Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  —Act IV, scene xiv, lines 38-39

  Again a reference to Ajax; this time to his famous shield, which Homer describes in connection with the duel of that hero with Hector. It was a huge shield, covering Ajax from neck to ankles, made of seven separate layers of tough oxhide and covered with bronze. It was so heavy that none but Ajax (or Achilles) could wield it, and so strong that a spear driven by the full fury of Hector's arm could penetrate but six of the layers.

  … souls do couch on flowers…

  Antony plans suicide and dreams that in death he and Cleopatra will be reunited. He imagines them in Elysium (see page I-13) and says:

  … stay for me.

  Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,

  And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:

  Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,

  And all the haunt be ours.

  —Act IV, scene xiv, lines 50-54

  I am dying, Egypt…

  But even Antony's last act betrays him. He cannot have himself killed by his men. Eros kills himself rather than Antony. (That is in Plutarch and Shakespeare is not forced to make it up.) In desperation, Antony falls on his own sword, but does not aim correctly. He is badly wounded and dying, but still alive.

  Now comes a messenger from Cleopatra, who, too late, fears the effect of the news of her death. She has locked herself, for safety, in her own tomb. (It was the custom of Egyptian monarchs to build, while alive, their own resting places after death-the pyramids having represented that custom at its most incredibly extreme. Shakespeare refers to Cleopatra's tomb as the "monument," and, of course, it served that purpose too.)

  The dying Antony is brought to the tomb, carried on the shoulders of his guard. Cleopatra watches from a high window. She dares not open the doors to the tomb, for once Antony is dead, it seems entirely reasonable that his soldiers will kill her. From the courtyard, Antony, never more in love, calls out:

  I am dying, Egypt, dying; only

  I here importune death awhile, until

  Of many thousand kisses the poor last

  I lay upon thy lips.

  —Act IV, scene xv, lines 18-21

  Cleopatra and her women draw Antony up to the window on a stretcher. (Plutarch describes the effort it took to do so and how Cleopatra, with the strength of despair, managed.) The lovers are together one last moment and the kiss that Antony asked for is given.

  And then he dies, fourteen years after the death of Julius Caesar had embarked him on that wild course during which he had held the world in his hands, and had thrown it away.

  … eternal in our triumph

  The news of Antony's death reaches Octavius Caesar, who bursts into tears.

  Could Octavius, that cold politician, that efficient machine who never made a serious mistake, be so soft at the death of the man he had been fully determined to execute? Or was his sorrow a calculated device to blunt the sympathy of men for Antony?

  It is clearly Shakespeare's intent to argue the latter, for as Octavius Caesar's speech grows more and more emotional and eloquent, an Egyptian arrives with a message from Cleopatra and Octavius turns off the flow at once and is all business, saying:

  But I will tell you at some meeter season.

  The business of this man looks out of him;

  We'll hear him what he says.

  —Act V, scene i, lines 48-51

  Octavius Caesar learns that Cleopatra is still locked in her tomb and is sending to him to find out his terms. He is all sharpness now. His victory has been partially blunted by Antony's suicide, for in Roman terms a suicide under such conditions is a noble action and gains the dead man sympathy (which Octavius had to neutralize as far as possible by ostentatious tears and praise-as Antony had done over the corpse of Brutus, see page 1-315).

  But there still remains Cleopatra. It is now in the highest degree necessary to keep her from killing herself. He sends her comforting words by her messenger and then sends Proculeius, one of his own men, to her, telling him:

  … give her what comforts

  The quality of her passion shall require,

  Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke

  She do defeat us. For her life in Rome

  Would be eternal in our triumph.

  —Act V, scene i, lines 62-66

  … conquered Egypt…

  Proculeius reaches Cleopatra and asks her terms for surrender. She states them, saying:

  .. .if he [Octavius] please

  To give me conquered Egypt for my son,

  He gives me so much of mine own as I

  Will kneel to him with thanks.

  -Act V, scene ii, lines 18-21

  She is offering to abdicate and asking that her son be recognized as King of Egypt so that the land will remain independent to some extent. She doesn't say which son, but presumably she means Caesarion, who is now seventeen years old and who is coruler with her as Ptolemy XIV.

  Naturally, this is an entirely unacceptable request from Octavius Caesar's standpoint. With the son of Cleopatra on the throne, or even alive as a private citizen, he would always be the focus for revolts. What Octavius Caesar intended, and what he did, was to annex Egypt, not only as a Roman province, but as a personal possession with he himself getting all the revenues, as though he were a king of Egypt.

  This meant potential rivals would have to be put out of the way. Caesar-ion was too dangerous to be left alive, and in the aftermath of Octavius Caesar's victory, he was executed. The same fate was waiting for Antony's older son by Fulvia. Two of the children of Antony and Cleopatra were allowed to live and were brought up by none other than Octavia, who, in this, showed herself nobly forgiving. (It is also possible that Octavia had loved Antony and had felt a certain guilt in having been used by her brother as one more weapon with which to defeat him.)

  The daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra Selene, was eventually married to Juba of Numidia, the son of a king (also named Juba) who had died at the Battle of Thapsus (see page I-281) fighting against Julius Caesar. The younger Juba had been given a complete Roman education and in 25 b.c. was made King of Mauretania, located where the present-day Morocco is to be found. Thus a younger Cleopatra became an African queen.

  The two had a son-the grandson of Antony and Cleopatra-who was called Ptolemy of Mauretania. He was the very last of the Ptolemies. He reigned quietly till a.d. 40, when he was called to Rome and there, seventy years after the suicide of Mark Antony, was put to death by the mad emperor Caligula, for no better reason than that he had accumulated wealth which the Emperor felt he would like to confiscate for his own use.

  But all that lay in the future. At the moment, Cleopatra is asking that Egypt be left to be ruled by her son, and Proculeius answers in soft words, for he knows that Roman soldiers are quietly surrounding the tomb and forcing the doors.

  Suddenly Cleopatra is seized from behind and the dagger she attempts to draw is wrested from her. It is clear that she will not be allowed to commit suicide. All means for doing so will be taken from her and she will be watched. All she has left, it seems, are her memories:

  I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony.

  O, such another sleep, that I might see

  But such another man.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 76-78

  He words me…

  Octavius himself arrives; smooth, gentle, and gracious. In Plutarch, Cleopatra is described as being far from herself; her hair torn, her face scratched and puffy. Still, she is Cleopatra; pushing forty perhaps, but the creature of charm who could have her will of the greatest of Romans. Why not Octavius Caesar as well?

  But Octavius is immune. He is cold and unimpassioned. He pushes aside the list of possessions she hands him and is ummoved when Cleopatra's secretary, currying the favor of the victor, reveals that Cleopatra, even at this great crisis, has thoughtfully listed less than half her assets. (After all, why should this disturb Octavius? He plans to take all Egypt.)

&nbs
p; His last words to her are:

  Feed and sleep:

  Our care and pity is so much upon you

  That we remain your friend; and so adieu.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 187-89

  When she tries to prostrate herself before him, he will not allow it. But as soon as he leaves, Cleopatra looks after him bitterly and says:

  He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not

  Be noble to myself!

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 191-92

  She knows certainly that what Octavius has in mind for her is his own triumph. If she had any doubts in the matter, one of Octavius' officers, Cornelius Dolabella (according to Plutarch, and followed in this by Shakespeare), sends her secret information to this effect.

  Sadly, Cleopatra pictures to her ladies the triumph in such a way as to make it plain to the audience (not Roman, and therefore not necessarily understanding the virtues of suicide) that death is preferable. As a climax she describes the comic plays that will be written about them:

  Antony

  Shall be brought drunken forth, and 1 shall see

  Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness

  I'th'posture of a whore.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 218-21

  It is almost as though Shakespeare is preening himself here. After all, he has written the play and in it, Antony is far more than a mere drunkard and Cleopatra far more than a mere whore. The magic of Shakespeare converts them at last to ideal lovers and it is as such, thanks to him, that they will live forever.

  … the pretty worm of Nilus.. .

  Now must come the suicide.

  Actually, the method used is a mystery. The Roman guards left behind by Octavius Caesar were surely impressed with the fact that Cleopatra must be kept alive. Cleopatra must therefore have succeeded in hiding something small and unnoticeable, prepared for such a contingency.

  Her body was found virtually unmarked except for what seemed to be a puncture or two on her arm. It had to be poison then, but administered how? Was it the puncture of a poisoned needle which she had kept hidden in her hair? Or was it a poison snake?

  The poison snake is much more unlikely and is, indeed, rather implausible, but it is exceedingly dramatic and, whether true or not, is accepted by all who have ever heard of Cleopatra. If they have heard only one thing of her, it is her method of suicide by snake.

  She prepares for that suicide as though she were meeting her lover once again, and indeed, she expects to, in Elysium. She demands that she be dressed in her most splendid gowns as on that occasion when she met Antony for the first time:

  Show me, my women, like a queen: go fetch

  My best attires. I am again for Cydnus,

  To meet Mark Antony.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 227-29

  A peasant is brought in now with the gift of a basket of figs for her. It is this, partly, which makes the tale of the poison snake implausible. Would anyone have been allowed in to see her under the circumstances? Would he have failed to undergo a search if he were passed through? Is it conceivable that the basket of figs would have been unexamined?

  Yet that is the tale that Plutarch reports as one possibility. He also talks of poisoned needles and poisoned razors.

  Cleopatra asks the peasant:

  Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,

  That kills and pains not?

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 243-44

  He does! The "pretty worm" is the asp, or Egyptian cobra, whose venom works quickly and painlessly. What's more, the creature was worshiped, as so many dangerous animals were in Egypt, and the coiled head of the cobra was worn on the headdress of the Pharaohs. A death by cobra bite was a royal death; it was rather like being bitten by a god.

  Cleopatra is now ready. She says to her ladies in waiting:

  Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have

  Immortal longings in me. Now no more

  The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip.

  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

  To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come:

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 280-87

  And yet not all is pure love of Antony. There is some relish in feeling that she is depriving Octavius of his final victory. For as the asp is biting her, she says to it:

  O couldst thou speak,

  That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass

  Unpolicied!

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 306-8

  It is well done…

  Cleopatra dies. Her lady in waiting Iras is already dead of heartbreak, and Charmian (whom early in the play the soothsayer had predicted would outlive her mistress) is applying the asp to her own arm. In come the Roman soldiers, but too late.

  Gaping at the dead Cleopatra, they get the significance of it at once. One of the soldiers cries:

  … All's not well: Caesar's beguiled.

  —Act V, scene ii, line 323

  Then, when the same soldier angrily asks Charmian whether this sort of thing was well done, she answers proudly, just before dying:

  It is well done, and fitting for a princess

  Descended of so many royal kings.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 326-27

  … an aspic's trail…

  Octavius arrives to witness the defeat of what he planned as his crowning victory. They puzzle out the manner of her suicide. There is a swelling and a spot of blood on Cleopatra's breast and the soldier who had questioned Charmian now says:

  This is an aspic's trail; and these fig leaves

  Have slime upon them…

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 350-51

  It is an old superstition that snakes are slimy. They are not. Some snake-like sea creatures are slimy-lampreys, eels, salamanders. Snakes, however, are perfectly dry to the touch.

  … another Antony

  It falls to the cold Octavius to give Cleopatra her final epitaph. Even he is moved as he gazes at her dead body as she lies there-Cleopatra still. He says:

  … she looks like sleep,

  As she would catch another

  Antony In her strong toil of grace.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 345-47

  Nor is he vindictive. He says:

  Take up her bed,

  And bear her women from the monument.

  She shall be buried by her Antony.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 355-57

  … then to Rome

  And now the world calls the one survivor and victor of all the turbulent events of the play. He says:

  Our army shall

  In solemn show attend this funeral,

  And then to Rome.

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 362-64

  The civil wars that have lasted fifty years are over. The next year, 29 b.c., Octavius Caesar ordered the closing of the temple of Janus, indicating that Rome was at peace, the first time that had happened in over two hundred years. Then, in 27 b.c., he accepted the title of Augustus, by which he is best known to history.

  From 27 b.c. Augustus reigned for forty-one years, establishing a new kind of government, the Roman Empire, and serving as its first and by all odds the greatest of its emperors. So firm was the government he established and so honored was it in the memory of man that though the last Roman Emperor in Italy abdicated in a.d 476, another ruler calling himself Roman Emperor continued to reign in Constantinople. The Constantinopolitan line, which used the title of Roman Emperor to the end, endured till 1453, and even after it was gone there was still a Roman Emperor in Vienna-a line that continued till 1806.

  And even after that was gone there were emperors. In the German language, these were called Kaisers and in the Slavic languages tsars- both distortions of Caesar, the family name of Julius and Octavius. The last Russian tsar resigned his throne in 1917, the last German Kaiser in
1918, the last Bulgarian tsar in 1946.

  It is interesting that 1946 is exactly two thousand years after 44 b.c., the year in which Julius Caesar was assassinated. For that length of time not one year passed in which somewhere in the world there wasn't someone calling himself by a form of "Caesar" as title (as all the Roman emperors did).

  13. The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus

  Of the four plays and one narrative history which are set in Rome, Titus Andronicus is the only one that does not deal with accepted Roman history or legend. It is utter fiction. Not one character in it, not one event, is to be found in history.

  What's more, Titus Andronicus is the bloodiest and most gruesome of Shakespeare's plays, and the one in which the horror seems present entirely for the sake of horror.

  Indeed, Titus Andronicus is so unpleasant a play that most critics would be delighted to be able to believe it was not written by Shakespeare. They cannot do so, however. There are contemporary references to Titus Andronicus as a Shakespearean tragedy, which also place the time of its writing at about 1593. It is an early play but by no means the earliest, and Shakespeare could surely have done better than Titus Andronicus by this time.