as messenger is noted by Caesar’s officer — it seems a slight against Caesar. Euphronius presents Anthony’s request to remain in Egypt, or at least as a private citizen in Athens. Cleopatra requests remaining Queen of Egypt. Caesar wants Cleopatra to drive Anthony from Egypt or kill him, and he thinks women are always easy to bribe because of their devotion to self-interest.
SCENE xiii
“What shall we do, Enobarbus?” asks Cleopatra. “Think and die,” he replies (III.xiii.1-2). This is reason #312 I love Shakespeare.
Enobarbus tells Cleopatra that Anthony was to blame for the defeat because of his devotion to her. Anthony has learned of Caesar’s plot and wants a one-on-one combat. Enobarbus is losing faith, but says,
he that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fall’n lord
Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place i’ th’ story.
(III.xiii.43-46)
Being noted and receiving recognition for loyalty is a natural concern for Oxford who indeed has been nearly excised from history and literature.
Caesar’s messenger Thidius tells Cleopatra it is known that she was forced to stay with Anthony (wink wink), and when Cleopatra seems to agree with this political cover story, Enobarbus is convinced all have deserted Anthony. Thidius tells Cleopatra that Caesar would be pleased for her to give Anthony the boot “And put yourself under his shroud, / The universal landlord” (III.xiii.71-72). He, “of course, means protection. But who can doubt what Shakespeare meant? There in perhaps the grimmest pun in the play he announces once for all that domination of the earth is death” (Goddard, II 191).
When Anthony enters, he also is convinced of her betrayal and he accuses her in similar words to her accusations against him beforehand, and he uses food imagery: “I found you as a morsel, cold upon / Dead Caesar’s trencher; nay, you were a fragment / Of Cneius Pompey’s” (III.xiii.117-119). Beauclerk imagines Queen Elizabeth wincing at these lines, the reference to Julius Caesar serving as “a gibe at her alleged affair with Philip of Spain in the mid-1550s” (53), though the elder Ogburns identify the Earl of Leicester as the Queen’s former lover in the final revision of the play (1166).
Thidias is whipped and sent back to Caesar with Anthony’s declaration of wrath. Cleopatra tells Anthony it was a charade, that she was just playing along earlier, and Anthony is mollified immediately. They exit, planning to celebrate her birthday night: “since my lord / Is Anthony again, I will be Cleopatra” (III.xiii.185-186).
Enobarbus decides that Anthony’s judgment is gone and not even valor will reverse matters. He resolves to desert Anthony: “When valor preys on reason, / It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek / Some way to leave him” (III.xiii.200-202).
Anthony and Cleopatra, Act by Act
Anthony and Cleopatra Act III