This Month's Antony and Cleopatra Essay >>

Mark Antony: Although Cleopatra is his equal and a compelling figure in her own right, Mark Antony is the central character of the play, and his exploits before and during its action make clear that he is, at bottom, a noble hero. Caesar provides a eulogy of sorts for his fallen foe, but it is Cleopatra who has the final say about Antony in the play's last scene:

His legs bestrid the ocean; his rear'd arm Crested the world, his voice was propertied As all the turned spheres, and that to friends; But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. (V,ii, ll.82-86). Antony is a giant, a man who is almost too large for the world he inhabits, one whose loyalties and passions rend the world in two. His love for Cleopatra is virtually unbounded, as are his ambitions to rule by her side in the East. He is a man who has earned the loyalty of his troops, his faithful lieutenant Enobarbus preferring death to observing the demise of his heroic commander.

Against this noble Roman dimension of Antony, there is his fatal weakness for the wiles of Cleopatra. From the very first scene of the play we recognize that for all his martial strength, Antony is vulnerable to the tricks and the manipulations of Cleopatra, who knows exactly how to get her way with him despite his "Roman thought(s)." Whether Antony is a victim of Cleopatra, or whether they are both victims of Fortune, it is clear that in opting for Cleopatra and the East, Antony turns his back on Rome and its values. But he does not do this conclusively at first. Indeed, the political and Roman aspect of Antony surfaces when he quickly agrees to marry Octavia. He does so (as Enobarbus knows in advance) without any genuine commitment and for the sake of political expedience. Thus, in Act II, scene iii, Antony tells us flat out, "I will to Egypt;/And though I make this marriage for my peace/I' th' East my pleasure lies." (II,iii, ll.39-41). For all his talk of honor, then, Antony is fully capable of disingenuity and despite his concerns about his troops, Antony can be a selfish individual.